February 18, 2024
It is only those who have never been truly listened to who demand that every person on the face of the planet find deep, meaningful connection with every word that tumbles from their lips.
Those who know someone understands them have no need for everyone to understand them.
February 21, 2024
People usually talk about hope as if it is an effortless thing.
You either have it or you don’t.
But maybe hope is actually like everything else — maybe you have to fight for it.
Maybe you have to exercise hope just like you do faith and love.
It’s not a mystical state of being that’s dropped into your head and heart.
It’s like a muscle.
February 29, 2024
There really is no such thing as an individual who finds and settles their sense of worth all on their own by self-talk and self-encouragement.
We discover who we are in large part by the reactions of those around us.
Which is why we share with others.
We share the things we dream about, the things we enjoy, the things we make.
We’re not just sharing in the hope that someone agrees with us or likes that thing.
We are sharing us, the core of who we are, and we’re hoping that someone will tell us that they see US, that they find joy and happiness in US.
April 29, 2024
Information and facts.
Those seem to be the cornerstone of Western culture.
Yet information is not necessarily knowledge and facts are not necessarily truth.
May 10, 2024
The consequences of redemption are just a harrowing in their own way as the consequences of refusing to repent.
June 13, 2024
What is strength?
Is strength getting up in everyone’s face and screaming that every individual on the face of the planet must acknowledge that you matter?
Or is strength persevering in the often hard work of healing, learning how to be a true human being even when you are confronted by those who insist on taking their pain out on you?
October 10, 2025
The wounded of the church tell you not to be angry.
It’s a sin.
The wounded of the world tell you to be enraged.
It’s your right.
However, no one is talking about the truth that anger and rage aren’t the same thing.
Those in the church do their utmost to get you to deny your pain.
Those in the world goad you into screaming your pain at the top of your lungs.
Yet neither group seems to know how to help in any tangible ways.
Church goers want to pretend like there is no storm.
World dwellers want to slam everyone’s face into the storm.
But no one tells you how to navigate through the storm.
The church has artists who consistently divert attention away from the truth that there is ugliness.
The world has artists who only want to yell and shout about all things ugly under the guise of calling for action.
Meanwhile, ugliness proliferates and too few are doing any actual things about it.
I WILL CHOOSE TO BE DIFFERENT.
I will use my emotions as I believe God intended them to be used — even anger — as the spark that ignites the flame of action.
I will treat pain with compassion and grace and work at helping others figure out what their pain is trying to communicate so that they can find ways to heal and become stronger.
I will show others how to prepare for the storms when the weather is calm and I will point them towards the lighthouses when the storms hit.
And I will do battle with ugliness not by spewing more ugliness into the world but by pouring as much beauty into what I do as I possibly can.