While I’m a massive fan of Christmas, there is something about Easter that, on a spiritual level, I actually prefer. Observing this series of days—from Ash Wednesday, all the way up to Holy Week—that incorporate a sequence of spiritual practices, I find it life-giving for my faith.
Have you ever wished that your relational life was like Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants? Surrounded by people who are all supportive, who want the best for you and will go to bat for you; who know when you need picking up and when you need a stern word.
Instead, friendships are often a tricky arena.
It was in intermediate school when I discovered that I was “weird”.
According to this group of “cool” girls in my class, I was strange. Odd. Intense. Weird.
And rather than this remaining merely their opinion, I considered their words authoritative on who I was.
With Christmas just around the corner, I’m sure all of us are seeing a lot of the nativity scene—the holy couple, tucked neatly into a triangular barn, with heads tilted toward the chubby babe Jesus, laid in a manger of hay.
But did you know that how we tend to picture the nativity scene may not be totally accurate?
I don’t like it when people correct me. Maybe because I’m like every other person before me, convinced that I know what I’m doing and don’t really need anyone else’s input.
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I was profoundly uncomfortable with the ordinary part of my Christian life.
My early life of faith featured sermons on how to “believe to receive” or “name it to claim it”, and how God would give you everything you wanted.
We know waiting is a part of life, but it doesn’t stop us from getting a bit cross when things don’t happen soon enough.
Why can’t God just snap His fingers and make the thing happen for us?
This ANZAC Day, I reflect on a story that’s woven into my own family’s history. Like all families, we too carry history of personal stories and experiences of those harrowing times.