There was a time in my life when I was more comfortable in the midst of transition. I remember once in my twenties sitting on my suitcases in the airport in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. I was wearing a long, billowy skirt, a t-shirt, and my favorite Jesus sandals looking like the quintessential Christian […]
Editor’s Note: Don’t miss the audio addition of Nicole’s piece below – where she narrates her journey into liminal spaces and delves deeper into finding grace there . . . in the middle. (The Mudroom Podcast, Episode 5) I was falling behind, dragging them down. I glimpsed it on their little faces—the fear gathering in […]
They are inside all of us, buried deep inside our subconscious—these moments of impact. There are places, people, and events that changed who we are becoming. When our lives bump up against something that challenges us or deepens our understanding, we become the sprout that branches off an old limb. Over time you don’t see […]
Push me, if you dare, but my stability does not originate from within me. Rather, my roots reach deep, delivering stability, not easily shaken.
My husband no longer lives in the present with me. I don’t argue with him anymore as he prods me to remember the vivid details of a story he is telling. I engage with him and smile instead, building up our history even if it’s only in his head. In 2018, at the age of […]
The heaviness that settled over my chest that morning was as dense as my husband’s weighted blanket tangled around my feet. I kicked off the covers but the anxiety wouldn’t lift. It was one week into the Coronavirus crisis that had settled over our country like a dense fog. It started on a normal Thursday […]
When we settled back in the U.S. last year after our living in South Asia, it felt like the world had moved on without us while we occupied another plane of existence altogether. We might as well have been returning from outer space. My family got used to living in partially packed houses or out […]
They felt litter thicker than matchsticks in my hands; her tiny fingers seemed like they could snap in an instant. I was mesmerized by her smallness in my arms though her presence filled my entire life. As I held my firstborn in the dark of her bedroom, humming a song to her in the same […]
What does it mean for God to do a new thing? Seven hundred years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote, For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. (Isaiah […]
I can’t tell you who helped me get to the University medical center or to hobble back to my dorm on crutches. I can’t recall exactly what the doctor said or much of the resulting physical therapy. But I can tell you the exact step I was trying to land when I, instead, found myself […]
I do not believe in turning over a new leaf. Let’s clarify that statement with a slightly embarrassing story. A few days before junior high began, I faced the mirror in my bathroom, determined to make the coming year different. I would be more social, more popular. I would connect, I would impress people, I would […]
I leave more than the stale air of a thirteen-hour plane ride behind in the airport bathroom stall. When I emerge into the terminal in Istanbul, I feel like a new person altogether. I had walked off the plane still wearing the evidence of the life I left behind in Bangladesh. I wore a salwar […]
Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. -1 Corinthians 13:12, NLT I don’t recognize her anymore. Her short hair […]
It was May 9, 2005, and Patrick and I were ten days into our marriage. We had an overnight layover in London on the way home from our honeymoon. As soon as we got off the plane, we had a disagreement about where we should spend the night. We tried my suggestion first, but it […]
I was raised in a Christian home. I’ve been in some variation of “Evangelicalism” for quite a while. While this presented itself a bit differently—it was NOT predominantly white/suburban in the place I grew up—it still had its place in my life and influenced my thinking. As I’ve grown and found different expressions of my […]
I am a dreamer, and I dream big. I’ve always wanted to live a dramatic story, to Do Something Big For God! Make an impact! Change the World! Build the Kingdom!!! – and other slogans that require multiple exclamation marks at the end. So many are writing these days about the finding joy in the […]
Are we nearly there yet: it’s the phrase dreaded by parents everywhere. Growing up in England, I spent much of my vacations trailing up and down mountains in the Lake District and North Wales. Being the eldest of three – and having been raised to be fiercely competitive – I was desperate to make each […]
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 […]