The first step to gaining social membership into a group is to learn the lingo in which they speak; you don’t necessarily need to know WHAT that lingo means, but just that you can spit out the same words that the people do. It’s like, when I order my drink at Starbucks. If I can […]
(As a caveat, this is a set of contemplations–a thought experiment, and is in NO way intended to be a final determination) I’ve definitely been in this position before–where I felt like I was listening to ALL of God’s signs, I was doing EVERYTHING He was telling me to do. I prayed, I was obedient, […]
Humans are meant to obey. In our natural states, we are people pleasers. We want to do the things that will please other people (as Michael says, it is when there is something else going on—an emotional crisis, a lack of confidence, a grabbing for attention—that causes people to be disobedient). This desire to obey […]
As Christians, we are called to be selfless. This is very easy for us to do in our actions. We can give money to greater causes and donate to someone’s GoFundMe. We can volunteer our time to help someone move out of their house or to watch their children while they go on a date […]
My Bible study just finished Lysa Terkeurst’s latest study, “Uninvited”, and overall, we thought it was a timely and relevant topic–as we learned, we can label way more of our experiences in life as rejections than we originally thought. I enjoyed the video sessions with Lysa–my favorite part is that she filmed it in the […]
The more I think about it, the more I realize how opposite these two terms really are. Between my Bible study and church, we’ve been spending a lot of time talking about tithing and giving: “we should store extra so that we can give to those in need”, “we should be humble in our spendings […]
5″ [Love] does not dishonor others…” In church a few weeks ago, we focused on 1 Corinthians 13 (perhaps one of the most widely read verses), and were given the task of implementing one of the commandments each week. As I sat in church that Sunday, I contemplated which task I wanted to undertake. I’ve […]
I believe singledom-hood is a very important and unique time in one’s life that should not be taken lightly, because it is when we are able to experiment the most with identity formation, without too many harsh consequences. It’s kind of like being in teaching school–because teaching requires so many in the moment judgements and […]
The thing about story telling is, stories must always be told in the past tense (well, unless you are writing sci-fi, but those aren’t the kind of narratives we are referencing here). And, when we tell those stories in the past tense, because we are removed from the experience itself, we are able to see […]
I love hearing stories of how people met their significant others, and despite the fact that every story is very different and very unique to the couple, every story carries the same two threads: when you know, you know, and that timing, while we cannot always predict it, is always perfect. I’ve heard stories about […]
