All posts tagged: #church

I Confess: I Don’t Want Donuts

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[Published on the Redbud Post on 4/1/17] Last weekend, I had eleven 12-year-old boys in my basement for a youth retreat. It was chaotic, gross, and perfect. We heard unhindered laughing, chasing, yelling, and body noises through two floors and closed doors. The leaders talked straight about God and good choices. Our doorbell rang at all hours, announcing the arrival of more volunteer drivers, youth mentors, and meal makers from the church. My son glowed with testosterone and belonging. On Sunday afternoon, I pulled on a hazmat suit and headed down the basement stairs to survey the damage. I picked up Slim Jim® wrappers, vacuumed millions of chip crumbs and rainbow Nerds candy, and looked away gagging when it came time to clean the toilet. But the entire time I smiled to myself and thanked God. This retreat was so much better than the last one. * * * When we moved to a new state a couple years ago, we knew we needed to find a church right away. We were deeply invested in the …

New Girl

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[featured on Perissos 6/3/16] I think I finally found a new church. I’ve been searching for a long time. I need a place where people accept me unconditionally, even when I make huge mistakes and have bad ideas. And thank God I found it. Right in front me. Right here on Hulu. It’s the TV show New Girl. One night my husband turned on a show with some woman in little girl/old lady dresses talking dramatically to three/four really immature guys. They all lived in a big loft together. I rolled my eyes. “Nope. This show looks lame.” He said, “I really think you would like it, but okay.” He turned it off. A couple months went by. The only things left in the queue were some documentaries we’re never going to watch. So my husband suggested New Girl again, and I relented. I laughed so hard. My husband smiled knowingly. We watched all five seasons. It is the story of the “adorkable” school teacher, Jess, and her three or four male roommates. Nick is the …

Church is like the Gym

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When I was young I was smart and skinny without trying. People thought I was funny and I had enough friends. There was no need for exercise. Certainly not competitive sports. When I was older, aside from not being skinny, I was always in pain, and I didn’t have experience, tools, or muscles to help me. I had to learn to exercise. One gray day during my captivity as a mom of toddler twins, Chris came home smiling and announced that we were getting gym memberships for Christmas. I glowered at him. Was he saying I was fat? He explained that the gym had free childcare for 2 hours a day, so I could go do my physical therapy, or I could sit in a lounge chair and read a book. I kept giving him the stink eye but ended up going to get my picture taken for the membership card and bribing the babies with jelly beans to go to childcare without screaming. Oh, how I loathe the gym. The PTSD from Jump Rope for Heart …

Contagious Compassion – The Earthquake in Haiti

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[Part Two of a three-part story about what happened when my kids decided we should “Help Haiti.”  Catch up on Part One, “Compassion Catapult – The Earthquake in Haiti“]   Five years ago Haiti was leveled by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.  Thousands upon thousands of people died, went missing, became orphans, lost their homes, and lost everything.  When my five year old twins heard about it, they declared that we were going to help.  We had never done anything like it before. Our family was catapulted into a new way of thinking with their declaration .  We spent our free time making cookies, bread, and Valentine ornaments to try to help a family in Haiti rebuild their home. Our lives looked really different for three weeks – all our playdates, evenings, and weekends were about making and delivering things with our own hands to help people we didn’t know.  In the end, friends donated $7678.31  – more than 15x our original goal of $500.  Amazing, humbling, and exciting. But somehow not enough. The week of the earthquake I happened to be walking …