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“Boys Will Be Boys” and Other Lies
“He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction…it’s a temptation for him he wanted to eliminate.” Capt. Jay Baker, USA TODAY When I was fifteen years old, I took my first job as a waitress at a family-owned Italian restaurant. I enjoyed working long hours over my Summer vacation and worked many nights and weekends during the school year throughout my high school career. It was a busy restaurant, and I spent nearly every moment on my feet. One night a man came into the restaurant with his wife and teenage son. He was a regular, and I recognized him. His wife never seemed happy, and something…
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Know. Love. Serve.
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I Can’t Parent Like That
My guess is we’re all getting a front row seat to our natural strengths and weaknesses in the way we parent these days. I know I am. After all, my rhythms have been turned on their head and my responsibilities multiplied. From the way I accomplish work to the way I connect with my family, I’m flexing myself into a new way of being alongside them. The process is hardly straight-forward and rightfully unique to each of our families. At the end of the day, however, we get to rest in the assurance that God knew just what He was doing when He made us parents. He knew where we’d…
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To Empower Women…
To empower women is to free women to interact with the world in the way they’re uniquely designed as individuals. It’s the welcoming of women to serve the people around them based on their God-given passions, gifts, and ambitions without reducing them to their femaleness. It’s valuing a woman’s humanity before her function. It’s the celebration of women as Image Bearers capable of succeeding within a variety of contexts based upon their individual strengths. It’s the pushing aside of personal lifestyle choices that attempt to dictate the way in which a woman operates within those various contexts. It’s the recognition that a community flourishes when every person gets to contribute…
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Fostering Friendships
“You’re the only one that really knows me here.” At this point, she had already been attending our church for nearly two years. She even followed through by participating in a Sunday morning small group that met weekly. “I don’t usually share my story with everyone I meet; but, you’re really the only one that’s ever even asked anything about me. People have said ‘hi,’ they’ve smiled, told me it was nice to see me. But that’s where it has stopped.” I felt personally touched by her honesty but remained inwardly broken for her lack of genuine community. Broken because I knew she hadn’t entirely sat on the fence…
