Thanksgiving as a Gift to Save Us
A few weeks ago the church youth group invited me to be their guest speaker. The teenagers had prepared a few questions to ask, and one of them was, “How […]
Posts
Irresolutions: Battling Metaphors
The first thing my partner’s father asked after we told him I had cancer was, “Is Jo going to fight this?” It was a serious, intense question, one that we […]
Facing Fear: A Review of Everything Happens for a Reason
The other day, after school pick-up, my daughter and I swung by the church I serve to quickly pick up something. Naturally, my daughter had to use the restroom. While […]
Taste and See
“Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” –Psalm 34:8 I didn’t know what else to do, so I baked a […]
Unexpected colleagues, unanticipated friends
Asking for secretarial assistance or office support seemed a little ridiculous in my first parish. We had 15 to 20 in worship most weeks. I am as computer savvy as […]
The Nearness of the Clouds
Just before Christmas, I preached at the funeral of a beloved church and community member named Wendy. She struggled with cancer for many, many years—far more years than I knew […]
Learning to be a Daughter, Mother, and a Pastor . . . with Hope
The first month was the hardest. The time spent wondering—wondering what the future would hold, the next hour, the next day, and hopefully even the next year. The time spent […]
Triumph
The first copy of the soundtrack I owned was a cassette tape that contained most of the major songs from the musical. I wore it out. I handed it to […]
I Cannot Do This Alone
The doctor pushed the curtain aside and left to document the conversation in the file, leaving Shon and I to absorb the jagged pill he had just forced us to swallow. “There’s […]
