life. faithful.

 I just listened to a video posted by a young woman. She posted it as an explanation of why she chose to walk away from her faith, saying she wanted people still in the church to be able to understand her choices and what led her to where she is now. It broke my heart. She prefaced her video by saying she's a very analytical person, so I guess I'll preface this post with that same caveat (for what it's worth). First, a summary of what she said: This young woman talked about being a heartfelt follower of Christ, then going to a Christian college where she majored in psychology and, in her words, was taught to think critically for the first time. She said it was the first time she was told to examine her beliefs in light of what others believe, and it left her questioning. She then went on a study abroad trip to Cambodia, where she was faced with the atrocities of genocide and found herself wondering where God was in all of that. She said that it made her question her belief ...

 While I know I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's pretty safe to say that there will come a point in every Christian's life when they feel abandoned by God. That may be shocking to say--after all, we all know all the promises that tell us that God is always with us, that He will never leave us. Even when you are absolutely convinced of the validity of the promises of God, though, there can be times when those promises don't feel true. Being disappointed with God or feeling abandoned by Him is something that it seems the Christian community hushes up and sweeps under the carpet as if it is some dirty secret that shouldn't be mentioned. If we feel like we are distant from God, we must somehow have lost our faith. Or at the very least, in "church talk" (or maybe just "Southern Baptist talk", I don't know) we're back-slidden. We ignore those feeling in ourselves--push them down and try to suppress the slightest twinge. When others s...

There's a big emphasis lately on the wedge that's constantly being driven between faith and science. It seems like people think you can only have one or the other ( I've written about it a few times ), and somehow if you cling to one you have to push the other away by default. I hear people talk about science in such strange ways, and it comes from people on both sides of the conversation-- "I don't trust science because it's just trying to take the place of God." "It doesn't matter what you think, it's science and you have to trust science." If you ask me, both statements are equally ignorant. I'm a huge fan of science--I've spent a huge chunk of my life so far learning as much about it as I could (and cried way too many tears over the parts I didn't understand), and I'm one of those nerds who lights up when somebody asks me a question about it. Honestly, I get lost enough in answering that it usually takes me a w...

" Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one You love is sick.” When He heard this, Jesus said, 'This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.' Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days, and then He said to His disciples, 'Let us go back to Judea.'" (Matthew 11: 1-7) When Jesus heard that Lazarus was dying, according to our logic He should have immediately gone to heal him. After all, Jesus loved Lazarus, Mary, & Martha. If you love somebody, you want what's best for them. And of course, obviously what was best for Lazarus was to be healed...right? Or at le...

"How long must I cry, O Eternal One, and get no answer from you? Even when I yell to You, 'Violence is all around!' You do nothing to save those in distress. Why do You force me to see these atrocities? Why do You make me watch such wickedness? Disaster and violence, conflict and controversy, are raging all around me. Your law is powerless to stop this; injustice prevails. The depraved surround the innocent, and justice is perverted. ETERNAL ONE: 'Look at the nations and watch what happens! You will be shocked and amazed. For in your days, I am doing a work, a work you will never believe even if someone tells you plainly! Look! I am provoking and raising up the bitter and thieving Babylonian warriors from Chaldea; they are moving out across the earth and seizing others' homes and property in their path.'" ~Habakkuk 1:1-6 ISIS is an evil, swarming across the land and destroying everything and everyone in their path. They wi...

And love hurts . Sometimes, it can only be described as excruciating. When life knocks you flat on your face, it's easy to start wondering if you should just stay there in the dust. Because quite honestly, it hurts too much to stand back up. Today, my hometown is rocked by the devastating loss of a little boy. It's one of those losses that doesn't make any sense, one that leaves us with nothing more than questions without answers. When you're part of a small town, everyone feels the pain of a loss. Everyone's world is rocked. I'm struggling with what to write, because it's in times like this that words simply aren't enough. They feel like empty platitudes, no more helpful or lasting than smoke in cold air. In times like this, you don't want to hear that life will go on, or that God works in mysterious ways, or that He has plans, or that time heals all wounds. When your heart has been shattered, those things don't matter much. In those ...

I thought I was alone in the dark, lost. It was cold and lonely there, in that waiting place. No matter how much I craned my neck--no matter how hard I squinted my eyes against the dark--I simply couldn't see God. Like Job, I wanted to say, "My days fly faster than a weaver's shuttle. They end without hope." (Job 7:6) It's easy to feel alone in the dark, especially when it feels like that darkness is around you because you're stuck down deep in a hole.No matter which direction you turn, there just doesn't seem to be a way out. And sometimes, it seems like the harder you fight to get out of that hole, the deeper you get. It's almost like quicksand, sucking you in faster the more you struggle against it. The thing is, I was reminded in a blog post from Ann Voskamp that the dark waiting place isn't unusual. In fact,it could even be called an integral part of faith: ~Moses's mom waited for her baby to be pulled from the river. ~Noah ...

I've grown up knowing what my family refers to as the "Sunday school answers." I grew up going to church every time the doors were opened--and even times when they weren't, because my parents had a key even before Pop became a pastor. I was in Children's Church, Sunday School, Girls in Action, Bible Drill, Kid's Choir, Acteens, Vacation Bible School, Youth Group, Summer Summer...you name it, I did it. I could sing the books of the New Testament (To this day I still have to sing them to know the order) and recite the books of the Old Testament. My Bible was underlined and highlighted. I had the 23rd Psalm and the Lord's Prayer memorized, along with countless verses. I had the head knowledge down pat. The thing is, when times get tough the head knowledge isn't enough. Now, don't get me wrong--the head knowledge is important because it helps you know where to turn. That's what makes verses pop into your head during the rough moments and ...

I pulled out my quote notebook this morning (yes, I have an entire notebook dedicated to the quotes I find and love and just have to write down somewhere--doesn't everybody do that?). I was looking for a very specific quote, and I had a post planned that would fit nicely with it. The thing is, my quotes aren't organized. Kind of like in my life, physics and writing and Bible verses are all jumbled together with no real rhyme or reason. I can usually remember which side of the page a specific quote is on, but that still means I have to scan through at least half the book before I can find what I'm looking for. This morning, while looking for the Mark Twain quote I was going to write about, I came across this: The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; Your love, O LORD, endures forever-- do not abandon the works of Your hands. ~Psalm 138:8 I've struggled a lot with not knowing what's in store for me. Here in just over a month, I'll finish my Mas...

This life is hard--sometimes unbearably so. Just yesterday, an amazing couple with a strong faith lost their son to a mysterious, aggressive illness. A sister lost her brother, her kids lost their uncle, some sweet friends lost their cousin, and a whole host of people lost a friend. Life hits hard sometimes, hard enough to knock us flat. In those times, the times when we need God the most, it's incredibly hard to see Him. It's like when the disciples were in the boat and a storm came up without warning. They were facing the wind and the waves, fighting desperately to keep the boat from sinking--struggling to just keep from drowning. All the while, Jesus was sleeping. (Matthew 8:23-27) We cry out like David, "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God . ...

I told Pop one time that my favorite sermon of his was, "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?" and was a bit surprised by his response. "Thanks," he said, "but I can't take credit for that. If I remember right, I borrowed that from C.S. Lewis." Not a bad guy to borrow a sermon topic from, if you ask me. I was trying to decide what to write on here a while back and Nathan told me I should write about that sermon. He hadn't heard it and I can't remember anything more than the main points, so I put it off. For one thing, I haven't been real anxious to tackle a topic C.S. Lewis wrote about--or one Pop spoke about. Both sets of those shoes are pretty big to try to fill, to be honest. The other day, though, I gave in. I decided I would look into it and make an attempt to write something. I looked up the sermon and found something interesting:          It looks like C.S. Lewis borrowed the idea, too. From what I can tell, the "trilemma" can b...

So I have to admit, I'm at a bit of a loss right now. Believe it or not, I have no idea what to write. Usually, words come pretty easily to me when I'm writing (speaking is a completely different story...). I start writing and the words just seem to flow. I've spent the last few days trying to come up with something to write on here, though, and I just haven't found any words. Not all words are hard for me to find right now, though. I've started writing a new story and so far to words for that have been coming out pretty well. To tell you the truth, though, I'm a bit terrified about this one. It's fiction and in some ways pretty similar to the fantasy type stuff I've put out there . The thing is, though, I'm trying something different. I'm attempting to connect both sides of my writing by doing something crazy (for me, anyways). I'm trying my hand at a Christian supernatural thriller. I know, right? Craziness, and I'm not real ...

Sometimes I look around and wonder, "What in the world am I doing here? Surely this isn't the right place for me." Am I the only one? Didn't think so (although I'll admit that sometimes the thought that I am the only one who feels that way creeps into my mind and starts a pity party). I stare at physics problems or I look at the big city we've found ourselves in or think about how we've been married for 9 years now and have 2 kids and still haven't gotten a place that's ours and I think maybe we've gotten a bit lost somehow. But then, God uses half of one verse tucked in the middle of Paul's speech to a bunch of Greek philosophers 2 thousand years ago to tell me this:    "...and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live." (Acts 17:26b) This "God who made the world and everything in it" (vs. 24) cares enough about each one of us to have hand-picked this exact moment an...

Have you ever wanted something so bad you could taste it? I've felt that way a few times in my life, probably few enough that I could count those wants on one hand. I want to write, and I've known that for a while. It wasn't something I grew up wanting--I always wrote, whether it was a journal or a story, but writing wasn't something I thought I would want to do. Partly because writing isn't the steady, dependable, respectable job I figured I would have. It is flighty...artsy...basically everything my analytical mind told me was a bad choice for a career. Here I am, though, getting ever closer to what is definitely a good career choice, and more and more I find myself wanting to write. I write during my lunch break, tucking myself away in a corner with a good cup of coffee, a pen, and my notebook (yes, the paper kind. For some reason I'm still not a computer person for the most part), and I forget about the real world and lose myself in a dream world of...

So, apparently it's been quite a while since I wrote here. I would love to be able to say that was because I've just been so incredibly busy with school family laundry stories facebook... oops! How did that one slip in there? The truth is, though, I've been silent because that's where I've found myself lately-- living in the silence . Though that's hard for me to admit, I'm plastering it our there in cyberspace for one simple reason: I know I can't be the only one. Your silence may be different from mine, but maybe there's still something in my story that can speak to where you are... or remind you of where you've been... or help you with somewhere you're going to find yourself. So, here goes... Lately, I've felt lost. My one word for 2013 is "follow ," but I've come to a bit of a hard spot: How do you follow when you've lost sight of the One leading you? See, I'm in one of those silent spots r...

This morning at church, I was reminded just how big a fan I am of Peter. Pastor Don was talking about how we have two natures, the physical and the spiritual, and how mixed up it is that we spend the majority of our time and attention focusing on the physical nature. In Genesis we are told that God formed man from the dust of the ground (our physical side) and then breathed into him the breath of life (our spiritual side). Our physical side is temporary--we came from the dirt and one day we will all return to it. Our spiritual side, though, is eternal. God's breathed His Spirit into each of us at birth, and that spirit is the part of us that cannot be destroyed. How mixed up are we that we spend our time, energy, and money trying to satisfy the desires of our physical nature, so often at the expense of our spiritual nature? In John, Jesus is preaching to a huge crowd of approximately 5,000 men. That's not even starting to take into consideration all the women and kids ...