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God Doesn’t Have a Big Plan for Your Life
Living Faithful, Ordinary, and Obscure A Good Lie He was at least twenty years old the year he lead my 6th grade Vacation Bible School group, and I was twelve. But age was just a number, and I was certain that I would grow up and marry that man. Randy was going to Bible college to be a missionary. He loved sharing the gospel. He was passionate about people in other countries who had never heard about Jesus. My twelve-year-old heart was passionate about Randy. God had a big plan for his life and I wanted to be a part of it. Then he got married to a girl he…
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The God Who Is Here With Us
An Unexpected Discovery Last weekend my family went camping at Silver Lake State Park. Sunday was a windy, cooler day so we took advantage of the weather and hiked a mile and a half across the sand dunes to Lake Michigan. Sweatshirts went on, off, and on again as we hiked. We finally made it—panting and sweating—to the beach. The wind was whipping and the waves were huge. There was no one else in sight. It felt like we were the only people left on the planet. We watched the water crashing at our feet and wandered along the edge of the sand. In the distance I spotted something strange.…
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Perspectives, Jinger Duggar Vuolo, and Faith Deconstruction
The Duggar Family and Me I always know when something has come out about the Duggar family because suddenly some of my old blog posts and podcasts start being found again. Sure enough, Jinger Duggar Vuolo has written a book titled, “Becoming Free Indeed” telling her story of walking away from the legalism she experienced while being raised in a family who followed Bill Gothard’s cultic teachings. Jinger and I were part of the same cult; I’m just a good ten plus years older than her. She was starting to show up as a child in TV specials about the time I was exiting the culture and mindset. I’ll be…
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Is This Really What We Sound Like?
I listened to another Christian talk the other day. They were defining what it means to “really be a Christian.” I know they meant well, but as I listened I just felt discouraged. People who were not following the rules didn’t make the cut: they lived with their significant others before marriage, didn’t attend the right churches, or didn’t have enough fruit in their lives. I found myself wondering if this person knew that I often enjoy a good beer or a glass of wine. Did the fact that they were bolding confiding in me mean they thought I was good enough? Or were they trying to send me a…
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Celebrities for Jesus and Fred Rogers
In a time when large swaths of the America church have merely mimicked worldly concepts of power, going for bigger, louder, glitzier, we have to return to the small, the quiet, the uncool, and the ordinary. Obscurity may very well be the spiritual discipline the American church needs to practice the most in the coming century. Katelyn Beaty, Celebrities for Jesus My husband and I finally watched It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the Tom Hanks movie from 2019 about Fred Rogers. Wow. I had instant childhood flashbacks–sitting in my grandma’s den on her little couch, drinking my glass of orange juice, and watching Mr. Rogers calmly explain things…
