Announcing A New Project: Breathing Room

This is how my ideas come to fruition: I have an idea. I think about that idea for a long time. I say the idea out loud, but only to myself. One day, I say the idea out loud to a trusted friend. Then, I say it to more friends. I practice speaking the idea.…

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The Opposite of Fear Is Not Courage

A few months ago I had a week full of fear related to my work. I felt overwhelmed, andthe thoughts running through my head looked something like this: “I don’t know what I’m doing.” “This is too much.” “I need to just find another job.” “I’m not going to be able to fulfill everyone’s expectations.” You…

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When You Realize You’re the Pharisee

Often when I read stories in the Bible about Jesus, I consider myself one of his disciples in the story, and I consider the Pharisees my enemies. But in reading a story in Matthew recently, I realized the reverse was true. Matthew 12 begins with Jesus and the disciples walking through some cornfields on the…

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The Truth About Writing Books and Perfection

  As I mentioned last week, I recently wrote a book. A dream come true. A freaking miracle. It’s about 65,000 words in its current state. Those 65,000 words are what I submitted to my editor. Then, there is a document hidden on my computer called “CUTS.” My dad told me about the CUTS document…

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Creating from the Hard Places

I’m in a women’s class at my church on Thursday mornings. We’re studying the book Waking Up Grey, which is all about waking up your creativity. As I sat in class last week, I looked around and noticed several women crying. They were just sitting there, letting tears run down hardly wiping them away. They looked…

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Why Being Still Makes Us So Uncomfortable

I hate being sick. I know everybody hates being sick, but I feel like I have a particularly hard time with it. I’ve had a cold since Friday, and I noticed that with this cold I was doing more than usual to try and make it go away as soon as possible. I took a…

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What It Means to Be Loved By God

I’ve been quiet in this space lately. Work has been consuming. Any spare time I have I devote to writing other things and writing here gets pushed farther and farther down the priority list. I don’t like it, but it’s the season I’m in right now. I listened to a song the other day that…

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