Happy Birthday, Mudroom! Today marks the 8th birthday of The Mudroom, which came into being in my mind in 2014. I was part of the now-defunct Influence Network, founded by Zondervan authors Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan, who believed in my vision and sponsored our domain the first year. I wanted it to be a […]
“I’ve never known a love like this.” The refrain often found below posts of diamond rings and starry-eyed kisses. A declaration in the midst of thoughtful vows said in white dresses with peonies as far as the eye can see. “I’ve never known a love like this.” Printed on picture frames with tiny squishy baby […]
“You see those two grasshoppers on top of each other over there?” I asked my daughters when they were preschoolers. “What do you think they are doing?” Biology I started early teaching my kids about sex by focusing on biology. My husband and I don’t believe in the concept of a “big talk” where primary […]
She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best in dark and bright Meet in her aspect and in her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. -Lord Byron I think of you as I sit at my desk this morning. […]
My junior year in high school, my mom lent me my parents’ bedroom for me to do my homework. I sat at a little desk facing fake-wood paneling, but if I turned around, walked to the other side of the bed with its green JCPenney bedspread, and turned to the top of a chest, I […]
I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. Song of Solomon 6:3 KJV And We are Drunk in Love. When Mr. & Mrs. Shawn Carter hit the stage of the 2014 Grammys their appearance was about more than collaborating on another hit. As Laura Turner wrote for BuzzFeed at the time, “Their performance […]
My twin brother and I survived high school by reading. Home life was fundamentalist and chaotic: a father recovering from once-secret chemical abuse and a mother undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Some of the books were my father’s books. I read all of the Sherlock Holme’s mysteries. Some of the books were my brother’s: science […]
When I was in high school my mom found out I was having sex. I was 16. And to make matters worse, it was with a boyfriend she didn’t approve of. And rightly so, he was no good for me. I was a broken teenager looking for love. When I found out she knew I […]
Math has always been my hardest subject. I still count on my fingers and only know my times table by rote. If my life depended on solving a quadratic equation, I would be absent in the body and present with the Lord. But no math vexes me quite like the math of friendship with my […]
I’m half-crouched on grass at the base of a wood pile. As an eleven-year-old, I take care of the chickens in the nearby coop. I’m sucking in breaths, and so is my little sister as we stumble over the knobs of black walnuts fallen from the tree above and make occasional lunges at the pile. […]
Not many of us can find strength to resist temptation, perseverance in purity, and lasting forgiveness without community. Shepherds, teachers, mentors, leaders: You have people under your care who are engaging in self harm and dangerous behavior to externalize pain, and contemplating suicide to end pain because they are being crushed beneath suffering and sin. […]
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, […]
Scene from a popular television show: Two characters, having previously flirted for several seasons with will-they-or-won’t-they tension, figure out they are sexually attracted to each other. They grab each other, bodies grinding against each other, hands tearing off clothes, mouths practically consuming the other’s face. Cue moaning and grunting. He pushes her up against the […]
You, who likely do not know me, probably have a guess as to why I’m single. Maybe I’m afraid of commitment. Maybe I’ve never been in a serious relationship. Maybe I come from too troubled of a past. Maybe I’m “just not really trying.” Here’s why I’m single: because I just am. I’ve gone to […]
In this country the Black body has always been subject to the breaking and the taking—yet we’ve clutched tight to the promise to love. Against all odds we willed our oneness. Finding the other half of ourselves in moonlit fields, dimmed juke joints and strobe-lighted clubs. Safe places allowed us to wash away the touch […]
When I think about you trying to open me I think of a can of tomato soup It’s the only thing you can afford when you’re so broke You let strangers into your body. I think of my can opener, how I can never find it in the gore of underused utensils. I think of […]
“God? If you’re real, please be real to me.” I had prayed this prayer before, but much more calmly, confident God would come through. But he hadn’t, and this time it was with much more anguish that I cried out to him, or maybe to nothing, in my head. I kicked off my bed sheets […]
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 […]