"O Come, All You Unfaithful"

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I have sung “O Come, All Ye Faithful” about 700 times. I enjoy singing it, though a certain worship pastor/friend always made me sing about 3 verses too many. (Hey, Adam!)

But when someone messaged me with a song by Sovereign Grace Music called “O Come, All You Unfaithful,” I gasped. In a year in which many of us do not feel faithful, joyful, and triumphant, the lyrics of this new song cracked my heart open. “Oh come, all you unfaithful / Come, weak and unstable / Come, know you are not alone.” I have listened to it no less than 500 times, and I have been totally captivated by the gospel because of this song. It is almost constantly playing at my house.

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Healing for your Sunday Story

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Healing for your Sunday Story

Today is Friday. We all like Friday—Friday has tons of friends. Friday sits at the popular table in the lunchroom. Friday throws great parties.

Sunday is a different story. Some of us enjoy having her around, others of us get prickly when we think of her. Maybe you’re part of the prickly crowd. Maybe to you, Sunday represents obligation and expectation, maybe it reminds you of betrayal from people who should have never betrayed you, maybe it exposes your loneliness, maybe it highlights your failures.

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A Prayer for Those Who Hurt on Sundays

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A Prayer for Those Who Hurt on Sundays

“Easy like Sunday morning” are lyrics that can grate. Not because it’s hilariously difficult to get everyone ready and into the car on a Sunday (it is!) but because of something much deeper. Because church, for some, is a place of deep loneliness. Of profound wounds. Of rejection. Of distrust. Of having to stand next to offenders and hear their voices proclaim worship. Of realizing your own role as an offender and having to encounter those you’ve hurt.

Once, in a room full of people, we were asked the question, “Is it easy to love the Church?” Everyone around me nodded quickly and happily, saying, “ Yes! We love our church!” My jaw dropped.

This is not my experience. I am bloody from my attempts to love the Church.

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Savoring & Sharing: When God Calls Us to Silence and When He Calls Us to Speak

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Savoring & Sharing: When God Calls Us to Silence and When He Calls Us to Speak

The reason why we do things matters, you know? I can tell the difference in my soul when I’m changing outfits because I feel insecure and when I’m changing outfits because the southern weather (once again) unexpectedly changed seasons without warning.

I can also tell the difference when I’m listening to a sermon or a podcast or reading my Bible because I am chasing after togetherness with God or when I’m listening/reading because I want to send the information off to someone else as quickly as possible, like spiritual hot potato.

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The Pastor's Wife

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The Pastor's Wife

“Your husband is in seminary. What would he think about what you’ve done?”

I was 21, and these words shattered my heart. They have become a haunting soundtrack to some of my darkest days, and their rhythm has sometimes been hard to escape. It was the first time my husband’s position had been used as a weapon against me. It would not be the last.

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