community

Broken Batteries

“I’ve been told I’m just a body.”

“I struggle feeling like I’m too broken for God to actually use me.”

“I think God sees me as a piece of dirt.”

“I look so ugly unless I wear makeup.”

“I never want to be raped again.”

Heartbreak, over and over again. I am sitting across Starbucks tables, carpet floors, couches, cups of tea and coffee when I hear these words. My spirit is continually rent by the twisted lies coming out of the mouths of these women, young twenty-somethings who have been repressed and depressed and caged by various turmoils.

I am small. So. Terribly. Small. What on earth am I supposed to say, when the backstories come out and I haven’t lived through half of the nightmares of half of these voices? What do you offer souls that have been busted? How can I reverse a lifetime of degradation at the hands of an abusive father,

Broken Batteries2019-10-08T02:29:18+00:00

Drinking root beer and hanging with pastors on a Friday night

How can we not be excited about God?

I’ve been working on a short message from Ephesians 1:3-10 that I’m teaching on at our church’s monthly ladies’ breakfast. As I prayed about what to discuss, this subject kept floating back into my head: regaining our awe and wonder of God. Enter in the magnificent blessings we have in Christ.

The apathy is easy. The laziness is easy. Skipping our faithful reading of the Word is easy. And then we grow numb and forget who our Lord is and what exactly he has done for us. No wonder the Israelites were commanded to REMEMBER HIM:

“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that

Drinking root beer and hanging with pastors on a Friday night2015-06-27T03:19:04+00:00

Life as Collective

“Sometimes, when I get tired of campus, I go and sit with a homeless woman who lives down on State Street. I buy her coffee and keep her company until I’m ready to come back.”

Liz from Indiana looked earnestly at me as I blinked and smiled. She’s short, wears big glasses, and has fiery red hair with a cute scarf around her neck, but you would never guess that she grew up in rough inner-Indy, knows poverty well, and feels more at home on the South Side than on our chirpy, middle-class Bible school campus. For her, this is culture shock.

I find it fascinating.

Despite our backstories and contexts, Christ has brought us into the Kingdom of Light (Col. 1:13). Christ has redeemed us all. Christ lives in us.

I find it fascinating.

Despite our mixed bags of past and present, Jesus has strangely united us. This bizarre concoction that is the Body

Life as Collective2019-10-08T02:29:20+00:00