“My spiritual gift is weakness…. I show up weak. I’m always sick or I’m struggling. There’s always something that’s lacking. Maybe that’s my gift to the church—to show up and say that’s OK, and God is with us in this and He is good. Problems don’t all get fixed and I’m not healed. The bow […]
A Mystery Disease
by on March 24, 2019 Leave a Comment
I spent my teenage years with a mystery disease. From age thirteen to seventeen I went in and out of doctor’s offices insisting to various doctors that I generally didn’t feel good. I was tired. I was sore. I wanted to sleep all day. I was low grade nauseous a lot. I just didn’t feel […]
This Business of Aging
by on March 21, 2019 Leave a Comment
At every age and stage of my life, there have been specific words that triggered something in me—sometimes that something looked like resentment or strong disagreement, even a visible feistiness. More often, however, the clearest emotion rising from specific words or phrases has been . . . shame. During my growing up years, any reference […]
When Those People Become My People
by on March 20, 2019 1 Comment
A quick Google search defines the word they as a pronoun “referring to two more people previously mentioned or easily defined.” It’s my experience that no one group of people is easily defined but, oh, we still like to try. We tuck people away into groups of them and those people, defining those groups as […]
The Power of Our Words
by on March 19, 2019 Leave a Comment
“I don’t believe you’ll find that book at all interesting, since you’re not a mother yourself.” I remember it so clearly. I was speechless. We sat, side by side, in the front of her car. She was dropping me off after lunch together on a hot, late summer day. I had told her about a […]
