Occasionally when I am going through an extra bout of anxiety, I catch myself giving in to self-pity. Other people don’t have to deal with this kind of crap, I think. If I could shed this self-doubt and fear I’d be so much stronger. Other people have it so much easier. They didn’t go through …
Prayer: FAQs for the mildly compulsive
Welcome to prayer! You know, you’re always welcome to pray. Of course, that might not be good news, since “pray without ceasing” sounds a little like obsessive hand-washing. THANK YOU for saying that. This is one of those spiritual disciplines that I can’t check off my list. It’s like the dishes. I get thirsty right after washing up, …
The Sabbath: FAQ For Workaholic Christians
Welcome to the Sabbath! … …? …? ….! ………….Wait. Aren’t you going to answer my questions? Well, we are trying to engage with the whole Sabbath spirit and allow a little more white space, you know? But you just left me, like, sitting here. Exactly. &^%$. Sorry, we shouldn’t poke fun at your frustration. Taking …
I Insist This Is A Love Story: For SheLoves Magazine
I insist this is a love story. I was twelve or 13, and I was in bed, crying, because earlier that day, I looked down at one of the desks I passed in class, and saw I hate Heather gouged into the wood with a blade. I was hoping my mom would hear my crying that night. …
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When “Career” Is a Messy, Beautiful Chaos
When I was twenty, I got a Rotary scholarship to go study literature at the University of Buenos Aires for a year. At the time, I only knew was that UBA was a public university with an excellent reputation. Later, I’d encounter its chaos: professors who chain-smoked without ashtrays in class, roving political party members soliciting …
How Failure Saved My Soul
One day in grad school, Sandra, my creative writing professor, handed back a draft of one of my stories. “The story has a lot of potential, Heather,” she said. “But I think you could develop more compassion for your characters.” I nodded, but my heart sank. Sandra was my favorite professor, and I’d learned her …
What Am I Willing To Do For Wholeness? For SheLoves Magazine
When my sister Katie was 22, she took a job as a preschool teacher at a Christian church. She laughed, blithely, as she told me about it in one of our sporadic phone calls. She was in charge of twenty three-year-olds for a full day. Most of her students had not been fully potty trained. …
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The parable of the succulent
Last year for Christmas, our family received a beautiful succulent in a hand-made ceramic pot; three long shoots poking out of the soil. Its sage-tree leaves picked up the color of the glaze of the pot. I thought I followed the directions: let the soil get completely dry before watering again. When I poked my …
The Boldness That Comes With Mutual Submission
I used to think that submission was passive. It’s why, working at the campus bookstore at my university, I ignored the shelves of women’s studies books, sure that picking up even one would mean not submitting to God’s design for me. It’s why, after realizing that women were not allowed to serve communion at my …
Easy faith is intentional
After my first daughter was born, and I dove into postpartum depression, one of the easiest ways to torment myself was to think about how far I’d slid from God. When I thought about God, I thought this: If I’m not cheerful about God right now, then I’m a terrible Christian. Back then, I thought it meant …
Easy faith is Jesus-powered
I take pride in my honesty. In my therapy sessions, I don’t flinch when my therapist questions my motives. People often remark on my honest writing. It doesn’t bother me to tell my unadorned story to complete strangers. But sometimes I lie. Here’s how: Someone I love asks me to do something. I know it …
Easy faith is authentic faith
Back when I was doing quiet times for a half-hour every day in college, I would put off starting as long as possible. Sometimes, that meant I procrastinated until the next day, and when I’d open my notebook, the shame of my indifference towards God and His Word sickened my stomach. Not that long ago, I …
When You Don’t Have a Peaceful Heart
I find rest in Esther Emery’s words–partially because I can see something of my anxious childhood in hers, partially because she has chosen to be different in a world that loves same, and also because she’s a friend of the virtual-but-real sort. I bring you her words here today with relish. I love her take …
Easy faith is good news ALL THE TIME
(Note: occasionally I curse. This is one of those times. Here’s why.) I want to be careful with this series. I’m worried it might get chirpy on you. “Just depend on Jay-sus!” “God is good all the time!” “Can I get an Ay-men?” I mean, those things are true. Except sometimes, their cheerfulness makes you want to …
Easy faith is just faith
It feels odd to talk about easy yokes and JUSTICE together. Shouldn’t we affirm the warm, fuzzies first? Jesus will love you no matter what, that he’s a friend, a Father, a Mother, a Spirit, an everything? Oh, all that is true. But I will be honest: I don’t think there’s warm fuzzies without justice. I don’t think …
Simplify things and point your face towards the sun
Today, we’re talking more about tools for a faith that’s easy—really easy. Last week we discussed questions, attention and emptiness. This week: simplicity and delight. Simplicity I feel passionate about ading the discrimination against Latinos in my town, and breaking down walls between us in church. But I have not thrown myself into doing something. …
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Questioning and Paying Attention Lead Us to an Easy Yoke
When you have done all you could in faith, and realized that doing is a problem— What do you do next? How do you get out of that catch-22? How do you let go without just giving up? I’m going to do a series for a while here about how to find an easy yoke …
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Please Do Not Touch Me–for SheLoves Magazine
“Rub the Buddha belly, Rylee,” my older sister, Katie, said to her daughter. Rylee smiled up at me and gingerly put her hand on the crest of my pregnant abdomen. She moved it back and forth, with a hesitant, irritating judder. I smiled, but had to grit my teeth to not swat her hand away. …
Being a good girl hamstrung my calling
The email slipped into my inbox with no fanfare a few years ago. A name I didn’t recognize, a cryptic subject. Curious, I opened it, but it took me a minute to figure out what the woman who sent it was asking. Basically: I like your work. Have you ever thought of publishing a book? …
Why Does Twitter Terrify Me? for The Mudroom
Let’s start out with a confession: Twitter terrifies me. I got my handle a few years ago. The day my friend Melissa explained to me how she manages her twitter account, makes lists, what she posts, and what a hashtag is, my heart thudded in my chest, dully as I listened. It’ll get easier, I …
Dirty is human: #wordmadeart
This post might offend some people—especially at the beginning. Bear with me and read the whole thing, and then see if you are still offended. This week’s project is getting a page of an old Bible dirty. I knew it would make me nervous. I did not expect it to make me cry. The easy part was deciding where …
Trusting the Church After Abuse
Last weekend, I sent my daughters to Sunday school at church. It’s the same church where my best friend was raped repeatedly in high school. Our family begins worship together. The head pastor—not the one who was there, intentionally blind, when our youth pastor violated my friend—raises a hand of blessing over the kids. “You …
I Did Not Want to Go to My Grandmother’s Funeral for The Mudroom
The night my already-sick grandma took a turn for the worse, my husband asked if I thought I’d go to her funeral. “Oh, hell no,” I said, without thinking. He looked startled, there in our bathroom. We were getting ready for bed, letting our bodies slow down for the end of the day. But now my heart …
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I thought I’d do a new friend a favor and not make friends at all
I realized Joy went to church with me on Pentecost Sunday. I sat with my parents at the special outdoor service, held in the local high school stadium. In the bleachers before it began, I shaded my eyes with my hand to see the stage. There was a girl up there. A girl my age. Joy. …
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