Guys, anxiety is just weird. I want it to pop up in seeming worthy places: race relations! Politics! Finding my passion and deciding who I am in this world! And I do get anxious about those things. But I also get anxious about ticky-tack stuff like what book to read next, whether the necklace I’m …
How God Used Insomnia to Draw Me Closer to Himself
It’s never good when rum seems like the only solution. Picture this scene five years ago: it was 1 AM, and I couldn’t sleep—again. Back then I didn’t realize how common my sleep problem was. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine estimates that 15 to 20% of adults struggle with insomnia in the short term, …
It’s Scary to Wear Jewelry: For SheLoves Magazine
A necklace really shouldn’t cause anyone this much anxiety. I bought it from a friend selling those fabulous accessories made by women moving out of poverty. Cute jewelry + women’s empowerment. Win-win. I haven’t gotten myself a new necklace in years, I thought. It’s for a good cause. I scrolled through the catalog and found a …
Anxiety in Relationships: Does this person threaten me?
I’m doing a five-part series on questions to ask about your closest relationships to figure out if they might be the root of some anxieties. You can see the whole series here. A friend of mine was sexually abused in high school. Her abuser kept her from ending their “relationship” for two years by regularly threatening …
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Dear Awkward: Annoyed at Church
Dear Awkward, I am annoyed and irritated and bored at church. My husband loves it, but to me, our church feels like a big show: entertainment, choir performance, giveaways, and a superficial sermon. How do I look past the trappings and experience a deeper relationship with God? If other people love church so much am …
What Our Disappointment Wants to Teach Us
I’m amazed at how when I stop being afraid of my negative emotions they give me such helpful information about how to heal and live with integrity. My friend Dorothy Greco agreed to share some of her wise book on marriage with us on just that topic. She gracefully shares how disappointment can harm our relationship–or …
Why I Always Ask Permission Before Giving My Kids Advice: For iBeleive
I’d like to be a little more serene about holding my tongue than I am. Take the other day. My seven-year-old had a difficult interaction with another kid at choir practice. She felt angry and annoyed. She sat in the back seat; up front, I signaled a lane change to get to the freeway onramp. …
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Five Questions to Ease Anxiety In Your Relationships
Want to read this entire series? Go here. If you suffer from anxiety, it’s tempting to view it as if it were an addiction we bring only on ourselves. I thought this way for a long time—if I were a better, stronger, more intentional person, I’d be able to stop feeling anxious all on my own. …
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“Do We Not Bleed”, a book review for The Englewood Review of Books
Can I confess something? I dislike Father Brown. G.K. Chesterton, august Christian apologist, whose prose helped convert C.S. Lewis, created the humble everypriest sleuth. In each story, the curate faces down the sharpest criminal minds in England and wipes the floor with them—with Christian charity, of course. I have no beef with the writing. In …
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Dear Awkward: I Had Sex…and then We Broke Up. Now What?
Dear Awkward, I grew up in the heart of evangelical purity culture. When I was 13, my parents took me out to dinner and gave me a promise ring. Throughout high school and college, I heard boys would ask me to compromise my sexual standards. I was ready to tell them no, but no one ever …
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The One Important Thing that Can Transform Your Quiet Times: For iBeleive
I had the bestiest of best intentions when I bought the One Year Bible. I’d neglected a regular quiet time since college. The all-in-one reading plan seemed like the perfect way to dive back into daily time with God and Scripture. I did pretty well—for a while. But little by little, I fell horribly behind. …
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Let it Rest: For SheLoves
We occasionally get pre-made pizza dough from Trader Joe’s. My husband always managed to spread it thin. Whenever I tried, though, the lump of dough felt like rubber. And then, one day, I decided to read the package directions. Turns out you have to let the darn thing rest before you spread it flat. It …
The Seeking Is Part of the Healing
Not long ago, a reader (I’ll call her K) asked if I thought she should get my new anxiety course for a friend. K thought her friend could really use it. But she worried that getting it would seem pushy, since on other occasions, the person didn’t seem open to K’s help. I told K …
When Empathy Led Me Astray: For The Mudroom
In my premarital class, our pastor had everyone take a Myers-Briggs assessment. When my husband and I both got our results, we smiled at each other: we were just one letter apart. He was an INTP (introvert, intuition, thinking, perceiving), and I was an INFP (feeling). It made sense. Similar as our temperaments are, there’s a …
4 Lies I Believed About Anger: For iBelieve
It was a shock when I realized I was imitating a Biblical villain. I’d been married for about eight years when I studied the book of Esther with Beth Moore’s curriculum. A few weeks in, Moore talked about the story’s enraged anti-hero, Haman, identifying his meanness as the “spirit of Haman.” “As Christians,” Moore said, …
The Unity of My Body and Mind: for The Mudroom
I got migraines regularly as a kid. The pain would start as a pinch above my left eyebrow, travel to the back of my neck, and soon send out sparks of light into my vision, nausea into my belly, and, if I didn’t retreat to a dark room soon enough, puke onto our white carpet. …
Anxiety Isn’t the End of Bravery. It’s the Beginning.
Last November, I decided to create a new mini-course for my blog subscribers for the New Year. After meditating on what I’d write about, I settled on anxiety. Learning how to live well with anxiety has seriously changed my life. It’s like learning how to turn off a malfunctioning fire alarm. The siren still goes off …
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Focus on the Exhale
When my husband Dyami and I were first dating, he said something about breathing that changed my life. His father’s a musician and music teacher. Driving down the freeway that day, Dyami mentioned his dad taught voice lessons occasionally too. “I hated voice lessons,” I said. I took them on and off through childhood, learning …
When You Forget How to Cry
Do you struggle to cry? Do you stand above your life sometimes at crucial moments and feel as if the emotions you’re feeling are like water running below you, while you’re up on a bridge, watching them rush away? And you think, Wait, shouldn’t I feel like crying right now? Someone please tell me I’m …
I’m Thankful for My Grief About the Election: For The Mudroom
It would be so much easier to bear a Trump presidency if I hadn’t learned about structural racism. Easier if I’d avoided stories from my black and brown friends about micro-aggressions, ignored history, police violence, and daily grief. Easier to stay positive if I hadn’t figured out exactly how sexual assault happened in my high …
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Breaking Bread with People Who Hurt You
My friend Jenna and I were chatting via email the other day, and she said I might want to write about this holiday phenomenon: “sitting at the table and breaking bread with those who have wounded us or settled us with emotional baggage or sent us into adulthood with stuff we’ve had to work through …
3 Questions to Simplify Holiday Dysfunction: For No Sidebar
My parents, two siblings and I haven’t eaten Thanksgiving dinner together since I was in elementary school, about three decades ago. The dysfunction in our family is deep and old. I’d like my family holidays to be easy. But this late in the game, I’m not holding my breath. However, even if easy isn’t possible, simple …
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The Power of a Single Question: For SheLoves
When I was little, I looked forward to my sister, Katie, coming home to visit. For nearly seven years—from fifth grade to her senior year in high school—Katie lived at a Christian children’s home called Sunshine Acres in Mesa, Arizona. The Acres cared for kids whose parents couldn’t care for them—kids who’d been orphaned, abandoned, …
When Holidays Stress You Out: For The Mudroom
You know what my idea of a holiday is? A normal day. Laundry, hanging with my kids, and, by 9:30 pm, watching a murder mystery with my husband while I eat raisin bran. Even better: doing all that in slippers. Normal days are easy. On a normal day, I have a routine. I know what’s …