Trying Softer
I made a halfhearted plan to knock on our neighbor’s door, but when the time came, something more urgent arose, and I decided I’d visit tomorrow. Urgent things came up the next day and the next. Before I knew it, cars overflowed from this neighbor’s driveway into the street. I had waited too long.
Celebrating in the Midst
We must approach celebration as a spiritual discipline, a rebellious act of worship we practice on the good days, the hard days, and the ordinary days. When we’ve spent time earnestly rehearsing a spiritual response, it becomes a part of who we truly are. With the ingrained discipline of sacred celebration, we can live and respond from a place of truth, rather than a place of regret or despair.
Community & Commitment
Christ-like community is neither incidental nor accidental. It requires the intentional surrender of our time, money, comfort, and emotional energy in the interest of contributing to the healing of our neighbors and, ultimately, the healing of the world.
And You Will Be Blessed
I’ve had to wonder—in what way is it a blessing to welcome people who are poor and needy? In what way is it a blessing to associate with the dispossessed and identify with the ones who most people see in terms of “can’t do,” the ones who can’t walk or can’t talk or can’t see or can’t move quickly? In what way could it be a blessing to show hospitality to people who can’t?
God’s Word as a Catalyst for Community
Within the pages of the Bible, God has given us the full history of His promise to humanity: to rescue us from death and infuse us with life. Despite its density, we need to read it …and read it regularly.
I’ve always wondered, “If this is the source text for my worldview, why do I barely review it on my own?”
Good/Hard Living
Whether it’s the sand of Lake Michigan, the joy of the first snow, a bout of sadness, or another broken down appliance, we’ll hold all the tension, grief, and sorrow of these rough years, and we’ll look for the good. We’ll look back and acknowledge: yes, that was hard, but it was good, too. We see it in the eyes of one another and the fact that the sorrow itself points to a good that was lost.
Suffering With
Suffering—on an individual level and at a global scale—unveils a profound opportunity for us the church to make the invisible God visible to one another. When we choose to reframe suffering as a universalizing means of connection rather than a point of isolation, everything changes
Just Put a Band-aid on It: How Wounds Heal
What if our corporate bodies were oriented to healing the way our physical bodies are? Christians call ourselves the body of Christ. That term is a collective one—literally, a corporate one—encompassing all of us in a mysterious unbreakable bond of unity in diversity. And so we may draw on the analogy between the human body’s natural wound-healing system and the ways we can mirror those processes as we strive to heal communal wounds, whether in the church, the family, the workplace, or the wider community.
People Before Things
I value creating a beautiful home for my family, but I’ll never be able to hold an appreciation for beautiful surroundings too dearly. So many of our things are broken now. Look in any direction in our house and you’ll find evidence of a non-preferred task or a sensory meltdown or a time when we said “No,” before we knew what reaction that word could elicit.
Finding Grace in Singleness
I’ve learned that my desires don't define my life. His grace does. On the days when my heart wants to wage war on what I know to be true in my mind, God in His grace reminds me that being single is my relationship status and not an appraisal of my worth.
Stop Making Time for What Matters Most
In a world of two-hour delivery, on-demand movies, and online car buying, maybe we should ask ourselves, where is it that we find what matters most? Maybe it’s somewhere different than we thought. Maybe it is in the mundane tasks that make up life: the prescription pick-up, the water drawing, the aisle wandering. Maybe it’s time we walk to the well again.
5 Things Not to Say to Someone Who Is Grieving
What are some unhelpful cliches that we can remove altogether from our lexicon of well-intentioned responses? The next time you find yourself across the table from a grieving friend, here are some phrases to avoid and some phrases to offer instead.
A Short Story of Hope
As life continues and with it struggles and with them hope, we find ourselves losing our grips on the things we don’t even know we are holding so tightly. And yet, we finally find our rest, secure in arms more capable, more loving, more alive than our own.
A Mother’s Day Card
The simple words on that Mother’s Day card belied a deeper meaning, a revelation that James was developing into a little boy who recognized his life and his Mommy looked a little different from those of his friends.
The Marriage Box
Marriage in Christ truly starts as an empty box, one which must be filled over time by the continued nurturing and struggle and fierce love that seeks to give of itself completely to another.
Returning to El Matador
Whatever mountain you may need to climb up or valley you may need to descend into, you should do it. The path will likely be worn and steep but the precious time spent there will be well worth the journey.
The Blessing of Neediness
And while I certainly needed a lot of help to show up in the world, I like to think I did my share of helping. I’ve learned that rhythm is called the mutuality of ministry, which forces us all to both ask for the help we need and to offer the help we can give.
Making Peace with Letting Go
If the alternative to a broken heart is an "unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable" one, then I suppose the choice is clear, but when our heart has been broken as the result of loving something then having to say goodbye to it, we can't help but question if the love was worth the pain.
Exploring Fatherhood
Maybe I should focus my highest efforts not on James' behaviors but on my own. Then perhaps I will have done something really transcendent for him. Rather than a list of rules, I might have given him a far more enticing model for living: a flickering reflection of his Heavenly Father, a life-long exploration of goodness and love.
John’s Birth Story
This story is the story of John Nestor Wolf and the day he arrived in the world. This is his story, our story, but it’s your story too. And ultimately, it’s God’s story—the one where new life is birthed from near death, where hope overflows from broken vessels. We are still pondering this profound revelation in our hearts as we hold him in our arms.