Danielle in Baton Rouge

To my Prodigal, I don’t think you realize how much brighter and happier you make my life and the lives of other people around you. I’m not sure you understand how valuable you are. You have so much to offer the world. Your value as a person doesn’t ultimately depend on what you do or don’t do, though. Our good and evil choices and actions do not determine our value in God’s Kingdom. You, like everyone else, are valuable because you exist. And your existence is on purpose. There are not mistakes or accidents in God’s creation. Listen closely – you are not an accident or mistake. You’re a miracle, a masterpiece. “So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27) “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10) On the hardest and darkest days – when I despair that the injustice in this world will c

What causes a place not to feel like home anymore? Sometimes, the place changes in ways that means it alienates instead of embraces you. Other times, you change and the place that once was a safe and inviting space, a shelter, does not seem able to offer the same level of security it once did. Wounds can also break heart and soul ties between you and what was once home. Open wounds can foster a sense of bitterness and harden your heart toward the place you used to call home. Healing, forgiveness, even reconciliation can restore broken hearts and strained relationships but a “new’ condition is not the same as the “original” condition, which may mean wounds are healed but home is still lost.  Homelessness is an experience of suffering, but it is not fruitless. Suffering, framed Biblically, bears fruit in our lives. It refines us and pulls us closer to the heart of the Father. Jesus suffered homelessness. He tells an overeager potential follower, “Foxes have holes, and birds of a

I am supposed to keep my newsletters kind of short, but I am a kind of longwinded person. No one reading this who has ever read other blog posts is surprised. So...here's some added details I left out of my newsletter! Week 1: We traveled to Belgium overnight, arriving on July 10. Between the 10-14th, we had training camp for 30 athletes who were mostly Belgian and American high school and college students. As a SQ staff member, I helped lead the training, including workshops on the project guidelines, discipleship and evangelism, and sports ministry strategies. We also spent time doing team building activities and worshiping together in preparation for the weeks of ministry ahead. Leading a workshop during Training Camp Week 2: On Saturday the 14th, we split off into smaller sports-based teams and took trains to the cities where we would be serving for the upcoming week. My teammates were Daniel (co-leader, from Germany), Marnus (Belgian), Darcy (Belgian), Adri (Belgi

I spent part of my birthday week this week with two best friends in New York I turn 30 tomorrow so I figured it’s a good time to pause and reflect on life. 30 is considered an important age milestone, the end of youth in some respects.  I think this photo illustrates well just how grown up I am at *almost*  30 Cultural expectations surrounding 30 are that someone will have finished education, settled down and started a family, found a good stride in a career, bought a house, etc. I haven’t really done any of these things except education – and if you know me, you know that was finished December 2016, 6.5 years after most of my peers exited college. I stayed in graduate school for my MA and PhD – which is considered an acceptable alternate path to starting a family and career right away, as long as it is followed by getting a decent paying job in the field you studied (and then starting a family and buying a house).  Graduation day in December 2016 But the