Pain changes shape, but it never disappears. You can’t control what hurts or breaks you, but you can control how you choose to move forward. Fight for what you love, because no one else will do it for you. Every moment in your life is an opportunity to change who you...
All four gospels witness to Mary Magdalene as the premier witness to the resurrection - alone or in a group, but in all cases named by name. . . All four gospels insist that when the other disciples are fleeing, Mary Magdalene stands firm. She does not run, she does...
What the Samaritan did NOT do is just as striking as what he did. You know the story: an expert in Judaic law asks Jesus what is God’s expectation, the “greatest” commandment? Jesus replies with “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. This prompts the follow up,...
There is so much heartbreak, devastation, and inhumanity, that when you see something inspiring something beautiful, you lean into it. Hate always seems to be winning, but we can't let that happen. Love will rise. We need to give love its due. Raise it up. Shout it...
Love is a virtue and not a feeling. It is fed and fired by God--not by the favorable response of the beloved. Even when it doesn't seem to make a dime's worth of difference to the ones on whom it is lavished, it is still the most prized of all virtues because it is at...
Wherever people love each other and are true to each other and take risks for each other, God is with them and for them and they are doing God's will." from Secrets in the Dark
We must normalize the awareness of the realities of mental illness, especially within the church. We must remove the negative stigmas surrounding therapy and counseling. One of the most common and most hurtful phrases I heard in my journey with mental illness was...
Nothing reaches people like being loved when they least deserve it; and nothing pushes people away like being judged when they don't. from Drop the Stones: When Love Reaches the Unlovable
Imagine if we all walked into the world with the belief that each person was inherently worthy. Imagine if our goal was to help each other recognize that we are worthy of being loved. Imagine if we sought to listen more than we spoke.
If you find out next week that you are terminally ill--and we're all terminally ill on this bus--what will matter are memories of beauty, that people loved you, and that you loved them.