My laugh is a guffaw. It can pierce your ears or shock you if I’m not careful. In church, at Starbucks, anywhere in a crowd, people are unsure of what to make of such a loud laugh coming from me. I’m a 5’2” Korean-American woman in her mid-30s, but most people would probably think I’m […]
Ministry
Masturbation: Difficult Conversations that We Need to Have with Our Children
The first week of seventh grade, our second son came home with a novel written by an unfamiliar author. Ever curious, I sat down to read it after he went to bed. About half way through, the narrator, an adolescent boy, began the chapter with this thought, “If God did not want boys to […]
5 Things Your Pastor Wishes You Knew
I wear a lot of hats: mom to 4, author and speaker, academic, and pastor’s wife to a church planter. Most days my life looks small: walk kids to school, get in some writing, go to the grocery store, build relationships with neighbors, work towards growing our church plant. It can be a lonely, isolating […]
The Practice of Blessing
When we were moving last time, I did my best to fit in final coffee dates and chats with all the people who had been meaningful to me. One hot afternoon I found myself in the home of a Catholic friend with whom I’d had many deep conversations about theology and practice. We talked for […]
Celibate Living in a Sex-Obsessed Society
Driving home from another ministry excursion, I pass billboard after billboard saying there are sex shops nearby. With each sighting, my stomach turns with sickness, my face falls into a frown. I am tempted to ignore the anguish, to shield my thoughts, to avoid that which feels judgmental and ugly within me. Instead, I take […]
You Were Made On Purpose
The first time I read the description of the ENFP in the Meyers Briggs personality test I took, I cried. Gregarious, full of energy, passionate, an ability to inspire others, I knew who they were talking about because I was who they were talking about. I cried because if I was one of 16 types […]
The Enneagram is a Jerk
I remember my first experience with the Enneagram. A few friends had been talking about it consistently and they encouraged me to take the test myself. I completed the quiz, looked up my number, and began to read. I found myself scoffing and huffing more with every page I read, until I finally threw the […]
Hope Sings. Arrebato.
It’s Wednesday, and on a hill in San Tomás, Guatemala, hope can be heard. It’s faint at first, like the delicate rustling of trees responding to the touch of a spring breeze. If you close your eyes and lean in, the melody grows clearer. Rustling becomes wind chimes that hint to a tune your heart […]
Rescued and Redeemed
I saw his grizzled face, breadcrumbs around his dry mouth, as he offered a smile that looked genuinely happy to see me. I returned the smile that probably showed more concern than joy. He didn’t look well, not like the last time I saw him. He was much thinner, unkempt, but his eyes eager to […]
Breakfast Casseroles…Again?
Twelve times a year I make breakfast casseroles. They’re my monthly contribution to the local homeless shelter. But this week, I wondered (read: grumbled) how it could possibly be time make casseroles again. It seemed like I was just buying eggs, cheese, sausage, hash browns, and baking tins last week. The twelve commitments were becoming […]
Turning Compassion Inward
Amy sat with me on my screened porch at the lake, listening the way only a woman who has spent thirty years as a cloistered nun in a monastery, then three more years training to be a therapist, can listen. “You have compassion fatigue,” she said. “What?” I asked. “There’s an actual name for this? […]
Being Ministered To on a Mission Trip
I woke up on a cot in the gymnasium with butterflies in my stomach. I’d brought a sleeping bag with the intent of sleeping on the hard floor, but after suffering from an awful case of indigestion, I was offered one of the few available cots. I seemed to be feeling back to normal, except […]
Go to Jail
Ten years ago, I sat around a table with a group of six girls, trying to teach them creative writing. We shared poetry, short stories, and personal memoirs. I wasn’t that much older than them, and yet our worlds were oceans apart. For we sat in the library of a local juvenile correctional facility, and […]
Social Justice is a Pot of Spaghetti Sauce
I didn’t want to write a post on social justice. It feels fake sitting on my couch in my largely white, affluent, suburban neighborhood. What do I have to say? As a white woman, I feel like my steps at connection across lines—even on Facebook—feel privileged, bumbling, and awkward. I say the wrong things. I’m […]
When Compassion is Exhausting
The first year of giving a crap, that’s the exciting one. For me, it was back in 2009 and Twitter was a twinkly new toy and microgiving was a new buzzword and everyone had a birthday campaign. “This year for my birthday, all I want is clean water for a village, all I want is […]
Are You Remembering That Right?
The first time I ever remember feeling shame for who I was, I was in early elementary school. My sisters and I were playing some wild game where we were all running around the house screaming. Or was it just me? Was I the only one out of control? (These are the questions my memory […]