Does Anyone Else Have Bad Days? (I Have A Confession)

I have a confession to make. I'm twenty-three years old, and sometimes I still want to cut myself. And people make it seem like only teens struggle with it? Let me make myself clear. Years ago, I did what some would call "experimenting with self-harm." I pinched and slapped myself as a way to deal...

Rough Ride

It's a funny thing, when you've been on a soul-wrenching ride down white water rapids, and then realize that you've reached the end. After the months of living with heartbreak, is this what it's like to breathe? The foaming river subsides to a sporadic trickle, and you realize that what you told yourself  was true: the...

What Do You Mean, “Normal”?

Let me say this: I am consistently exposed to the kind of people that society often labels as "weird." Geeks. Bush-folk. Christians. Writers. Geek Christian Writers. (We're an exciting bunch.) So "weird" is normal to me. I hear rumours about "normal" people and the odd things they do and say, but I rarely witness it...

Shrapnel

Grieving is like pulling bits of shrapnel from your own body. With little anesthetic. You can't pull all of the  pieces out at one time. At first, you don't even realize where all the pieces are. This process takes time. When you get hit, there's a moment of debilitating shock. Don't try to avoid the...

Hang in there

This spring I was wondering where I would be living this summer and fall. I wondered about the cost of renting an apartment and what that would mean for saving up for bible school. I've been living with my wonderful sister (and her family) for over a year now, but I knew their living situation would...

The Fear of Losing Loved Ones

In the following, I've paraphrased several verses from the Bible (from the books of Matthew, Romans, Psalms, and I think Isaiah). Altogether, they're meant to address the fear of losing loved ones and help give freedom from that. Fear is draining and unnecessary. This is something that I've struggled with, so I hope this will help...

Today I’d like to give you a small sample of how God has been working with me since I came to Texas. I say a small sample because...let’s be honest, a lot’s happened. I don’t know where to begin. Let's start at the beginning. When the School of Writing first started, the leadership prayed for...

Thank God for Pain

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”  -Winnie the Pooh Yesterday we said goodbye to three members of our Woodcrest family, and one the day before that. All together, that's nearly half of the School of Writing students. It's wonderful having a group of people who fit so well together that...

The Challenging Dream

(It seems appropriate that I'd post this with the School of Writing creeping up. I wrote this several nights, er, early mornings, ago, and would like to share it with y'all.) Well, apparently my brain hasn’t gotten the memo that I need to be awake in about five hours. It just keeps chattering on and...

God just…

The best way to put it? God is awesome. God cares about us. He knows how we're feeling. And every now and then He likes to throw something at us to give us a fresh reminder us that He's still there, He knows us, and He cares. Simply put, God just has a way of...