Reflections

Category: Uncategorized

  • God is good, all the time.

    As a young, uniformed girl at my Christian elementary school, I often heard the call-and-response “God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good.” I said these words with everyone else. I knew them to be true because, well, I didn’t know anything different. However, when my older sister Katie died…

  • "Come Further Up, Come Further In!"

    One night during my final weeks at seminary, a few of my friends and I decided to put together a picnic so that we could eat while enjoying a local sunset view. The four of us all packed our food, then plugged a beach name into our GPS – one none of us had ever…

  • On Repotting.

    In August 2015, I walked into the garden care section of a Springfield, MO, Walmart with a dear friend, intent on bringing a plant back with me to keep in my dorm room.  It was senior year, and I was comforted by the prospect of being able to nourish a little bit of green as…

  • Why Hospital Chaplaincy?

    Since I’ve noticed that hospital chaplaincy can actually be quite a mysterious vocation, I thought I’d write a bit about why this ministry has so moved my heart. The first time I encountered a chaplain was when I was twelve years old, six months after my sister Katie suddenly died. After being in a grief…

  • What I’ve Learned from the Spiritual Disciplines.

    As the past two weeks have shown me that my schoolwork is monstrously piling up, I’ve decided to tie up my weekly account of the spiritual disciplines (at least for now). Though I may get back on this road of experimentation in the future, I have chosen to stop and to reflect at this point…

  • Week Ten: Retreat.

    This past week, I had the opportunity to participate in a day-long retreat with a discipleship center we have on campus called The Pierce Center for Disciple Building. These day-long retreats have very much become part of the fabric of my time at seminary (I have gone on five), giving me just enough pause to…

  • Week Nine: Scripture Memorization.

    This past week, I practiced a discipline that reminded me of my elementary school days of memorizing chunks of Scripture.  However, this week was probably my first time memorizing Scripture not for a homework assignment or a Bible quiz competition.  Instead of my motivation being external, it was internal – truly wanting to tuck God’s Word…

  • Week Eight: Celebration.

    Since this past week was my ‘birthday week,’ I thought it would be a good time to put into practice the spiritual discipline of Celebration. When I think of the word ‘celebrate,’ my mind immediately wanders back to an old VHS about Disney World I used to watch as a kid; Mickey and his friends,…

  • Twenty-Four.

    Twenty-three has been a sweet year, filled more with what’s felt like moments than days and weeks and months. Here’s some of the moments I remember: Starting my birthday last year with my dear friend Shannon, as well as my college-pals-and-still-pals Jeremy and Jami, on a Rhode Island adventure. I remember feeling so cold on the coast…

  • Week Seven: Examen.

    This week, I very acutely realized that I was cranky. After a Nor’easter (a fierce New England storm) knocked out our power on campus – not once but twice – I had had enough.  The darkness of the power outage did not bother me so much as the lack of heat in my bedroom.  Even…