Emmanuel and Showing Up

The first few days of Advent, I felt irrationally angry. I tried to call it irritable or easily annoyed, but when I sat down to dig through it all what I found was anger. Advent is an invitation to the waiting, and frankly, I would like to decline. No thanks. Can’t come. Wish I could […]

Authentic Living is Hard

You know I am from the Midwest because when you ask me how I am, I answer you. This is, as my children’s minister pointed out to me, a trait I have passed on to my girls. Lucky for the Norman girls, she finds us charming. Don’t ask us how we are if you don’t […]

Girls Can Do All the Things

Juliette Gordon Low founded the girl scouts because she had been hanging out with the Boy Scouts founder and thought, well, why the heck weren’t girls encouraged to go hike in the woods, build a fire, swim? She liked all of that stuff. When people think about women who have made a major impact on […]

Hope is Too Heavy Sometimes

At 26 I was miraculously healed, but at 13 I started asking for healing. Sometimes people wonder why more people aren’t experiencing miracles, and I wonder sometimes if it is because we don’t understand how expensive hope is. I spent most of my teen years believing I would be healed. I went to every healing […]

You Were Made On Purpose

The first time I read the description of the ENFP in the Meyers Briggs personality test I took, I cried. Gregarious, full of energy, passionate, an ability to inspire others, I knew who they were talking about because I was who they were talking about. I cried because if I was one of 16 types […]

When Enough is Enough

I have an enough problem. Like, I am almost sure there isn’t enough. I sometimes become paralyzed at the idea that I won’t have enough.  Like at the grocery store before a dinner party. Y’all. If I don’t count the people that are coming to my house and count the number of burger patties in […]

I’m Not Here to Save Anyone

The year I showed up in a classroom in an urban High School in south Atlanta, was the year after the movie “Freedom Writer” came out. I know this because the kids called me that as though it was my name.  “Who you got for English?”  “Freedom Writer!”  I acted annoyed and told them I […]

What If You Did It on Purpose?

In our first Skype meeting, she asked me the question that has haunted me for years: What I want to know is, what would purposeful look like?  We had met in an online writing course, Esther and I, and were “randomly assigned” critique partner status. If it was random, it was darn lucky for me. […]

The Intimacy of Need

It is late and I am tired. My girls are snuggled into the carpet of an old college friend eating popcorn and watching Angeline Ballerina. Did I mention I am tired. I am so, so tired. My husband is writing his dissertation in Atlanta, and I am on my last leg of a road trip […]

When Life as You Know It Is Dying

I seem to be living the tail end of a dying life. According to the statistics, I am not the only one. I am not the only teacher who woke up one day and realized she could not possibly continue at the speed of the classroom with the course set to testing. It was killing […]

Let the Little Children Lead

I didn’t even know that artist injuries were a thing, and suddenly, I was hit with one. Not me exactly, but the artist I was counting on. Apparently, carpal tunnel is an issue for someone who primarily draws. I am the art director at my church. Every Sunday we have a worship band, and a […]

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 Didn’t Win the Lottery

I didn’t win the lottery last week. I know. I was surprised too. I mean, I knew logically that I wasn’t going to win. But if I am honest, in the messiest parts of myself (and isn’t that what the Mudroom is for?) I think I honestly believed I was going to win. Even though […]

Emmanuel and Showing Up

The first few days of Advent, I felt irrationally angry. I tried to call it irritable or easily annoyed, but when I sat down to dig through it all what I found was anger. Advent is an invitation to the waiting, and frankly, I would like to decline. No thanks. Can’t come. Wish I could […]

Cast Off Your Chains

Cast off your chains, my friends, the ones that have been weighing you down. On the left wrist, the chain reads “try harder” on the right “do better.” Wrapped around both ankles is the chain of “you are not enough,” it is held together with the links reading: “should.” I should be thinking this, feeling […]