Valor’s Unsettling Saints

Previously posted in March of 2020. What kind of women are women of valor? I think they are women who are courageous enough to use their God-given gifts, others-oriented, and are willing to buck the status quo to follow Jesus and bring forth goodness and justice.   Right off of the bat, I think of St. […]

Teaching Me Hope

The day I crossed from green to brown, from chirping birds to revving motorbikes, she wore a pink headband and a faux fur collared coat. She was already waiting on the couch, in between the nursing mama and the wife of our host, one of the 6 women he had summoned to the corrugated metal […]

She is Valor

Tell me your brush with greatness. How often have we danced around this one—in ice-breakers, job interviews, admissions essays? Predictability aside, it’s an intriguing litmus test. This was the first speech I assigned students in my Public Speaking & Discussion course. Because, really, who doesn’t want to stand in front of a college classroom of […]

A Baby Bird and a Woman of Valor

“Who can find a woman of valor? For her worth is far above rubies.” ~ Proverbs 31:10 At my eldest daughter’s fifth grade graduation, the teacher presiding over the ceremonies gave each child a word as they crossed the stage to receive their elementary school diploma. My feelings on elementary school graduations aside, I was […]

Rachel Held Evans’ Call to Valor

In Honor of Women’s History Month, our March theme, “Women of Valor,” is dedicated to Rachel Held Evans.   In 2012 Rachel Held Evans published The Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master.” In its pages, she gave us a […]