Last week I had an experience I will never forget. Josh and I were wrapping up a date night by stopping by the grocery store. We were on another side of town, a wealthier area, and he dropped me off at the store while he got gas. The store was nearly empty as I picked...
Unless we're close - down the street, in your life kind of close - all we can see of other's lives is what they show us. People assume that if someone doesn't dump their vulnerability onto the internet, they don't struggle or experience pain. There are all kinds of...
In the last week we attended a wedding and a baptism. We witnessed the unity of a young man and woman becoming a new family. And we witnessed the unity of six new believers joining the family of the church. Both baptism and marriage are sacraments, sometimes called “a...
We moved to Pennsylvania from Virginia when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Adeline. Some of you have heard this story - how Addie was born 5 days later in a previously unplanned home birth, with a sweet Mennonite midwife - the only practitioner who would take me so last...
We seem to be hearing a cacophony of messages about the church. We hear that the church, the gathering of committed believers led by Christ, is important. It matters. We also hear devastating stories from within the church. Abuse and cover-ups, pride and favoritism,...
Each of us is in a corner of the world the other can't reach. I can't reach the people in a Georgia suburb like the people in the Georgia suburbs can. I can't reach the neighbor in southeast London like the people in southeast London can. You can't reach the people in...
Yesterday after our church's first service a group of families walked next door to the playground and, as our progeny swarmed the slides and swings, we talked about the cost of community. In the sermon this week, our pastors talked about the cost of Christian...
For years it seemed like Josh and I could not come up for air. During engagement, Josh struggled to find a job after college. The job he found was unpredictable and kept him on the road every day, sometimes away for a week or more at a time. Once we were married, not much changed. We found out we were pregnant on our first anniversary and from then on experienced a succession of job changes, losses, financial set backs, out of state moves, more babies, moving again, starting a business – it just didn’t end.
Christian grief does not require pretending everything’s okay. It does not mean we cease to feel or to hurt or wonder if the void will never again be filled. It does not mean we’ll be healed, but it does mean that we face all the pain and loss with the presence of a loving and faithful God.
“Put simply, the contemplative life is the steady gaze of the soul upon the God who loves us. It is “an intimate sharing between friends,” to use the words of Teresa of Avila.” That’s how contemplation is described by Renovare, the ministry founded by spiritual disciplines expert and lifelong pastor, Richard Foster.