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 […]
There is no integrity without GRIT
I considered writing about my wish to offer some magic bullet encouragement. About wishing that I could assure you that everything is going to be alright, and that if your prayers are fervent enough, you’ve lived sufficiently righteously, etc., essentially held your breath long enough, bearing your burdens in silence, then everything would be okay. […]
Integrity Is The Opposite of Cutting Ourselves
Can I tell you an embarrassing story? Picture me and a guy I liked sitting together on some stairs on our college campus. We’re having a serious DTR. Since the first time I met this guy, I thought he was super-cute, and over the last year and a half, we’ve spent more and more time […]
Treading Water: A Story of Domestic Violence
When you see me, you don’t know my secret. I hide it well. I share a story from shadows. My words must be spoken in whispers, in quiet places. For now. He threw something at my head. It hit the target. Once he broke a chair and then threatened me. There was the time he […]
The Pain and the Joy of Rebirth
Birth is messy and beautiful, extraordinary and common; it’s loss and separation and connection and hope all at once. Rebirth, I’m learning, is much the same. I have always had a plan for my life: college in four years with a major in English, graduate school and more degrees in English, then a tenure track […]
Getting the Most Out of Regret
My top five regrets: Not dropping everything and going to the west coast when my sister’s husband was going through cancer treatment. Not being emotionally honest with friends for the first half of my life. Not traveling to a close friend’s destination wedding because it felt too expensive. Teasing a middle school classmate. Not getting […]
I’ve Misused My Vulnerability in Leadership: I Want to Be Liked
I’m not going to be as liked. But I sense that I’m more often going to appeal to God’s Spirit for telling me “well done.”
Of Regrets? (almost) FEARLESS
Of regrets, I have exactly none. To regret something is to wish it never happened. Relying upon the words of Jeremiah 1:5 (KJV), Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Every move we’ve made, every step and […]
Tasting Beauty in the Suburbs
Flashback Friday: This post was originally published on May 10, 2016. It had been a string of days with too much noise—me, children, politics, social media—so I took to the neighborhood walking paths to work things out in my body, while my husband constructed things out of wood (his own way of working things out). I […]