Since I can remember, I have always been an old soul. I can recall when I was in my late teen years, being drawn to the Old Testament and, most specifically, to Jeremiah and Isaiah. I loved how they interpreted and shared the Lord's voice over Israel. However, I do recall thinking, "Man, the prophets are so truthful and tell it like it is...
Today I’m celebrating the release of my friend Addie Zierman’s second memoir Night Driving: A Story of Faith in the Dark. I’ve read the book and I think you should, too. Addie asked her community to join in the conversation with this invitation: In this synchroblog, I’m hoping you’ll tell me your stories of faith in the darkness. One of my least favorite things in both American and Christian culture is how quickly we skip over the dark spaces of our stories to get to the redemption and beauty and light. I want to spend a little time talking about...
I know what you're thinking, but this "F!" doesn't mean what you think it does. This "F!" is from my love language catalogue: Fun. When I first heard my One Word 2016, hope swelled within me, but then I wondered if it was too good to be true. I am three-quarters full-of-faith and one-quarter plagued-with-doubt. I requested a Scripture confirmation, and I received this: [blockquote text='"Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he." -Isaiah 41:4' text_color='' title_tag='' width='' line_height='undefined' background_color='' border_color='' show_quote_icon='no' quote_icon_color='' quote_icon_size=''] At once I understood the connection of...
Twenty years ago, when I was wild with wonder about the Lord’s purposes for my life, I sipped café mochas with my college classmates and contemplated the big deals of life: calling, purpose, pain. I asked how if our testimonies had been sullied—occupied with abuse and loss and depression, as mine was—how were we of any value to God’s people? I don’t remember the name of the young man sitting across from me, but I remember his strawberry blond hair. His eyebrows were thick and almost translucent; they lit up his face. He looked at me and deliberated aloud about the...
You could say that I started figuring out what my “calling” was when I was seventeen years old. It had been lingering with me, as I hummed and sang to myself while I played with my dolls or in the old storage shed attached to our house. MUSIC. It moved me in a way nothing else ever could. The feel of music, the way it creates its own artwork in people's ears, how its emotion can move our soul and inspire us was fascinating to me. As I grew older and fell more in love with Jesus and worshipping with His body, music took...