Offering the Best to God

I recently found out that my uterus is filled with tumors – benign tumors, but tumors nonetheless. I am one of many women who suffer with fibroids, a condition that is extremely prevalent among women of color. I am currently waiting for my six month check up to have a repeat ultrasound that will help […]

Sitting on the Fringe

I pass by the holy water font without pausing, fifty-three years of reflex gone. I slide into a pew tucked in the back corner of the cavernous church, an arm’s reach from the flickering votive candles. An arm’s reach from the nearest exit. It was not always thus between you and I. I spent hours […]

This Is My Act of Worship

“Lord, what should I give up for Lent?” “Don’t give up anything. How about you just do what I’ve been telling you to do? Write.” He could’ve said anything—TV, social media, carbs, coffee, and as much as it would’ve been hard to give those up for a while, it would’ve been okay—easier even—than to obey […]

The Repentance Which Must Be Repented Of

Recently I sat some friends down, individually, and confessed. I felt embarrassed and ashamed and terrifyingly exposed. These women know my life and my brokenness. They didn’t know how present the sin has become, how intrusive, oppressive, and persistent the temptation. I know what happens when you “give the devil a foothold,” I know about the sin “crouching at […]

The Morning After

Today’s Free Write Friday is a simple reflection from some of our readers on Super Tuesday results. As I collected these, I was encouraged as I witnessed discourse – not fighting, but actual discourse – as they wrestled with results and candidates and beliefs, everyone holding onto hope. I. “Bite your lip and turn on […]

Power and Preferential Treatment

I am not the biggest sports fan. But any Michigander worth their weight should be a Detroit fan. (Well, ok. I’m mostly a fair-weather Lions fan, but come on. It’s agony otherwise.) But a few years ago, I surprisingly turned into a fairly serious football fan. It started when I joined a fantasy football league, […]

God Isn’t Asking You to Bleed Out

Let me just let you know up front: God isn’t asking you to bleed out. I do not believe that God is asking you to just sit there and take it, whatever it is. God is not asking you to bleed out slowly as you turn pale and feel the life slowly leaking out of […]

I Switched Husbands

I got off the plane and in the car with 6 other women, perfect strangers. I was in Nebraska, a state I’d never been before nor expected to ever go. I was there as the keynote speaker for the women’s retreat, Jumping Tandem. Given the nature of my previous three years, keynoting was also unexpected. […]

Hope Trumps Death

I held her hand in mine as we walked down the snowy sidewalk. On Sunday we were raking and putting out a spring wreath on the front door, the one with the pastel eggs and moss covered rabbit, but just a few days later the streets were ice and snow as a cold wind blows […]

Have I Repented too Much?

The book I use for daily prayer, The Divine Hours, includes a lot of confessions, like this classic: Almighty God, my heavenly Father: I have sinned against you, through my own fault, in thought, and word, and deed, and in what I have left undone. I wince almost every time I read this prayer. It’s […]

The Second Journey: A Call at Midlife

  “I have been seized by the power of a great affection.” ~Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-up, and Burnt Out   Midlife crisis. It’s like a version of adolescence, only older. As my 50th birthday quickly approaches, I can attest to the unpredictable hormone changes, body shifts and mooood […]

Icons of Dehumanization: Then and Now

Once there was this famous white French guy who wrote about power and empires. He is whom a lot of intellectual-type people like to quote. But it turns out his ideas? Largely influenced by the Black Panthers. Who he doesn’t credit. Which is weird when you’re talking about power, right? So this French guy, Foucault, […]

When your Creative Well has Run Dry, What Then?

This is a post for all those creatives out there that can find their eyes roaming playing comparison games. This post is for writers that worry their wells of creativity have run dry. This post is for the parents and the colleagues who show up day-by-day to work hard and love well. Remember friends, that […]