Coming Undone

A couple of Christmases ago, one of my daughters gave me a fun gift—a small, gray corrugated board-in-a-frame with a set of white letters and numbers that can be snapped into place to make words or short phrases. I quickly sorted through the alphabet and experimented with several different messages to mount on that little […]

An Untidy Story of Grief

Several years ago, I lost a deeply important person in my life. He was quite literally here one day and gone the next. In the hours that followed, shock eventually gave way to a grief that pulsed like an open wound—raw, aching, excruciating to even the slightest touch. The faintest silver lining was that I […]

Now That I Am a Master of the Divine

A few weeks ago I walked across a stage in a fancy borrowed robe and accepted my Masters in Divinity from Candler Theological Seminary. A Masters in Divinity, I have mastered divinity, a master of the Divine. That is what my degree says; that is certainly not how it feels. It feels … complicated. It […]

My Life on Chronic Illness

By Suzanne Burden | Twitter: @suzanneburden There are days I feel completely irrelevant and invisible to the world. “You look good,” others often say, trying to be helpful. I am not good, a voice on the inside sometimes eeks. I am fighting the battle of my life to be able to do normal things. I […]

When Your Work is the Loosening of Chains

Come to Me … I will give you rest. Jesus makes this invitation; an invitation I desperately need. He offers a place to lay down my burdens and find ease, comfort and belonging. Did he know, when he said these words 2,000 years ago, that a work-from-home mom, a woman craving justice, an emerging voice […]