Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes (turn and face the strain)

People deal with change in their very own, unique way. Some people truly hate it, some people get all giddy over it. I am the kind of person who acts like I hate it but inside I am secretly all giddy.
Everyday I get to know myself a bit more. This time I have discovered that [...]

Jesus is not Ghandi

Last Thursday Dustin and I saw David Bazan perform a “house show” at our friend Josh’s place. There was about 50 of us nicely packed into the living room where Bazan strummed his guitar and played a great acoustic set that even included some classic Pedro the Lion songs.
Bazan always has a question and answer [...]

Bitterness Sucks.

Each year we do 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting at our church. This year the Pastors were asked to take 1 of the days and write a blog post on the verse/topic of the day. I thought I would post mine here to share. It’s a bit long, but give it a chance. [...]

Get the heck out of here.

I just read that Ryan Adams married Mandy Moore. Mandy frickin’ Moore. This better not change the love-sick, depressing music I have come to love from Ryan Adams. How can an artist continue writing about love and loss after getting married? I had the same fears when Chris Martin married Gwyneth Paltrow. Coldplay’s music was [...]

Beauty

I am currently reading Captivating by Stasi Eldridge for a small group that I’m in. It’s not a book that I would necessarily read on my own, but I don’t mind reading it for the group. I finished the first chapter yesterday and a certain excerpt really stood out to me:
My daughter Emma–nearly six years [...]

Book Review: Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan has written eighteen books, three of which I have read. My goal is to read all eighteen. Until then here are 3 short reviews of the McEwan books I have read.
Title: Saturday//Published:2005

Saturday is a “conscience” novel, meaning the author shows us what passes through the mind of a character during a single day [...]

a mix fit for a president

Dear Mr. President,

First off let me just say Congratulations on your historic nomination! I may or may not have voted for you, but it really doesn’t matter now, does it. I was thinking of ways to welcome you to your new role and to the White House, a plate-of-brownies-for-the-new-neighbor type of gesture. I [...]

Broken Cisterns-a quote to ponder today.

“Men are in a restless pursuit after satisfaction in earthly things. They will exhaust themselves in the deceitful delights of sin, and, finding them all to be vanity and emptiness, they will become very perplexed and disappointed. But they will continue their fruitless search. Though wearied, they still stagger forward under the influence of spiritual [...]

It’s about Process not Perfection

Dustin and I had an amazing conversation today about what we are both learning (with help from the Holy Spirit and Celebrate Recovery). Dustin was explaining how all his life he thought if he could just take care of sins, maybe not every sin, but at lease some, then he could lessen the weight that [...]

Forfeiting Grace

Celebrate Recovery teaches that SIN is a symptom of a character defect. When we allow God to remove the character defect the sin will naturally go away. For example, a man may cheat on his wife and this is the sin, but it is due to lack of self esteem which is a character defect.
I [...]