Hello! I'm writing again over on Substack.

Over the past year and a half, I've been on a journey back to myself. What started many years ago as grief, loss, and displaced dreams devolved into a way of being, one where I didn't recognize myself anymore. And I had no idea how to get unstuck. One day I stumbled upon coaching and decided to do a brave thing. I tried something new and invested in myself. I made slow progress (minuscule progress still counts as progress 😉). I showed up for myself. I continued to do things that took me outside my comfort zone. I did the inner healing work. 

All the while I thought I was building a coaching business, but what happened is one day, in the middle of aisle 3 at Aldi, I woke up after quite a long sleep. And I haven’t stopped writing since. You keep moving forward without realizing that one day, some pretty fantastic shit is going to happen and your mind will explode and everything changes. The above statement was the turning point for me: ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BELIEVE. Period. So that’s what we’re going to talk about in this newsletter.

I hope these posts will be challenging at times and maybe even a tad offensive (p.s., this new version of me is totally cool with that 😎). But I also hope you’re encouraged, inspired, and motivated to examine the role of belief in your own life. 

Belief is a powerful thing. We were created to belief, we are transformed by belief, we are healed by belief. Note: What and in Whom we believe makes all the difference (for me, that’s Jesus). That said, belief saves us, belief determines our path, belief is required for answered prayer. 

TL;DR? Basically, on the other side of belief lies every good, wonderful, hope-filled thing, including you. 

Feel free to share with your friends & follow along with what I hope will be an interesting, challenging, eye-opening conversation about the power of belief and how it impacts absolutely everything about who we become.

I will import my current email list to Substack, so if you’re already receiving my posts, you will continue to do so! You can also click the button below to visit Substack and subscribe. :)

oh come all ye hot, bored, and hungry

we don’t care why you came, only that you’re here

They had been wandering in on Sunday mornings for a few weeks now. A set of siblings, two girls and a boy. There were no parents in sight, just the three of them. It was the height of summer and hot as a greenhouse in Cleveland, and still, they’d be out pacing the sidewalks of the neighborhood in the scorching midday.

They probably decided to come inside just to get out of the sun. It was clear they hadn’t been to church before: They didn’t know where to sit or how to act. That the questions from the pulpit were, in fact, rhetorical, or that yell-singing off-key to every song wasn’t likely to garner them any endearment. On many of these sweltering days, this group of kids would slowly wear down the patience of their pew neighbors, eventually eliciting some mild throat clearing or an exaggerated side-eye. It was usually around that time that my husband would give me a nudge and say something like, “those kids are having a hard time. Let’s go engage them.”

They, of course, were thrilled by this development and communicated as such by protesting our presence and questioning our authority to say anything to them at all. But we’d just get comfortable and wear out our welcome. Once they realized we weren’t intimidated or insulted by them and that we weren’t going anywhere, they’d settled down.

After church everyone goes downstairs to the cafe to enjoy warm coffee and homemade pastries, and these kids quickly learned they could panhandle their way to a gourmet breakfast. No sooner did they shove a chocolate cupcake into their mouth and wipe away any evidence with a sleeve, and they were sauntering up to another unsuspecting pateron with an outstretched hand. People were all too happy to oblige for a mere $0.50. It was a wonder to behold. Maybe this is why they kept coming back week after week. 

One particular Sunday, it was just the two girls. After a predictable progression of events, I took a seat in the pew directly in front of them and offered a gentle “shhhhh,” which, also predictably, was met with gestures of protest. 

“Man, this is more boring than school...” 

“Sometimes it kinda is,” I replied. (*truth* ….. sorry pastors) “But we still need to be quiet and respectful during service so people can listen.” 

When it came time for communion toward the end, folks at the front of the church started filing out of the pews and forming a line down the center aisle. It suddenly occurred to me that these kids probably had no idea what’s going on. Turning in my seat, I whispered to them, “has anyone ever explained to you why we take communion?”

“No.”

Okay. So, what the bible tells us is that we’ve all sinned––we’ve done and thought bad things––and fallen short of the perfect life God wants for us. But we’re in trouble because the penalty of sin is death, and we can’t save ourselves. So over 2,000 years ago, God came to earth as a man, Jesus, to live a perfect life for us. Even though he lived a sinless life, he was nailed to a cross.

The little girl's eyes grew wide.

By dying on the cross for us, He took our place and saved us from eternal death. And if you believe this, that Jesus died for you, that he took your place, then He will rescue you, too.

Her eyes grew wider still. And it occurs to me right about now how very crazy all of this sounds, especially if you’ve never heard anything about Jesus before. Can you even imagine? How foreign and morbid is the concept of sacrifice in a culture obsessed with self and instant gratification.

So this is why we take communion: we believe that it represents his body that was broken for us and his blood that was shed for us, so that we can live in freedom. We take it and remember what He’s done for us.

When I was finished, she said, “thank you for telling us.”

The next Sunday shortly after the kids arrived at church, an angry parent-figure appeared in the lobby and, yelling at them and gesturing wildly, marched them right back out the door. We never saw them again.

**************

Maybe it doesn’t really matter what brings you to God, only that you come. Maybe it doesn’t matter why you show up, just that you're here. God is big enough to work out all the details, because I’m convinced that whatever you’re seeking, you’ll find it here:

If you’re weary, there’s rest.

If you’re hot, there’s shade.

If you’re hungry, taste the bread of life.

(I hear it’s even better than the pastries.)

If you’re thirsty, there’s living water.

If you’re lost, you will be found.

If you’re blind, now you can see.

If you’re bored, wake up to wonder.

If you're lonely, find a friend in Jesus.

If you're desperate, there’s hope.

If you’re overwhelmed, there’s community.

If you’re disappointed, let’s grieve together.

If you’re sad, anxious, or depressed, you’ll fit right in.

If you’re happy but hollow, seek and you’ll find more.

If you feel dead inside, I’d like you to meet the Living God.

Oh come, all ye unfaithful. Just come.

P.S. I begrudgingly came to a protestant church for the first time in 1997. It wasn’t horrible. I stayed for the cute boys…..and a sense of belonging.

P.P.S. I’m still here, both for the cute boy and the belonging. ;) And also, God. He uses all of it, friends. Nothing is wasted.

what's the matter // what matters

What’s the matter?

It doesn’t matter.

It’s nothing.

I’m fine.

You are matter.

Made of matter.

A state of matter. 

Preferably solid.

Everyone is matter.

Everyone matters.

Everything is matter.

It all matters.

You matter.

He matters.

She matters.

They matter(s).

Here’s the truth, the marrow beneath the matter.

The solution, perhaps, to all that is the matter

with this disconnected world:

Your matter is me, and my matter is you.

The matter of our minds might differ wildly, 

but we are all made of the same matter.

Quarks and leptons, protons and neutrons.

Hair and flesh, blood and bone.

What matters is the manner in which we’re made:

Crafted in the very image of God.

We are infinite souls in a human-matter shell.

Our matter is given meaning by the Maker.

Desperate to be a part of something that matters,

we will believe anything. We will do anything.

Does it matter if I invest in what matters?

It will matter; give it time.

But in a world where everything matters, 

How do we find the eternal matter?

It turns out, the only matter that will survive

long after our demise is not matter at all.

Only three things will matter in the end––

Faith, hope, and above all, love.

While forever is firmly out of our grasp, 

we still have the matter at hand:

The matter I can reach out and grab with a fist,

and the one beyond, which is often missed.

What matters are the people in front of you today, 

the next thing you do, the next word you say.

#REPENT

You’re eager to begin anew. I get it.

Most of 2020 was like a container of toxic waste hidden inside a dumpster filled with excrement buried inside one of those huge junk removal bins that, after chucking all the vileness, hate, complicity, pride, and self-righteousness we could muster out the attic window of our nation, was set ablaze while the world looked on in horror. And I’m convinced that, at least to some degree, we are all slowly suffocating from the fumes.

[Oh, haaaayy! You probably realized right about now that you missed me…..or not….]

This past year had me feeling some sort of way, and it’s taken a while to find the words. Something bigger than the election is going on, something deeper and darker than the havoc COVID-19 has wrought. Maybe you can feel it, too—that something is terribly, possibly irreparably, awry.

It’s become way too easy to reduce someone to a label or category and demonize the whole group. Not only that, but it’s encouraged, even celebrated! We’ve forgotten how to listen to each other and that there’s a whole life story that lies behind held values and conclusions. What’s “right” is processed and packaged and fed to the blind and starving masses, but we seem to have lost the ability, the humanity and humility, to admit we could be wrong. We’ve exchanged the hard work of love for quick, cheap judgement and heap copious amounts of shame on one another instead of extending a handful of grace. 

I’m not a planner, hence I’m not the kind of person who typically has enough forethought to choose a word for the year. I normally pay attention to how things unfold and seek the truth God has for me in it. 

But I have been paying attention. 

For all the hateful, condemning rants I’ve seen from fellow Chirstians on the internet, for all the tonedeaf posturing and pompous self-righteousness expressed in their “anointed” opinions, horrifically, I can look at my own reflection in the mirror and see that same unspoken bent within me. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? [Jeremiah 17:9]

Repent.

I’ve heard it for months now. A steadfast, subversive battle cry. A revolutionary whisper. And I’ve tried to ignore it for just as long. Surely, there has to be another way, God—ANY other way. Of course I want things to change, but can’t You just direct me to the latest HIIT workout routine, bible journaling plan, 30 day cleanse, or perhaps a new President instead? I mean, we’re friends and all, but not like THAT…. 

Repent.

Hard pass. Give me another word. Preferably one that’s good and hope-filled. I’ll settle for plain old inspiring or even “eh.” Something I can talk about for a little while and then ignore like a resolution. Something I can put on a bracelet or prep mini photo challenges for on Instagram. Seriously, God. 

Repent.

Uggggghhhh. It sounds tacky and dated and like one of those cringy signs someone slaps on telephone poles every spring without fail. “Repent. Let Jesus help you!” Stuff like that makes us look bad, God.

Repent.

It’s not funny anymore. I DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT REPENTANCE ONLINE. I don’t even know what I would say. Or is it that I don’t want to think about what I’d need to say….

Repent.

Repent.

Repent.

….I’m afraid.

Repent.

Okay.

It’s at the exact point that makes us squirm and want to run away that we need to, in fact, press in. With a great deal of reluctance and ever so begrudgingly, of this I am sure. That’s where the good stuff is. The Life. The freedom. Even if we don’t know what we’ll find in the unknown. Even if we’re scared.

I’ve thought for a long time that love will be what stitches this broken world back together, scrap by swatch by frayed and tattered piece, but I realize now that repentance is the needle through which the love of God is thread. Repentance must go first. It needs to pierce our hearts and make room—a small hole for love to slip through, and for the long thread of everything else love tends to bring with it—compassion, forgiveness, unity, justice. Lasting, radical change.

You know the verse that says, “God is doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” [Isaiah 43:19]?

This is how He does it.

Repent.

Find a mirror and look at your own reflection. Let’s start there.

there was no needy person among them

It was almost 9:00pm and there I was at the counter, chopping some pickles, finally getting around to eating dinner, if you can even call it that.

“It’s a comfort food kinda night, huh?” my husband said, eyeing the start of what we call “hot pickle-cheese dip” around here. I shot him a sheepish, knowing look. Yeah, it is.

Sometimes when I feel depleted, my soul has an insatiable desire to create: order out of the swirling chaos, or to combine a bunch of nothing together and make it into something.

The perfect storm of emotional triggers had finally worn me down: the chaos of children home for summer and constantly in my space, too many things to do in too little time, being stretched beyond capacity in multiple areas, lack of uninterrupted sleep, struggling neighbors, financial worries, and the rollercoaster of imbalanced hormones left me exhausted...and apparently craving pickles.

A deep surrendered sigh escaped my lips, evidence of the strain I could no longer keep hidden, and I minced some jalapenos to the soundtrack of helplessness playing in my mind.

This is all too much.

I can’t do this.

I’m already overwhelmed––how am I supposed to add on even more?

I know they’re struggling and don’t have enough. But what if we don't have enough to share?

Maybe you listen to these songs, too? When we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, it’s heavy, overwhelming, and discouraging, to say the least. The paradox of reality is that you can be sinking while standing on the hardwood floor in your kitchen on an ordinary Monday. This is one of my personal deadly sins: that I try to carry it all by myself.

In what had to be a divine intervention, the book of Acts flashed through my mind, specifically how they all shared what they had with one another and everyone had enough. There was no needy person among them, it says. There was zero pressure to do more, acquire more, or figure out how to take care of everyone alone. All they had to do was simply share what they already had, and everyone received a portion. It may not have been as much as they wanted or looked exactly how they thought it would, but it was enough.

You see, when we stick to the basics of what is required of us, the yoke is easy and the burden is light. It strengthens our faith as we have the opportunity to behold Jesus making the little we have to offer into plenty. It draws boundaries around what we can and cannot do, and lets Him take care of the rest.

I also struggle with this assumed pressure in my creative life, feeling like I need to be or say or do certain things, giving people more of what they seem to want, manufacturing what I may not naturally have. And I suppose that’s a decent business model, a way of promoting a “brand,” but I’ve decided instead to simply offer what I have: my truest self and my story, and I’ll leave the rest to Him.

Jesus is the one who takes our meager offering and makes it into enough, not me. He uses our small sack lunch, which is really only enough to feed ourselves, to nourish the masses. So I can let go of the futile striving for my own glory and leave the impossible to Him. This is the everyday miracle of faith.