Week after week, I entered the street with a new poem. And each week our community grew more connected…We are on this planet, this neighborhood, this street for only a short time. You might as well know your neighbors and love them too.

Life with Jesus isn’t meant to be easy, but I believe life with Him is meant to be like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure games. Sure, there are tough decisions, but there are also unexpectedly beautiful and fun journeys that ensue. Following the fun is about choosing to reorient our gazes towards God and the glimpses of His glory that we can catch every day. Sometimes, it's the sweet, simple things like choosing to take the scenic way home or adding sprinkles to your ice cream. Other times, it’s the grueling work of squinting to see a slither of joy amid depression. Whatever it might look like, I believe that God hard-wired each of us for fun.

Deconstruction is quite terrifying, actually. You find yourself in a strange land where all the things you’ve ever known (and parroted) about “backsliding” or “losing your salvation” play out like the preview to the most terrifying psychological thriller, on repeat. You’ve shed the layers of who you used to be, and you can’t step back into that person, but you really wish you could, because it would be so much easier. Add in the voices of those who are “concerned.” These voices are loud, and they want nothing more than for you just to conform.

In a culture that seeks to escape work with all they’ve got (and truthfully, that used to be my goal too), God says work is good - it's holy.

While 40 is considered the midpoint of your life, we all know that you don’t make it that far without a little help. I wanted to celebrate forty in style, but I also wanted to acknowledge forty people that made a positive impact in my life. I wanted to use my birthday as an opportunity to thank them for helping me become the person I am.

I’ve been writing this letter to my birth mom in bits and pieces throughout the years—words trailing when inspiration flows like a staggering stream. I’ll admit, the words feel like mismatched puzzle pieces without a reference picture. How do I convey the assurance I ache to give a woman I’ll probably never meet?

Friend, I don’t know if 2021 was a year of beautiful and hopeful things for you, or if it included pain, heartache, and grief. I do know that our pondering of the year behind us does not have to end with the overwhelmingly messy, hard, and (sometimes paradoxically) beautiful things of this world. Instead, we are invited to still ourselves—to slow down and breathe.

It’s so easy to hold back in our prayers. It’s tempting to ask for the mundane or expected, to ask for the things that seem guaranteed. But we are not told to pray timidly or half-heartedly. Hebrews tells us to approach the throne of grace with confidence, with boldness.

Answer this question: Am I willing to do some unlearning and re-learn how to create a new narrative in my thought-life? If the answer is yes, keep reading.

As someone who’s dealt with anxiety for nearly a decade, I wish people in the Church had a better understanding of it because they often view it incorrectly and cause harm as a result.

I stopped going to church several years ago. It wasn’t that we’d had a falling out. We just moved several times in as many years and never found a home church like the one we’d left.

It’s not about goal setting. It’s not about a resolute attitude. It’s the habit of getting down on my knees and scraping the manna for today up from the ground. It’s the faithfulness of bending down because I believe there’s something there to pick up.

The soundtrack of my teen years came from the music of Phil Collins. I’m sure my dad listened to other artists at the time, but for some reason, his music stood out to me. It had an easiness about it, a softness, which starkly contrasted to my reality.

Hello, my name is the Queen of all emotions. 

I know them all – intimately, even. I’ll spell them out for you, follow the trail of breadcrumbs, and show you how I experience them within the span of half a day.

I used to wonder this on the daily, feeling that diagnosis heavy on my forehead. I wore the bitterness and helplessness of that very question for so long. Depression became my identity everywhere I went, wondering if people saw it in big bold letters too.

Shame doesn’t have the final word. Not in my story and not in yours.

A 60-day notice to vacate greets us one afternoon after work, posted on the door of the home my husband and I have rented and loved for three years. The weekend I hit emotional rock bottom, we found a one-bedroom, overpriced apartment farther down the freeway. We made an appointment. Anthony skipped class to see it, and he paid a holding fee. We found a place to live.

Your faith, whatever it may be, isn't going to look like the faith of the person next to you. You aren't the person next to you. You have a piece inside of yourself that is so unique and lovely, and it's up to you to shake off what isn't you anymore and protect what is.