Ungrind

Article: Pondering Pet Peeves

I recently accepted the offer to be a regular contributor for Ungrind Webzine. I absolutely love their mission to encourage 20 and 30 something women in their daily walk with Christ.

This article went live yesterday. It’s on the lighthearted side. Feel free to share what your biggest pet peeve is… over there!

I’d just found a comfy chair to work on a writing deadline I had for an article. I listened to the faint chatter around me and opened my laptop anxious to flesh out some words on the blank screen. Then out of the corner of my eye a man in his 40′s plops down in the leather chair caddy corner from mine.

He opened his laptop and rustled through the notes in his briefcase. He looked at them intensely and took a deep breath. Whatever he was reading must have been really good from all the “oh’s,” “wow’s,” and “hmm’s” flowing unashamedly out of his mouth.

My eyes were glued to this man. I was waiting to see if he would quiet down at all or maybe get a hint. But he didn’t…

Read the rest over on Ungrind

Danielle on “The Radical Life”

Danielle wrote an article called “The Radical Life” that’s featured over on Ungrind and I’ve found great encouragement in it today. Maybe you’ve also struggled with how life can seem so mundane when it comes to nursing, caring for, and raising your own children when well, you could be on some great adventure somewhere else! Here are a few snippets from Danielle’s article:

I longed for more “productive” things I could be doing other than spending every few hours feeding my boys. My Type A personality could barely stand all the time I was “wasting” by sitting around all day on the couch nursing.

One day God spoke to my heart and showed me that although I’d longed to glorify God on the mission field, I wasn’t seeking to glorify Him at home. He impressed on me that caring for my babies’ daily needs was the specific way I could glorify Him in this season of life.

I now see God was gracious to show me how selfish I was and I know this was just the beginning of rooting out selfishness in the journey of motherhood.

Even though God hasn’t led me to the foreign mission field to start orphanages, He’s taught me how to glorify Him in my own home.

Check out the whole article on Ungrind.

Latest article on Permission to Speak Freely

Anne Jackson has a book releasing in 2010 called Permission to Speak Freely: Essays & Art on Fear, Confession, and Grace. We’ve been in touch here and there since we had lunch together at the RightNow conference.

Recently, Anne asked if she could publish my article An Uptown Confession (originally published on Ungrind.org) on the blog of her book.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the story (over there), and explore a little bit about her upcoming book and wildly popular blog Flowerdust.net. You can check it all out here.

I think you’ll be glad you did.

Article: An Uptown Confession

6a00e0099410db88330120a5d95c8c970b-800wiMy article, An Uptown Confession, was published yesterday on Ungrind. Here’s a little “scoop” into the article:

I made a pretty “I have it all together” appearance a lot like my pristine surroundings that night. But I neglected to reveal any kind of imperfections on the inside. Like a plastic promise, I pretended to be what I was not.

In the last few years, my view of confession and what it means to be authentic has been transformed into a “wholly biblical” one and it’s been life changing.

Confessing our sin aids in healing the tattered and broken pieces inside us. They are the places God knows about and is helping us through, but also the areas that others need to know too.

Confessing our sin to one another helps us see we were created for community and relationships. We were created to embrace confession as a lifestyle.

Remembering, considering, and confessing sin is not an easy task. It requires humbling myself to walk backstage for a behind-the-scenes look into the dressing room of my soul — where there is no make-up or fancy dress to hide my shame, flaws, and insecurities. Even though it can be so bitter at first, in the end it is so sweet. It’s a “detergent for the soul” as the famous theologian Jonathan Edwards once said.

How has confessing your sins healed you and other relationships? What do you fear most about others taking a behind-the-scenes look into who you really are?

Article: Vulnerable & Unashamed

courtesy of Ungrind.org


I was reading an article on Ungrind the other day that I’ve fallen in love with. It’s called Vulnerable and Unashamed by Christin Taylor. I was immediately drawn by her writing style, use of metaphors, the pictures she paints with words, and her authenticity.

Many of us have experienced moving to different cities, finding new friendships, and the whirlwind adjustments that go with that. Some of us struggle to allow other women into our souls for the fear of being wounded, rejected, or just “known.” We’d rather let them skim the surface. But God didn’t create us for shallow women friendships- He wants us to be known into the depths- scars, bruises, insecurities and all.

Here are a few sneak peaks into Christin’s article:

Movies and love songs croon about a desire to be seen and accepted by the men in our lives, but here is a deep down truth, a hidden knowing: husbands, boyfriends, and babies cannot satisfy the extents of our relational needs. Women’s hearts are vast and we need the love, the friendship, the intimacy of other women.

I’ve been so busy trying to keep myself from the pain of making new friends, the pain of loosing old ones that I’ve neglected to see the power of that pain. Maybe I’m supposed to let these relationships peel away the dead skin on my heart. Perhaps I’ve gotten too comfortable, been too self-absorbed, and the burn of vulnerability does a scrubbing work on my soul. I go in tan, I come out bright pink.

In order to engage in the intimacy of women friendships it means letting each other close to the fleshy part of our hearts, and that means sometimes getting snagged.

Check it out on Ungrind!

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