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Dating with Purpose (part 1)
If you know me, when you see this title you might be thinking, what’s she have to say on dating? She hasn’t been on a date in years. I can hear the statement drawn out in Fran Drescher’s, New York accent, which makes it sound far more tragic than it should. In defense of my delicate ego, it’s only been a few years, not decades. Though none of that means anything to God. When he gives us truth to apply in this life, we can depend on its value, whether we’re cashing in on it today, ten years from today, or just sharing it along the way. The fact that…
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The Cost of a Life Lived in Indulgence
In recent weeks I’ve been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s, Little House in the Big Woods with my five year old. Despite the hardships of living off the grid, before there even was a grid, Laura and her family felt content and secure in their snug little cabin with their dog, Jack, standing guard and Pa’s loaded gun over the door. When she tells of her aunt and uncle along with her cousins coming to stay with them for Christmas, there’s no hint of the frustrations endured by the Griswolds in Christmas Vacation, yet they all shared one modest space with no indoor plumbing. On Christmas morning when the children woke…
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Cheerfully Single?
It’s been several years since my last relationship ended and I mourned the death of yet another dream. Sure I cared for him, but the truth is I was grieving the loss of more than just a man. Much of my feeling for him was entangled with grand expectations of what I believed we could be. I wanted love, craved acceptance and hoped to be validated through his desire to commit to me, but after two and half years he chose to leave instead. I was devastated, not just because I got dumped, although that definitely had some punch, but rather because I finally saw I was the problem. I’m…
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Are you Living Like You’re in the Army?
There used to be an ad for the Army that suggested enlisted individuals do more before nine a.m. than most people do all day, with the tagline “Be all that you can be”. I suppose the ad was intended to inspire, but it just made me feel guilty, like I really needed to step up my game if I didn’t want to be like all those other slovenly Americans. It probably sounds a bit ridiculous, but the truth is I’ve always carried this oppressive feeling I had to prove myself, driving me to become this perfectionistic, over-achiever that rarely rested. In my mind, I was singing Ethel Mermen, “Anything you…
