Tag Archives: Grace

Thanks For The Memories

Warning: Mom, this will make you cry. Might wanna read it at home.


This weekend I went out to my grandparents’ farm in Terrell to fix their computer. Don’t worry, I was still able to sleep in, kind of. I don’t get out there as much as an adult, because most of the family events are at my mom’s or aunt’s house. When we do get out that way for Thanksgiving or Christmas, it’s chaos. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, it just seems like there’s thirty of us (really, 18) out there all at once and it’s. just. so. busy. A whirl of conversation and catching up, and then we’re gone. We don’t stop and slow down. Maybe it’s because we aren’t forced to, maybe it’s because we don’t want to. But I had to this weekend, and I’m glad.

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When We Were On Fire

How do you review a memoir? That’s what I’ve been asking myself for about a week now. Because it’s not just a story, it’s a person’s story. It’s not a parable, it’s someone’s life experience. I mean, you can’t very well say “I agree with this” or “I disagree with that” when it’s real life. You can say you don’t understand their story, but you can’t deny it. The reality is, though, that I do understand. All too well.
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When I Can Only Light a Candle

Growing up in church we get a vision of a Christianity that’s sanitized. We see Noah and the animals floating on the water in the Ark and landing on a mountain. We see Moses walking between fake walls of water. We see Jesus saying “let the children come.” And He looks very much like me, this felt-board Jesus. We are given a vision of Christianity that’s clean, but isn’t complete. Maybe not even real, to some extent.
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Brothers and Sisters, We Are Not Seminarians

I’ve been thinking about our roles as Christians, bloggers, and people who seek Truth for a while now, even before last week’s social media blow-up about Thabiti Anyabwile’s post that I responded to this past Thursday. I’ve been thinking about how we interact with each other. How we talk to each other, and how we listen and how we don’t. I’ve been trying to see a root cause for why we disagree so poorly at times, and I think there may be many reasons for it, but my heart kept being drawn back to one: Bible college and seminary coffee shop experiences.
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Homosexuality, Gag Reflexes, and a Better Way

Yesterday was another sad day in the blogosphere and on Twitter. I see the Church pleading with herself from all sides to be more Christlike, when it seems we all have different definitions of what that really means. Whether it comes to gender roles or the redefining marriage debate, I’m half tempted to think that having blogs so readily available, giving anyone a voice, may cause more harm than good. And I know I’d shut myself down with that statement, too. The problem is we’ve lost all sense of context, and it’s damaging Christ’s Bride and the lost, the very people we should be trying to reach.
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