Awkward Christian
A few months ago, a reader emailed me a message that’s haunted me ever since. Her husband had been unfaithful several times and, from what I could tell from a short message, showed no sign of repentance. She struggled with trust issues, she said, and asked if I would pray God would help her trust …
One Prayer God Never Wants You to Pray: For iBeleiveRead More
Dear Awkward, How do you get your kids to clean up after themselves? My kids are 12, 10 and 7 and I feel like I’ve tried everything over the years. Chore charts, reward systems, scolding, drawing attention to the mess, calling them back to do it again when it’s not cleaned up properly. IT NEVER …
Here’s a true story: I was scared of lighting matches until I was twenty years old. Twenty years later, now many books of matches under my belt, I find this both ridiculous and completely understandable. Ridiculous because matches are necessary and not really that difficult. And understandable because in order to light a match you …
The other day at Disneyland, my roller-coaster-averse family decided to ride Indiana Jones together—the first time for my two daughters, 11 and 7. Standing in line, my husband started to strategize. “You should ask for one of the back rows,” he said. The “Jeeps” for the ride have four rows—and sitting the first one is …
How Facing Conversations About Race Has Made Me Less Anxious: For Cara MeredithRead More
I wanted my first days of motherhood to affirm my faith in humanity. Instead, I found myself alienated and alone. Like many of us, I’m usually reluctant to ask for help, so before birth, I’d made a solemn promise to myself and God that I would ask for assistance, no matter how hard it was. …
When You Don’t Get the Help You Desperately Need: for iBelieveRead More
I recently sat down for hot beverages with a writing buddy of mine, Grace. To my surprise, she told me that she’d never felt great at writing in school, but that after she became a mother, she felt this urge to write anyway. She’s stuck with it for years now. She still struggles with that …
Not long after my husband Dyami and I got married, he bought a subwoofer. For those of you not conversant in audiophile jargon, a subwoofer is a speaker “dedicated to the reproduction of low-pitched audio frequencies known as bass.” The subwoofer was about the size of a large end table, heavy as all get out, squat, aggressively …
Learning to Listen Well to the Low Notes in My MarriageRead More
Dear Awkward, Several years ago, our family got involved in fostering children with significant medical needs. The nudge to do so came from the teachings of our church…to love God and to love people. But, the very church family who encouraged us to jump in did not throw the life-preserver we expected. Fostering got hard. …
I really, really wanted to enjoy motherhood. So let’s just say it was less-then-ideal when my husband found me wailing in the kitchen one morning at 4 am. He ran in, his eyes burning with the intensity of someone just woken from dead sleep to an emergency. “Is Lucy okay?” he asked, meaning our six-month-old …
Confession: I’m just the tiniest bit type A. Here’s proof: Why, yes, this is my outfit planner for August, along with the little notecards I use with all my clothes on them. At the beginning of each month, I shuffle the deck and see what I’ll look like for the next month. (I was using …
It’s Okay to Try Too Hard, Care too Much and Overthink EverythingRead More
If parenthood were an economy, the currency would be sleep. You’d pay mortgage with REM cycles and buy groceries with naps. You’d fund college with any child that slept through the night. And, if you were like me, an insomniac with very wakeful daughters, you’d hoard sleep like Scrooge, clutching each second like newly minted …
Here’s an ambition that sent me running in the wrong direction for most of my Christian life: I wanted to be “spiritually successful.” In some ways, it was a great goal. My church’s mission is to disciple “fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ.” That was part of what I thought of us as spiritual success—deep engagement with God and …
What If Everything You’ve Been Taught About Being ‘Successful’ Is Wrong?Read More
Dear Portia, I keep praying for healing, and I am not healed, but someone else in my circle did get healed and I am trying to be okay with this but I am not. A Dear A, Is it even possible to ad your question without using some sort of offensive platitude? Let’s attempt it, …
[Trigger warning: Conversation about abuse. ] Can we talk about a big clobber word? Abuse. Also, its derivatives: abusive and abuser. They’re ugly words, kind of like the word racist or rape. Be an abusive parent, and you might get your kids taken away, or, at the very least, be shamed and ostracized. Abuse is horrible, horrifying, beyond the pale. I’ve experienced abuse a few …
Best are those with minimal blood: perhaps poison, asphyxiation, or even strangulation. But even better is the off-camera death, where we don’t see the victim stalked by their killer. Oh, I like a murder that feels staged—and that’s also available on Netflix. My husband and I watch at least three murder mysteries a week, usually …
The day I realized my anxiety about the Bible wasn’t going away, I thought I’d completely placed my fretting in God’s hands. After settling in my green easy chair, I found the passage in Matthew for my new reading plan—the plan I saw as a new leaf in my spotty devotionals. I wanted to finally …
When my friend Amy told me about her impromptu Fourth of July party, I didn’t want her news to be a punch in the gut. Her gathering had been last-minute: four families my husband and I had recently befriended had celebrated with a casual barbecue. Not knowing our schedule as well as they knew each …
5 Truths about Community that Will Help You Feel Less LonelyRead More
To my great surprise, I discovered I was a high soprano in Grade 8. I’d thought before that I was a mezzo (or middle) soprano, but your voice changes a lot as you grow. What my choir director and I had assumed was a falsetto, turned out to be where my voice had the most power. …
Beauty Has Saved Me Over and Over: For SheLoves MagazineRead More
My friend Melissa has a way of being kind that also makes me think. We were out for coffee, talking about books. Specifically: about my anxiety about wanting to read more. By most measures, I read a lot, but with the advent of smart phones and parenthood, I read less then I used to. Recently, …
I Won’t Say I Read Trashy Books Anymore—For The MudroomRead More
In college, I read the Bible every day. I prayed every day, writing out my prayers longhand in journals I decorated for the purpose. I did inductive Bible studies too, sometimes from a devotional guide, sometimes using the Observation, Interpretation, Life Application method. It sounds lovely, doesn’t it? So spiritual. Except I hated it. Nearly …
In an ideal world, major Christian holidays wouldn’t fill me with self-doubt and alienation. Take this past season of Lent. I abstained from a lot of the apps on my phone and managed to use the Book of Common Prayer to pray through some of the holy days. But as usual, it was less than …
I got a lot of compliments on my pink pussy-hat at the Women’s March. I didn’t knit one; I don’t knit, and also: time. I thought about sewing one, but realized the night before that I didn’t have enough pink fabric. Then I looked in our hat drawer and realized I had a pink hat …
I was 22 when I read Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street. The book, told from the perspective of a young Latina girl, chronicles the hardships of growing up in a marginalized, impoverished family. The book was simple like a Zen garden is simple: gorgeous, spare, shimmering. In other words, not simple at all. …
The Uncomfortable, But Necessary Cost of Solidarity: For SheLoves MagazineRead More
Dear Awkward, How do you deal with toxic or mentally ill people who have harmful behaviors and stay sane? You have no choice but to deal with them—they’re your family or your boss. How do you get them to seek the help they need? Or, to understand they have an issue? JP Dear JP, I …
Dear Awkward: How Do You Stay Sane with a Mentally Ill Person?Read More
