Healing of the body is painful and can take what seems like forever. With doctors telling you step by step what to do or what not to do, it’s pretty straightforward. However, healing ones’ soul is a different beast. You can turn to friends, counselors and the Bible but trying to heal your soul and […]
Freedom
I Won’t Say I Read Trashy Books Anymore
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 Am the Daughter of a Mentally-Ill Person
My sister and sat in a dark theatre waiting for the movie Silver Linings Playbook to begin. I knew from watching the previews that the movie was about mental illness, but that’s all I knew. I found myself squirming: How would this movie impact my sister and I? Silver Linings Playbook is the story of […]
Keep the Lights On
Keep the lights off. Cover yourself up. Sex is for the girls that look like they just walked off the cover of a magazine. Be grateful for anyone who wants to touch you. Accept what you are given. These are all the lies that are told to me by the media, by people in passing […]
A Conversation I Never Expected to Have
This poem was performed at Deeply Rooted: A Gathering in May 2016. I was made with more than flesh in mind; A mind! Imagine that. A mind that reasons & wonders why All you see are body parts; Mountains & valleys that you can walk over & conquer. Not afraid of rough terrain or how […]
Sex as a Spiritual Practice?
I wish it wasn’t so easy to be sexually broken. For so many reasons we struggle to embrace our sexuality, don’t we? To give and receive fully. To engage our whole physical, emotional, and spiritual selves—and our partners do as well. On every level, sex gets messy. So there’s no better place to talk about […]
Why Sex is Worth the Work
In the course of my twenty-five year marriage, we’ve made good sex a priority. That doesn’t mean it’s been effortless. Anything in marriage that’s good takes effort and intentionality. In all regards, we’re still a work in progress. We had more than a few vulnerable conversations about our hopes for the marriage bed before saying […]
When You Don’t Want to Tell
When I fail, there is a 100 percent chance I do not want to tell my husband. I want to hide. Like Eve, I scramble for leaves to cover myself. By “fail” I don’t mean I cheat on him—well, not directly anyway. It’s more in the Matthew 5:28 way where Jesus says, “anyone who even […]
Same-Sex Attraction and Me
I used to lie in bed at night and pray to not wake up. I wanted to be gone, I wanted it to be gone. I struggled, prayed and did the right things. I still do the right things and put in the work, but I am still, for as long as I can remember, […]