I was 17 and living in my small town with two stoplights when I declared I wanted to grow up and become an urban missionary. And I was 19 when I left college to spend a year serving in downtown Atlanta. It was a crash course on life in the margins, and I was hooked. […]
Ministry
When Life as You Know It Is Dying
I seem to be living the tail end of a dying life. According to the statistics, I am not the only one. I am not the only teacher who woke up one day and realized she could not possibly continue at the speed of the classroom with the course set to testing. It was killing […]
Suffering Is Not for Its Own Sake
I know I’m supposed to write a brilliant, moving post about the amazing people of Guatemala and how God is doing incredible things, and how deeply I was touched and changed by the experience. I don’t know if I can write that post. I have been changed by the experience but I know I will […]
When Life is Less Radical Than You Imagined
Life is so different from what we expected, I thought, folding my teaching clothes and placing them with my husband’s dance shoes in the bag for Goodwill. Before marriage, I imagined I would live a radical life through overseas missions, inner-city teaching or ministry to refugees. My husband was determined to follow his call as […]
The Call to Let Go
Focused. I was moving up and down the aisles of Home Depot as quickly as I could. It was almost 1pm and the girls were hungry. My husband had my 2 year old, blonde curls surrounding her rounded face, and I had the squishy infant, nestled in the Ergo, head resting on my chest, waiting […]
For the One Who Questions If Your Offering Matters
The hardest part of the trip for me wasn’t the twenty-four hours of travel it took to arrive. It wasn’t the food or culture shock or the bone-deep exhaustion of jet lag. I traveled halfway around the globe to discover the hardest thing was the same struggle I have at home: Believing my small offering […]
Tammy Goes to Guatemala
I’ve been invited to join a Vision Trip to Guatemala City in April with my friend, Melanie Dale, who partners with Children’s HopeChest, raising awareness and support for communities and orphans in Uganda. On this Vision Trip, our team will visit several locations to evaluate the potential for partnership at that specific community. We will […]
V is for Vocation
If V is for Vocation, then F is for Fineprint. Let me get the disclaimers out of the way: I hold two graduate degrees, and earn exactly zero dollars a month. I am a full-time Mom: a packer of dishwashers and kisser of boo-boos and driver of carpools; roles I never imagined myself in and […]
Setting an Extra Place
Last spring, I went back to work full-time, setting off something of a tumult of significant life changes. Our littlest started kindergarten. We left summer camp ministry (and our home of more than a decade), trading the life bucolic for a busy corner rental in town. Jim started two businesses, and he and I largely […]
When I was Twelve I Heard the Voice of God
When I was twelve I heard the voice of God. Like, literally. I know. I think it is totally weird too. I was the most awkward almost thirteen year old you could possibly imagine, and I heard the voice of God, behind me and to the left. I was at church camp. God told me […]
Listen to the Prophets
Monday came faster than it should have. Bleary eyed I stumbled out of the bed covered by a bright yellow and pink comforter and more dolls than I could count. All signs pointed to yet another ear infection so I found myself at 2 a.m. holding her in her bed, propping her head upright with […]
Coming Alive to Your Calling
I used to feel like I was called. I was sure that the pulpit was my destination. I was called to the ministry. I had been told that since I was a child. I was to be a pastor, a preacher, a minister. I felt this calling in my bones, in my spirit, deep in […]
Overcoming “Not Enoughness”
Several years ago, we asked thousands of people from all across the world to pray for a very sick newborn child. We hoped with all our hearts that God would perform a miracle. But when my best friend’s curly-headed baby boy died in her arms, she was launched into a season of incapacitating sorrow. God […]
Writing for Rescue
It’s interesting to me that The Mudroom’s first anniversary would fall on a month where the theme is Vocation, Career, Mission. When I was younger I adored Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, and the legendary Harriet the Spy. I took out books from the library on the history of the FBI. I pretended I was […]
If Only
The Mudroom is a place for the stories emerging in the midst of the mess. Our vision is simple: make room for people. If only I knew then what I know now . . . maybe I wouldn’t have suffered as much. If only I knew then what I know now . . . maybe […]
The Breakthrough to Community
Every Friday needs a story about hope. Stories of God coming into the mess and finding us there when we had all but given up. Stories of radical redemption. Stories of finding home. Today we invite you to check out the podcast Spark My Muse by Lisa Colon Delay. Join us for Episode 44 […]
Free Write Friday: Finding Jesus
Two election cycles ago, I was a different person. Freshly married with a young baby, I lived in a New England town where almost 100% of my friends were made up with people from church and at least 80% of them looked like me. Houses were situated on .66 acres and life felt idyllic. The […]
Top 10 posts of 2015
We hosted so many amazing posts this year. Here are the top 10. 10. When Good Girls Get Angry by Tanya Marlow I am the good girl, and good girls do not get angry. My mind shuts down with that one phrase. I should be the bigger person. It doesn’t matter that I feel wronged. Why […]