She was a teenager, her life ahead of her. Even for a young woman in Palestine thousands of years ago with different circumstances and opportunities than my own teenagers enjoy today, she had to have dreams for her future. It is probably safe to say that becoming pregnant before she was married wasn’t what she had in mind. News she didn’t ask for, a situation she didn’t create. Judgement from her community that was a certainty. Estrangement from her intended that was likely. What we call the Good News may not have felt all that good to the teenager in the middle of a heavenly encounter and th ..read more

Sometimes even when we do our best to live day-to-day like Jesus, we miss what He puts in front of us. In this season all about love, here’s a post from several years ago about the day my daughter showed me how to love like Jesus. I’ve had the privilege of sharing this story in other spaces, and it keeps speaking to my soul and chipping away at some of the un-love-like-ness in my life. I hope it is inspiring for you, too. “Why didn’t we help her?” That thought kept reverberating through my mind all evening as I made dinner for my people. I’ve had encounters like that before, but this time I c ..read more

Below is a share of a post originally published on January 5, 2022. “A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.” Proverbs 29:25 I’m a talker. Always have been. No lie, I had a great-uncle who, when I was four years old, gave me a zipper in a Christmas card….for. my. mouth. I never got within arm’s reach of him again filled with fear that he really would sew it onto my face. Because of this tendency to verbally process everything happening to me, for the vast majority of my life, my instinct in difficult relationships or in conflict was to talk. Talk it out wi ..read more