Why We Need Forgotten Stories
A solemn little one-room church in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains has stood empty for nearly a hundred years. The doors hang in open, welcoming silence, the pews and pulpit still in place like they’re waiting for familiar voices to echo off the plank walls. There have been stories in this place. Generations of worship and weeping, baby laughter, passionate vows, and whispered gossip, all silent and forgotten. Even here, where thousands of tourists wander in and out every year, most of the stories will never be heard again. That’s true for almost all words spoken since the beginning of time. Few stories make it past a generation or two. Most words are born and die in quiet corners without ever finding a stage. Does that hiddenness make them less valuable? As a...
Read MoreThe Benediction
Dear Charleston Lady whose bright eyes have seen nine decades, We saw you before you saw us. You leaned in heavy concentration on your walker, your face soft and lovely and your perfectly pink lips pursed as your gentle caregiver encouraged you forward. You turned our way when we paused to let you cross the sidewalk, and your look of curiosity blossomed into wide-eyed, open-mouthed recognition. You knew us. Or at least you knew what it was like to be us. Maybe for a moment it was you strolling hand-in-hand down the sidewalk with your man, your red summer dress catching the seacoast breeze. Maybe it was your own handsome husband stealing grateful glances at his bride, calculating the weight of God’s faithful goodness over the years. Maybe for a second your back...
Read MoreThe Myth of Calm and the Better Peace
The tiny, tender leaves outside my window are dancing hard in an aggressive spring rain, whipping and twisting so much that I wonder how they’re holding to their stems. Rain brings life, I know, but this storm seems like a threat to new growth. Hold on, little leaves. The storm will roll by. You’ll be okay. I’m talking to myself. I know that rain-lashed feeling, the uncertainty whether my fragile unfurling will survive another downpour. It’s been a season of loss and change — beautiful, exhausting upheaval full of feelings too large to fit in my chest. In the past, I would have wanted to return to emotional equilibrium as soon as possible. Big feelings press and stretch in uncomfortable ways. A sense of steady calm seemed like a pleasant, respectable goal — even...
Read MoreWhy I Still Choose the Church
There’s a little white hilltop church in an Ohio mill town where everything used to be right with the world. In that sanctuary, with wooden beams stretching overhead and stained glass light laying like a patchwork quilt across my lap, I was known. I was Jim’s granddaughter, Jo’s firstborn, a kid who sang solos in the Christmas pageant and ate Mrs. Tillery’s homemade cookies in the basement with the youth group. The night I was baptized, my grandfather prayed a blessing over me. I don’t remember what he said, but his words wrapped my seven-year-old heart in settled safety, and I knew being a Christian was the best thing in the whole world. I didn’t understand then how Christians can fail, how we can tear into each other with gossip and accusations and silence and...
Read MoreWater on the Flames of Fear
Sawdust and fish. That’s what my grandfather’s shed smelled like. The memory was so strong that I escaped there from the reality of life in remote Papua New Guinea, where the days pressed in and my chest burned with anxiety. In my mind I could see Pappah’s workbench, his tools all in their places, his tackle box and fishing pole against the wall. I could hear him whistling though his dentures as he checked on his beefsteak tomatoes and swept mulch back into the plant bed. Nearly every day I closed my eyes and my thoughts fled there until my breathing slowed again. Maybe it was because Pappah had been a shelter for my young heart. Or maybe life had just felt simple and safe in that shed. My life had become anything but simple since the last time I’d stood there...
Read MoreA Gift Like Matthew
Everybody needs to know someone like my cousin Matthew. A traumatic premature birth left Matt with catastrophic brain damage, and his doctors believed he wouldn’t live much past his teens. He turned 40 this year. As a quadriplegic, Matt can’t walk or even roll over in bed unassisted, he can’t care for any of his own needs, and he struggles to speak clearly. And he’s one of the best humans I know. Matt’s a grin machine on wheels. He’s passionate about his church, his favorite restaurant, his day program, and Barry Manilow. In a social climate choked with anger and opinions, Matt is fresh air because he’s exceptional at two things: loving and being loved. Every Labor Day weekend for well over a hundred years, our family has gathered on a Kentucky hillside to play...
Read MoreDear American Church: We’re Not an Exception
Dear beloved American Church, We are beloved, it’s true. But not because we’re American. Don’t get me wrong — I’m grateful to be an American. I love this country and its freedoms and rhythms and beauty. God has worked in some amazing ways and impacted the world through His people here. But He’s also worked in amazing ways and impacted the world through His people from Korea and Australia and the U.K. and the Netherlands and South Africa and so many other places . . . I’ve seen some of this firsthand as I’ve served alongside faithful believers in international communities. No, we’re not beloved because we’re American. We’re beloved because we’re part of God’s global family, with brothers and sisters scattered from Uganda and Norway to Venezuela and Myanmar. We’re...
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