The ball dropped. Auld Lang Syne was sung. Now the buzz of everyone making New Year’s resolutions is all you hear about in ads and on social media. I know, cliché. It’s just a number. I will be scribbling out 19 and rewriting 20 every time I write the date for at least a month. […]
If anyone were able to relate to Christmastime stress, it was Mary. Though the weight of the world wasn’t actually on her shoulders, the one who holds the world in His hands dwelt in her belly! I venture to say the list of things that could have had her in a tizzy on that holy night and in the weeks and months leading up to it would have Read more
As one of the fullest and most complete encounters of Jesus’s life, my good friend Jenni challenged me to read the entire Book of Luke this Advent season. This particular Gospel also includes the most commonly recited version of Jesus’s birth story. I thought, why not and began by reading the brief description given in my childhood Bible preceding the opening paragraphs of Luke. What I found there were eight little words that cut right to my core and are becoming my theme for the entire Advent season. These eight words are emboldening me to come off survival mode, turn off auto-pilot that becomes “just getting through the season,” and embrace the choice to cherish an ever-deepening understanding of what the Christmas and Advent season is all about.
I’ll get to what those eight powerful words were here in a moment, but let me start with this: How many of you feel like you already messed up Advent season?! I mean come on, I left Thanksgiving early to participate in the Black Friday (ahem, Thursday) shenanigans at Target. Along with my brother and some of my cousins, we giddily walked out of the housewares haven with a red cartful of shopping bags and a 55-inch flat-screen lodged diagonally like a Keep Reading
Ok, so my anger doesn’t literally crystallize into an icy blast, and I can’t turn a fjord into a giant ice skating rink with the force of my finger, but this I know is true:
“For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” –Romans 7:19 NIV
In Disney’s 2013 record-breaking release of Frozen, we find a unique main character in Queen Elsa. Despite the fact that she could arguably be considered either the protagonist or the antagonist, it didn’t take long for Queen Elsa to join the esteemed canon of Disney princesses, an elite category of characters whose popularity transcends the era in which they were created. Elsa brings pain and suffering to many of the characters in the movie. Yet, we find ourselves liking her and wanting things to work out for her. Perhaps we know her story all too well: the trying to be good.
In her rebel anthem “Let It Go,” Elsa bellows out the “storm” that rages on inside her. It’s a storm that reminds me of the good and evil at war in us, the unanimated version of humanity. Oh, how I want Keep Reading
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.” -1 John 4:18
On this earth, there is no perfect love. No matter how great our earthly relationships, whether family or friends that God has placed in our lives, we have not experienced a love that is without its insecurities. Life is uncertain. Some know this reality all too well. Death, divorce, abuse, personal struggles with insecurity, and other hardships can make relationships seem all too, well…broken. Frozen’s Elsa is one who knows this truth well. In her musical duet with Anna, “For the First Time in Forever (Reprise),” where the sisters duo back and forth with increasing intensity, Elsa finally cries out, “There’s so much fear!”
Because of her childhood memory of accidentally hurting her sister with her icy powers, and her parents’ subsequent plan to keep her hidden away in her bedroom, Elsa has little faith or trust in love or relationships. She feels that she alone is responsible for keeping her personal world safe, and that she will do—by remaining in isolation from all people.
The movie depicts Elsa’s condition as having a “frozen heart.” She has learned through her circumstances to bury her feelings and remain coldhearted to the people all around her. She won’t let anyone in. It’s a depressing situation for Elsa and those closest to her.
All of this, Elsa admits, is motivated by Keep Reading
Hey Readers! Fair warning: stuff’s about to get REAL. I’ve got some vulnerability to share, and I’ll start by owning that at least a strong part of me is an 8 on the enneagram (“the challenger”). As such, the emotion that often really powers me is anger. That can be a powerful force for change in the world. It can also get me into trouble at times.
I care a lot about matters of justice: social justice on the one hand (great!). On the other hand, making sure justice is served in my own personal affairs (selfish motives: not so great). As a child, “it’s not fair!” came out of my mouth with as much regularity as “Are we there yet?” intuits out of the mouth of a kid on a 20-hour car ride to Disney.
So when, as an adult, I experience the pain of this world (aka: the gap that exists between the way things ought to be and the way things actually are), and I can’t readily do something about it or fix it on the spot, I tend to run my mouth as an alternative. And this mouth can run. In moments of stress, it turns to four-letter words. Keep Reading
On the first day of school this year, my son came home saying a boy on the bus told him there were two things he needed to do to be cool: 1) own a pair of Vans (a brand of shoes that were, mind you, brag-worthy in my day and have made a recent comeback) and 2) play a certain well-known video game. That’s it. That was this kid’s recipe for cool. Only problem was, Keep Reading
It’s one of the most called upon Bible verses. Simple and short, it makes for easy remembering. Plus, it looks beautiful in a modern calligraphy typeface.
But beneath the subject matter of all those Hobby Lobby/Etsy/Pinterest lettering projects, in our world of hustle and bust-your-buns bustle, the two words of advice “Be Still” stand out like a serious sore thumb. First, let’s get one thing straight— Keep Reading
One of Disney’s most noteworthy business objectives of this decade is modernizing their classics through live-action remakes. It makes perfect sense: Disney reeled out box office successes in record-breaking proportions every year from the time I went to kindergarten until the year I learned to drive. I’m the generation of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King, and now I have kids of my own. Disney might have just found a way to replicate the level of excitement I had in meeting a Disney character for the first time and getting their autograph by reinventing my beloved childhood favorites in a way that my children and I will want to watch together. It’s nothing short of business genius to put a modern spin on these classics from Disney’s Renaissance Era [1]and reintroduce them in live-action sequence 30 years later.
The most obvious choice in a strategy to modernize, and one it seems Disney has prescribed to, is by inserting some girl power into the story line. Celebrating the strength of femininity helps bring the story up to present day, or in this case to some 2,500 years ago. Keep Reading
Every day, God is at work in both the seemingly small, intimate spaces of our lives, as well as in the signs-and-wonders, immeasurable kind of way you can see throughout the universe.
Every once in a while, God allows us to catch wind of these two things intersecting in our lives. Some would call them coincidences. Others, like myself, see them as one more way our God shows He is all about Keep Reading
