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Call Me a Heretic, But the Bible Isn't What You Think It Is

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:19:49 -0400

“I love you,” she said, “I just don’t love what you’re doing. I mean, I love you, but I hate your sin.”

The “sin” she was talking about was me, as a woman, being a music pastor.

Meanwhile, she was the Sunday school superintendent and got to oversee male Sunday school teachers.

I went to college to become a church musician. I focused on music, church history, and undergraduate theology. I studied piano, organ, singing, choral directing, music composition, worship leading, and devotional writing. I worked on public speaking and took the honors leadership track to learn what it takes to lead in evangelical Christianity.

I was thoroughly trained and equipped for this position, and yet I was still “wrong” for being made in a woman’s body.

It would have been okay if I held the title of “organist,” but the title of pastor was, apparently, sacred and exclusive to men.

It was okay for me to sing in church, but not to speak. All because of two sets of verses: 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 and 1 Timothy 2:11–12, which state that the author (traditionally attributed to Paul) didn’t allow women to speak in church. Bible-purists take this literally, for all women, ignoring the complex context surrounding these verses.

In many evangelical circles you’re taught that the Bible is God’s actual words: infallible, inerrant, perfect, useful for every kind of teaching. Some will go so far as to say you don’t need anything else to understand life—everything you need is within the pages of the Bible. And you are not to question what the Bible says; you are to take it at face value. Literally. Women must remain silent and not have authority over men.

I find this view very confusing and contradictory. I mean, I certainly love the Bible—but not in the way they mean. I’m sure I’ll be called a heretic for this, but it won’t be the first time I’ve been ostracized for my beliefs, even when I considered myself conservative.

How can we say that God wrote the Bible when Paul explicitly says he wrote it? “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand” (Galatians 6:11).

The Bible was written by people (with the exception of the Ten Commandments, which the story says God literally wrote on tablets of stone in Exodus).

What the Bible actually is, is a collection of writings from different people groups across different ages. These writings show how particular communities experienced and understood God.

One of my favorite examples of this is the story of Noah and the ark.

In seminary, we had to choose a text and build a case about whether that text was literal or allegorical. At the time, I would have taken Noah’s ark as a literal story. But the Bible isn’t a modern history book—it’s more like an oral history. That means a Bible story may be a story told to offer wisdom (like “the boy who cried wolf”), not a journalistic report.

Around the same time period as the Noah story, there were several different Mesopotamian flood myths. They all had similar themes: an angry god or gods destroyed the earth with a flood, and the hero of the story built a boat to survive. You’ll find these stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Epic of Atra-Hasis, and the Sumerian Epic of Ziusudra. In Greek mythology, Zeus sends a flood and the hero and his wife survive in a wooden chest. There are similar stories in Hinduism and Mandaeism as well. In many of these stories, the gods are angry at humanity.

So what made the story of Noah’s ark different?

Noah’s ark takes the shared flood motif and spins it to show that Israel’s God is not just another angry, fickle deity. Noah is saved, and God puts a rainbow in the sky as a sign of a promise: never again will God destroy the earth by flood, showing that God is not angry with his people.

Whether or not someone reads it as strict history, it certainly functions as an epic reworking of a common ancient story to show that the Israelites viewed God differently than the surrounding cultures viewed their gods.

The challenge of the Bible, then, isn’t to try to apply all of it literally, but to discern what parts of the text are wisdom stories, what parts are poetry, what parts are law codes, letters, laments, etc.—and how each of those genres speaks to us. Jesus himself spoke in parables and stories, so why would we not expect something similar throughout the rest of Scripture?

But wait, there’s more.

The Bible wasn’t just handed to us by God as a leather-bound, complete edition. It evolved over years of community life in ancient Israel and the early church. The source material is complex—we have bits and pieces of manuscripts that don’t always add up neatly to a complete whole. Some of the sources and manuscripts are contradictory. Why? Because scribes made copies of copies, by hand.

There was no single, complete “master copy” to check their work against. They just copied the last copy they had. They made errors. They made word choices. They made their own adaptations. So if the source material sometimes contradicts itself, how can we say that the Bible is absolutely inerrant? If we know the scribes made mistakes, how can we insist there aren’t any?

Take some of the harshest lines about women. Many biblical scholars argue that the most restrictive passages—especially in 1 Timothy, and even a couple of debated verses in 1 Corinthians—may not reflect Paul’s own voice at all. The Pastoral Epistles are widely seen as written later in Paul’s name, which means the “women be silent” lines in 1 Corinthians were not a command made by Paul. If that’s true, then the verses that make women “less than” would be reflecting later church politics and patriarchy more than the heart of the gospel itself.

Modern-day translators also have a hard job. They want to be “true” to the text as much as possible, but there is still a lot of leeway in their translations. You might be surprised to learn that there is also a bit of biased marketing involved in Bible translation.

New translations of the Bible are always created with a particular audience or market in mind. Translation committees and publishers know the theology and expectations of the people they’re serving. And the wording of passages—especially controversial or “clobber” passages—is often shaped by those expectations. Basically, the difficult verses tend to get translated in ways that relate to the established theology of the denomination or group who is most likely to buy that Bible version.

Then there are other adaptations of the Bible over time. For example, the English word homosexual does not show up in a major Bible translation until 1946, in the Revised Standard Version. Before that, translators used other English words for the tricky Greek terms in those verses—things like “sodomites” or “abusers of themselves with mankind.” Many scholars argue that those ancient words referred to exploitative or abusive sexual practices—sex used as power over another—rather than mutual, loving same-sex relationships as we understand them today. But the introduction of the modern word homosexual into the text created a passage that was used to exclude certain people from church life, rather than love and include them.

So when someone tells me, “I love you, but I hate your sin,” while using this complicated, human, shaped-and-reshaped library of texts as a weapon—especially against women in ministry—I can’t help but ask:

Is the problem really me?
Or is it how we’ve chosen to read, translate, and wield the Bible?

Those hurtful words didn’t change my theology and they certainly didn’t make me repent. What they did do was chip away at my sense of worth and drive an unbridgeable wedge between that Sunday school superintendent and me. Because if we’re really trying to be true to the Bible’s deepest pulse, we won’t use it to squeeze people into our tiny boxes of “right” and “wrong.” We’ll stay open to how other communities and individuals actually encounter God, even when it doesn’t look like us.

And that, to me, is the beauty of the Bible. We don’t know God because He dropped a perfect rulebook out of the sky. We know God because generation after generation of people, from wildly different cultures and contexts, met something Holy and tried to name it. We get to listen in on all the different ways they experienced Him.

So if my call, my body, or my voice don’t fit someone’s narrow reading of Scripture, that doesn’t make me less called, less loved, or less faithful. It just means their view of God is too small—and I’m no longer willing to shrink my life to fit it.

The Blessings and Challenges of Food Banks

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 15:40:20 -0400

I’ve been on the giving end and I’ve been on the receiving end. And in a dark time, a food bank can be a beacon of hope. I’m grateful for these community bright spots. They’re usually staffed with friendly volunteers who want you to be fed and feel good. They happily hand out boxes and bags, trying to make the world a better place one meal at a time. They are supportive and they are expert organizers. And they want to help you.

But it can be a bit… complicated for both the givers and the receivers.

Food banks gather food from a variety of sources. They collect and organize individual donations, and they pick up items from grocery stores that are expiring, not selling, discontinued, or can’t be sold for some other reason. It's a lot of work.

It’s wonderful to get food when you’re hungry. But it can also be hard to feed a family with food bank food because you never know what you might expect.

Sometimes what you receive just isn’t easily usable. You might get a dozen sausages that didn’t sell because they were so hot and spicy that store shoppers didn’t want them. Now you’re looking at multiple meals of something you might not even be able to eat, much less feed to small children.

Maybe you get a box of Hamburger Helper, but one box isn’t enough for your family and you can’t afford the hamburger anyway, so it sits in your pantry waiting for a better month.

The store’s bananas weren’t kept at the right temperature, so legally, they couldn’t sell them. Now you have an entire box of just-starting-to-rot bananas sitting in your trunk, and the smell is so bad you can’t stomach them.

And sometimes there are treats—orange juice, limeade, even a blueberry pie once, though the top was smashed. You take what you get, because you need food. And you absolutely don’t want to be ungrateful, even though it hurts a little bit knowing the only treat you can afford to give your kids is a smooshed pie.

I’m not complaining, just trying to share a realistic picture of how food banks operate and how they need more funding and help to get people healthy, usable food.

Some months, you’ll get plenty of organic chicken breasts to stock your freezer, with creamy mustard sauce, and bags and bags of frozen green beans that your kids love. You get lots of dried beans, which are both healthy and shelf stable. Rice and pasta are a win, too, because they are easy to use and pretty universal.

But let’s be honest, it can be a challenge to create meals from the assortments you receive. It can also be fun to try something new and different that you might not have thought of otherwise.

Food banks really do the best they can with what they have. They distribute food as fairly, and to as many people, as possible. But they can only give out what shows up. That supply is unstable, and it isn’t always allergy-friendly or culturally appropriate. Much of it is what grocery stores couldn’t sell, or what people found in their own pantries that they didn’t want to eat either.

At the same time, the demand for food banks is increasing while the supply chain has become more volatile. Food insecurity is high, and prices for food, rent, and utilities have risen. That means more people need more help, more often. Donations are unpredictable, transportation costs have increased, and some USDA programs that supplied food banks have been paused or cut.

A lot of pantry food is ultra-processed and shelf-stable. Fresh food is harder to store and distribute because it requires refrigeration and time. Even when workers try to offer healthier options, the logistics are tough.

And getting food from a pantry isn’t always easy. It can mean hours waiting in line (sometimes missing work to so, which is a trade-off), limited pickup hours, complicated paperwork, and the embarrassment of needing help in public.

Food banks are essential emergency infrastructure, and many are innovating. But they can’t substitute for income supports and anti-poverty policy. The sharp edges you see—nutrition gaps, inconsistency, stigma, rationing—come from trying to solve a systemic problem with a voluntary, surplus-driven system.

Everyone wants to feel good about “sharing their food” by donating what’s been sitting in the back of the cabinet. I’m not saying that’s wrong. But if you really want to help your local food bank, consider giving cash. Your dollars go further because food banks have better purchasing power, and they can buy what people actually need—fresh staples, culturally familiar foods, allergy-safe options—rather than hoping those things show up by chance.

Food banks are a lifeline. They bridge the gap for people whose SNAP benefits aren’t enough, and for people who don’t qualify but still need help. We should support them—while also pushing for the structural changes that would make them less necessary in the first place.

The Sunday School Trauma that Shaped My Politics

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 15:38:55 -0400

I was raised in a conservative evangelical family. And like a lot of typical evangelical kids, I was shown graphic images of abortions from an early age. Those photos were gory, bloody, and seared into my brain. It was indoctrination under the guise of education. It worked. I grew up repulsed by abortion. I was determined never to have one.

But I don’t believe abortion should be illegal.

My religious upbringing gave me trauma, not ownership over other people’s bodies. I can live with my own convictions without turning them into laws that bind strangers.

Evangelicals often insist abortion is “clearly unbiblical” because “life begins at conception.” But the Bible is not as clear as the slogans. Scripture never plainly says that conception is the moment a fertilized egg gains full personhood. It doesn’t spell out when a soul arrives. There is no verse that reads, “At conception, a full human life begins.” That certainty comes from church tradition—tradition treated like eternal truth even when it isn’t.

In fact, abortion wasn’t even a major evangelical political talking point until the late 1970s. Before that, conservative evangelical leaders were mobilizing around a different cause: protecting segregation and the private Christian schools built to preserve it. When the IRS and courts moved against racially discriminatory schools’ tax-exempt status, evangelical power brokers fought back. Figures like Jerry Falwell and strategists like Paul Weyrich helped organize what became the Religious Right in response to that threat. As segregation became publicly indefensible, conservative strategists sought a new banner to unite followers—something emotionally charged and more palatable. They found it in abortion. They framed it as “defending the sanctity of life,” proof-texted the Bible to support their position, and rallied people with fear and horrific pictures. Historians document this shift clearly, even while noting it was part of a larger political realignment. (Bloomberg School of Public Health)

Even inside the Bible, the moral framework evangelicals claim isn’t as obvious as they pretend. Scripture repeatedly uses “breath” as a marker of life—God forms humanity and then breathes life into it.

And in the world of ancient Israel, women and children were not treated as fully independent individuals in the way we understand personhood today. That’s horrific to modern ears, but it matters for interpretation. In the legal codes, the penalty for murder is death; the penalty for causing a miscarriage is not death but a fine—compensation for loss. Translation debates exist, but many scholars see this as evidence that fetal personhood was not treated as legally identical to a born person in that context. (Bloomberg School of Public Health)

Some people point to the Numbers 5:11-31 passage as “God showing how to cause an abortion.” I don’t think that text is meant to be clinical instruction, and I’m not using it as a proof that the Bible is necessarily pro-abortion- the intent of that passage is something else entirely. My point is simpler: the Bible does not clearly teach what modern Christian activists say it teaches about conception. If someone wants to believe life begins at conception on theological grounds, that’s their right. But it is not honest to claim the text makes that belief unavoidable.

Which brings me to the real issue: separation of church and state. We cannot create laws that control a woman’s body based on one religious tradition—especially when that tradition isn’t universally agreed upon even inside Christianity. The United States was founded on freedom of religion, not on enforcing any one faith’s doctrines through criminal law. We are not a fundamentalist Christian nation. Treating us like one endangers people whose beliefs—or bodies—don’t fit the mold.

And that danger isn’t theoretical.

Since abortion bans expanded after Dobbs, women have been denied or delayed emergency care because they were pregnant. Hospitals and clinicians fear prosecution if a life-saving treatment could be interpreted as ending a pregnancy, so care gets postponed until women are closer to death. Investigations and medical reporting show this pattern across multiple states—and it has already cost lives.

When lawmakers write pregnancy into criminal law, medicine becomes a legal minefield and women become collateral damage.

The same kind of dishonesty shows up in the war on Planned Parenthood. Federal funds have been barred from paying for most abortions for decades under the Hyde Amendment. (CDC)

So the push to defund Planned Parenthood isn’t about taxpayer-funded abortions. It’s about shutting down a place where millions of women get basic healthcare—contraception, STI treatment, and cancer screening. When those clinics lose funding, women lose preventive care, unintended pregnancies rise, and lives get riskier, not safer.

Pregnancy itself can also be dangerous in ways pro-life politics rarely names. For women in domestic-violence situations, one of the most lethal times in their lives is during pregnancy. Pregnancy can escalate control, trap women, and raise the risk of homicide.

A law that forces a woman to remain pregnant can also force her to remain in a violent situation.

And this is where the label “pro-life” collapses under its own weight. Because so much of what passes for “pro-life” politics is really just pro-birth—laser-focused on controlling pregnancy, and strangely indifferent to what happens to children once they’re actually here.

If your moral vision is truly about protecting life, you don’t stop caring at the delivery room door. You care about kids who are hungry, kids who need healthcare, kids whose parents can’t afford childcare. And you certainly care about kids who are being shot and killed in their classrooms. Firearms have been the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens in recent years, surpassing car crashes and cancer. (Bloomberg School of Public Health)

And the country keeps logging staggering levels of gunfire in and around schools: the 2023–2024 school year was among the worst on record, and incidents on school grounds have remained extremely high. (Everytown Support Fund)

So the irony is brutal. Many of the same politicians who call themselves “pro-life” while banning abortion also block or undermine the kinds of gun reforms that medical organizations and policy research associate with fewer child deaths—universal background checks, safe-storage/child-access-prevention laws, and closing private-sale loopholes. (PMC)

Even when reforms are proposed, they are often stalled or actively resisted by conservative lawmakers and officials. (Roll Call)

They’ll force a woman to carry a pregnancy, but won’t fight nearly as hard to keep that child alive at school. That’s not a consistent ethic of life. It’s a selective one—paid for with children’s bodies.

What makes me furious is that the politicians working hardest to ban abortions are often the same ones trying to cut the programs that help women not need abortions in the first place: affordable healthcare, food support, housing stability, living wages, paid leave, and childcare. Outlawing abortion doesn’t erase the reasons women seek it. It just forces those reasons into darker, more dangerous corners.

Abortion bans don’t end abortion. They change who gets a safe one. Global public-health bodies are blunt: restricting abortion does not reliably reduce its incidence, but it does increase unsafe abortions and maternal harm.

Wealthy people will always have a means to get an abortion even if it’s illegal. They can travel, pay privately, and hire attorneys if they need to. For the rest of us, if we’re in desperate circumstances that necessitate an abortion, we’ll end up turning to unsafe measures because our lives depend upon it. That’s not moral. That’s class warfare disguised as virtue.

And yes, some people say, “Just don’t have sex.” But that advice ignores reality, especially the reality many evangelical women are raised in. I was taught that I was personally responsible for my husband’s faithfulness. That it was my job to fill his needs whenever, however—and whether or not I wanted to. In that culture, abstinence isn’t a simple choice. The integrity of your marriage is treated as depending on your compliance. Saying “just don’t have sex” is not a policy; it’s a refusal to see women’s reality.

So what happens when a girl is too young to safely have a baby? What happens when a child is abused and becomes pregnant? Forcing her to give birth isn’t “pro-life.” It’s forcing her to risk her body, carry trauma she didn’t choose, and then potentially have to co-parent with the man who harmed her. It ties her future to violence. How are we not angrier about that?

I may never choose abortion for myself. That is my right. What I refuse to support is making my trauma and my theology into someone else’s.

You can be morally uneasy about abortion and still refuse to criminalize women. You can value life and still value the living women who carry it. And you can follow your faith without turning it into law.

If you truly want to put an end to abortions, then let’s put an end to government control of women’s bodies and work towards eradicating the reasons women need them.

When Being Poor Becomes a Show

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 15:36:22 -0400

Poor people aren’t zoo animals. Stop inspecting their carts, filming their food bank lines, and acting like unpaid auditors of their survival.

As a foster mom, my caseworker insisted that we take advantage of WIC benefits for our kids in care. She said they were eligible and that it was our job to use it on their behalf.

So I dutifully took my WIC checks to Walmart and spent hours—with small active kids in tow—trying to make the best decisions for them. Fast forward to checkout, where the cashiers clearly hated dealing with WIC checks.

“I’ve got another WIC here,” they’d yell with a big sigh to the manager.

“Fine, I’ll come check out the WIC person,” they’d snort back.

People behind me would huff and groan and stare at the purchases in my cart. I could feel their glares, see them examining the items I chose, all while my littles squirmed and wiggled.

It wasn’t the kids’ fault. Yet here we were, being made a spectacle of, pointed out for the entire checkout area to watch.

The Pumpkin Scandal

I was reminded of this recently when a disabled creator online talked about how she got flack for buying a pumpkin with her SNAP benefits. A pumpkin, for goodness’ sake. It sparked immediate controversy and judgment. How dare she buy something as much fun as a pumpkin! (Personally, I thought it was a great idea – edible decorations? That’s getting more for your money).

The problem isn’t the government providing help.

The problem is the public’s self-appointed role as auditor and judge.

The judgment strips recipients of their autonomy and humanity. The message is clear: if you need assistance, you don’t deserve dignity. You certainly don’t deserve to experience joy.

If you shop with SNAP or WIC and have certain items in your cart, you are going to be judged. Don’t you dare buy soda, cookies, processed food, or, by golly, something seasonal that could be mistaken for a decoration. You’ll get judged if you do.

Because if you’re poor, people act like you’re only “allowed” the bare essentials, and they must be perfectly healthy choices. Never mind that less nutritious, highly processed foods are often cheaper per calorie than “healthy” foods, and that many low-income neighborhoods (often referred to as food deserts), have little or no convenient access to stores with fresh food at all.

Why do onlookers feel entitled to judge other people’s food choices? Is it because you’re using “my tax dollars” to buy that? Does contributing to taxes give me the right to dictate what you consume with YOUR body?

Who gets to decide what someone else eats?

You wouldn’t walk up to a stranger in a coffee shop and tell them they shouldn’t be eating that pastry. So why are we blowing up the internet with judgment over another adult’s decision on what to eat?

There’s also this unspoken rule that recipients of aid need to “look” or “act” poor to be deserving of help. You’re not supposed to look happy. You’re not supposed to have pleasure or joy. Your food choices are reduced to survival only—you must live on rice and beans and be thankful.

So when a SNAP beneficiary purchases a non-essential, the reaction is anger. Anger that “their” money, their hard-earned tax dollars, are being spent on something as “wasteful” as joy.

Why is it okay for the wealthy to make frivolous choices - yachts, multiple vacation homes, fancy cars - while every dollar the poor spend is scrutinized and picked apart? Why does this double standard exist?

This kind of judgment ignores the reality that food access is restricted, and that in many areas, especially urban ones, high-calorie, processed foods are the cheapest way to stave off hunger.

We aren’t arguing over “issues.”

We are arguing over human beings.

Snap Qualifications

Our government has already decided that if you meet specific criteria—mainly having a low enough income for your household size—then you qualify for help. That process is done. No need to judge. No need to defame. No need to put people down.

The government already decided these folks need and deserve assistance. There’s no need to re-vet them in the checkout line. There’s no need for you, a passerby, to inspect their cart or silently decide if they deserve it. No point in shaming them on social media. It’s already been done.

And then there’s poverty as spectacle.

The local news channel recently showed up at a mobile food bank, filming people without consent and even asking for interviews. I find this reprehensible.

Spotlight the food bank? Yes, please. They are good people doing good work, and it’s important to show where people can find resources.

But betraying the privacy of folks who need help—during a time when people needing assistance are already subject to scrutiny, judgment, and scorn? That’s a big no for me. We can do much better than news crews filming vulnerable people in line at food banks without truly informed consent.

A person waiting in line at the food bank can’t just walk away to stay off camera—they need that assistance. And if it’s a car line, there is no room to drive away before being recorded anyway. It’s unfair to force media on them just to show the world, “Hey, look, this person needs help!” especially when people needing assistance are so harshly criticized.

Exposing recipients of aid isn’t good journalism. It’s poverty voyeurism, feel-good charity content that brings in views but doesn’t actually help anyone. It’s a massive invasion of privacy that can put them in harm’s way.

Stop the Judgement

I know you don’t like other people questioning your choices, so please don’t do it to someone else. Don’t analyze the shopping carts of someone who holds an Access card. Don’t huff and puff at people pulling out their WIC folder. Aren’t we all just trying to make it through the day?

If you have more than someone else, you have the power and the responsibility to help them, not the right to analyze and judge their choices.

I’ve said it before and I will keep saying it: your anger is misdirected.

The problem isn’t the poor.

The problem is corporate greed and policies that keep wages low, rents high, and healthy food out of reach.

If you’re angry, aim that anger at the systems that make it so millions of working people need SNAP and medical assistance just to survive.If you don’t like that so many people need help, do something that makes it possible for working people to earn a living wage.

The measure of our society isn’t how well we police the poor, but how hard we work to make poverty unnecessary. How are you going to help?

Your View of God Doesn't Come from the Bible

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 15:35:21 -0400

Your inner view of God probably doesn't come from the Bible, not completely. How we understand and interact with God has been shaped by the relationship we had with our parents or caregivers from a young age.

We're basically handed our "first God" in how our parents (or primary caregivers) relate to us. Later, people tell us about the God of the Bible, but deep down our nervous system is like, "Oh, you mean Someone like mom/dad?" and just copies and pastes.

Think about how you view God – what is God like to you? Do you feel like God is out there somewhere, watching from a distance? Or perhaps God is just waiting for you to make a mistake and sentence you to some horrible punishment? Or does God feel like a sweet grandpa, always loving, offering up an occasional treat?

Here are some examples to consider:

The Harsh God

If your parents were strict, harsh, or critical and unpredictable, perhaps you received lots of criticism but not much positive affirmation. Love felt conditional to you, based on behavior, getting good grades, always required to be pleasant. Perhaps punishments felt harsh, random, or your parents had issues with anger coming out of nowhere.

If this were your experience, you might feel like God is constantly evaluating whether you are following the 'rules' in the Bible. God feels strict, and you are always afraid of making a mistake. Prayer might feel like a performance rather than a conversation. You often find yourself apologizing and repenting. You might be really worried about sin.

Chances are, your parents didn't make you feel safe, and you unconsciously apply that to God.

The Distant God

Maybe your parents were emotionally distant, unavailable, or just absent altogether. Perhaps they provided well for you, but you didn't feel seen. Or maybe your family didn't ever talk about emotions, and you had to keep your feelings to yourself. Or maybe your parents worked a lot, or divorce or illness kept them from parenting the way you needed.

If this resonates with you, even just a little, you might think God is far away and hard to connect with. Maybe you hold to the core beliefs of your denomination, but can't help feeling that "God has more important things to do than care about my stuff." Prayers feel like you're talking to thin air, not to a present God. You might not expect God to listen or answer at all.

It's like, if your parents didn't see your needs, why would you even think that God would?

The Controlling God

Then again, maybe your parents were controlling or overprotective. This might look like lots of rules, lots of helicopter parenting, and independence was dangerous.

This could make you feel like God is that cosmic helicopter parent- always watching you, but mostly to stop you from doing something. You're constantly seeking God's approval and afraid to make decisions without a sign from God. You feel guilty about wanting to be independent or grow. Your spiritual life feels like you have to fit into a purity box.

You might feel like God doesn't trust you to make good decisions because your parents didn't allow you to grow.

The Moody God

Then again, maybe your parents felt inconsistent or like they had two sides or two modes. Maybe they were really warm and loving sometimes, but scary and cold at other times. Maybe you never knew which version you would get. You felt like you had to walk on eggshells, or you were always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

If this sounds like you, maybe God feels moody and unstable. You're constantly worrying about making God mad, as if one wrong move will flip the switch from love to anger. You're always trying to figure out if God is pleased with what you're doing or mad. You might feel like love – especially God's love – is unstable.

The Loving and Safe God

What if your parents were really loving, steady, and safe?

You were allowed to feel your feelings, and they were validated. Your parents probably apologized if they made a mistake. You were disciplined well, but it wasn't scary or shameful. You knew you could make mistakes and still be loved.

You're more likely to find that God is reliably loving, not just theoretically loving. You are comfortable being your real self with God, and can bring your doubts, struggles, and worries to Him. Your parents felt steady, and so does God.

There are all 'caricatures' of parenting styles, and chances are, you experienced a little bit of a mix of them. No, parents are not perfect, and I am not one to blame all our problems on them. Most parents are just doing their best, and as adults, we are responsible for who we become. But it does help us understand our emotional and spiritual patterns and how we relate to God.

Why Is This Important

This is important for a few reasons. First of all, our early childhood impressions of our parents were pre-verbal, so this affects our nervous system and our underlying view of God. You might say "God is love" and believe it, but deep down you think, "He just doesn't really love me." Or you feel you need to follow a bunch of rules to be spiritually mature or to be loved by God. You're afraid God is going to get mad and punish you eternally, or you think God doesn't care what you do.

But this doesn't just affect you. It affects how you see others, too. A church might say they are welcoming, but only if you agree to act like them or follow their idea of what the Bible says. And this feels normal because your parents were overly controlling. But this also ostracizes people and excludes them from getting to know God.

If your parents shamed you when they disciplined you, you might feel ashamed to show up at church after a bad week. Or perhaps you feel anger or disdain for someone else, you made a mistake- you can't interact with them because they might taint you in God's eyes.

Where Do We Go From Here

There are many ways our view of God shapes our view of others. And it is really hard to read the Bible without these internal biases that we project onto God. It's also really hard to see for ourselves.

We need to read our Bible with open eyes, rather than reading to confirm our current biases. This is hard work, and it isn't fun to shake up what we've always thought to be true. We need to listen to others and be open to a different view of theology. You are not going to be tainted by listening to someone who thinks or believes differently from you – in fact, it might change you or reinforce what is true.

We also need to read the Bible and see how God actually views us. No matter how good or loving your parents are, God is infinitely more good and infinitely more loving. Fear, shame, disdain, hurt, betrayal, illness – none of those things ever ever come from God, and if you are subconsciously applying that belief to yourself or someone else, that is a belief that needs to change.

Beyond the Canned Food Drive: Are Churches Settling for Feel-Good Charity?

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 15:33:11 -0400

I love seeing churches care for their communities. I love that people are giving, sharing, encouraging, and showing up for others. Every week I see food drives, donation bins, and outreach efforts in order to relieve suffering. It makes people feel good. It makes people feel they’ve done their part.

And yes, it helps — and yes, we should keep doing it. But after years of working in and with churches, I can’t help but ask: is it enough? Or have we settled for a kind of “token” charity that lets us check the box of “helping the poor” so we can feel better about ourselves?

That may sound harsh, but I mean it sincerely. It’s not that these efforts are bad. They’re good and necessary. But what if they’ve become a way for us to feel comforted rather than challenged? What if we’re soothing our consciences without addressing the deeper issues that keep people poor, hungry, or homeless?

Because let’s be honest: the systemic realities of poverty, inequality, and marginalization are not being solved by a few cans of soup. Sometimes it feels like we’re putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound — and calling it ministry.

Jesus Wasn’t a Band-Aid Healer

Jesus didn’t come to patch things up; He came to turn the world upside down. And when He began His ministry, in a rather surprising move, He quoted the prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” — Luke 4:18

His first priority was the poor and the oppressed. That’s not a side note in His message — it is His message.

And when He spoke about judgment in Matthew 25, He didn’t divide people by wealth, knowledge, or even belief. The dividing line was simple: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

For Jesus, caring for the poor wasn’t charity — it was personal. When you feed the hungry, you feed Him. When you give the thirsty water, you serve Him. And when you ignore those needs, you ignore Him.

Jesus also had strong words for the wealthy and comfortable. Remember the rich young ruler? Jesus told him to sell everything and give to the poor — not just a little, not just the extras, but everything (Matthew 19:21). That story makes us squirm in our seats because we really like our creature comforts. We’ve heard the story so often that we forget how radical it is.

Charity or Justice?

This is where the modern church often gets it wrong. We have become proponents of charity, but we’ve grown timid about justice.

Charity is giving a can of soup to a hungry person. It’s immediate, necessary, and good. It relieves suffering.

Justice asks why that person is hungry in the first place — and then works to change the system that keeps them hungry.

Charity treats the symptom. Justice seeks to cure the disease. We need both.

The “feel-good” model of church allows us to practice charity without ever having to sacrifice. We can donate our extras, write a small check, or give away last season’s coats. It costs us little. It doesn’t challenge our comfort, our habits, or our politics.

But this isn’t the gospel. Jesus didn’t die so that we could feel generous — He died to transform the world.

The Call to Transformative Justice

The gospel is not just about being kind to the poor — it’s about being in community with them.

Jesus didn’t serve people from a distance. He lived among them. He ate with them. He listened to them. Philippians 2:6–8 reminds us that Jesus left His divine privilege and became human — not to look down on us, but to walk beside us.

If that’s what Christ did, why do we so often build walls instead of bridges? Why do we, who have been given so much, feel entitled to more than those who struggle?

Justice calls us to more than generosity — it calls us to solidarity. It invites us to use our buildings, our budgets, and our influence to challenge systems that perpetuate poverty and inequality.

Imagine if our churches weren’t just centers of charity, but engines of justice.

What If We Actually Did What Jesus Said?

What if the church decided to move beyond “feel-good” giving and started living as good news for the poor?

What if, in addition to running food pantries, we used our buildings to host job training, financial literacy, and ESL programs?

What if we leveraged our collective voice to advocate for affordable housing, fair wages, and better-funded public schools?

What if we stopped “giving to” the poor and started partnering with them — building real, long-term relationships based on mutual respect and love?

That kind of work is difficult. It’s uncomfortable. It’s messy. It’s political. It requires listening to stories that challenge our assumptions and policies that stretch our compassion.

It’s easy to hand out a few cans from our pantry. It’s much harder to walk alongside someone who is hungry — to learn their name, to share a meal, to see the world through their eyes.

But that’s the work Jesus calls us to.

The Cost of Real Compassion

True compassion will always cost us something. It will cost our comfort. It will cost our time. It will sometimes cost our reputation.

Charity makes us feel like heroes. Justice reminds us we’re neighbors.

The early church understood this. They didn’t just give handouts — they shared everything they had so that “there were no needy persons among them” (Acts 4:34). Their love was radical, their generosity sacrificial, and their witness powerful.

Imagine if the modern church looked like that again — not just known for what we’re against, but for the deep, dangerous love we live out in the world.

So, Is It Enough?

It’s time for some deep self-reflection. Is our church’s “help” for the poor just enough to make us feel good — or is it enough to make a real, lasting change?

If the church dares to live like Jesus — to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly — then maybe the world would finally see Him not just in our charity, but in our courage.

Because Jesus didn’t come to make us comfortable. He came to make us compassionate.

And compassion, when it’s real, always leads to justice.

The Shaming of Single Moms

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 15:31:50 -0400

Today’s social media tragedy was a mom on Threads bashing single moms for ‘living off the system’ and getting thousands of dollars in SNAP, WIC, and LIHEAP benefits. This stigma isn’t just unfair, it’s rooted in outdated ideas and stereotypes and totally ignores the structural barriers single mothers face. As a single mom, I can tell you just how hard it is to work while being the primary parent without family support.

Where Did the Stigma Start?

Well, traditionally, the nuclear family (a mom, a dad, and a couple kids) was considered the perfect family. And until the 70s and 80s, many women were trapped in bad marriages because they couldn’t have a bank account in their name, couldn’t necessarily own property, and could be excluded from a job simply for being a woman. Our grandmas’ marriages weren’t ‘better’ – our grandmas were trapped because they had no options to survive without a husband.

When women finally could leave bad marriages, society didn’t celebrate their independence—it vilified it. Ronald Reagan started the stereotype of the ‘welfare queen’ on his political platform, and sadly, it stuck around. Even today, the media often portrays single moms as being irresponsible or a big drain on their community.

But here’s the thing. Women simply don’t leave good marriages. Divorce is hard; divorce with kids is even harder. If a woman has left a marriage, there’s a reason.

I can’t stand the thought that says “if you can’t pay for your kids, you shouldn’t have had them.” Okay, well, no one gets married and has kids expecting to end up a single mom. It just doesn’t work like that, but roughly 40 to 50% of marriages end in divorce, with the rate of divorce for second marriages being even higher according to Census and Pew Research data. And if the person you are marrying isn’t already a parent, you cannot possibly know how they will be as a parent. You might think you do, but there is actually no way to know for sure.

There are some harsh realities in our society that many don’t want to admit, especially conservatives who ascribe to a more patriarchal view of marriage.

The Pay Gap Is Real

Women still get paid less than men. Women make roughly 80 to 85% of what men make “depending on dataset (BLS, Pew). Women still bear the brunt of childcare responsibilities, even when they are married. And women are still more likely to stay home with their kids and experience career disruption, which makes it hard to return to the workforce if they end up divorced.

In a divorce situation, trends are showing that roughly 80% of mothers are the primary custodial parent. That means the moms have the kids most of the time, are primarily responsible for their day to day physical, health, and educational needs, and the dads legally are not required to take their parenting time. That leaves 50/50 custody to just a few – around the 20% mark.

Childcare Costs Are Astronomical

In 2023, the average US cost for childcare was $11,600 for one child for the year. It isn’t much better for school age children because it’s much harder and more expensive to find childcare that covers random half days, holidays, and you certainly aren’t going to find someone to stay home with their kids when they are sick.

That’s like paying an $11,000 tax per kid just to go to work.

In my family, which is larger than most, we generally have one doctor/dentist appointment per week, and from October to March, we typically have one child home sick per week. That’s a lot of missed school – and work. How is a mom supposed to hold down a full-time professional job if she has to miss that much work? Especially considering she didn’t choose to be a single mom – who would? Unless being single was significantly better than being married.

And since many moms, who sacrificed their careers to manage the kids and households so their husbands could have a career, find themselves going back into a job after not working, they aren’t going to just start getting professional level pay. And if you have to work around your kids’ schedules, you’re going to have to make even more compromises on what kind of a job you can take. Jobs that are flexible enough to work around kids don’t pay well.

Let's Break It Down

For example, even working for the school district as a food service worker – you probably only make $14 to $16 an hour. Walmart - $18-$20. Amazon delivery- $20-$22.

If you made $20 an hour full-time with no missed days, you’d have about $41,000 gross. Minus taxes, you’d have about $36,000 left. Subtract $11,000 for childcare, and you’re done to $25,000 for the year. A little over $2,000 per month. Rent is easily $1500 per month. The USDA suggested amount for groceries – the bare minimum - $432 for a mom and a child. So just covering the cost of childcare, food, and housing leaves you with about $68 per month to cover utilities (heat and electric), health insurance, copays, school expenses, oh and you need transportation to work!

She may get a little child support, but that’s probably only several hundred dollars – according to the US Census Bureau, the average payment is $430 per month, if it comes in consistently. There is a lot of resentment towards paying child support. That’ll cover sneakers, clothes, sports fees, and school supplies. We all know that doesn’t go very far.

It isn’t doable. And that isn’t the mom’s fault – it’s that the entire system is stacked against her from the very moment she got pregnant. She isn’t mooching – she’s pinching every single penny and still not able to make it work.

Safety Nets

This is why our government has safety nets like SNAP, WIC, and LIHEAP. This is to help families, the disabled, the elderly - who just can’t survive. This is the government recognizing that many full-time jobs do not pay enough to survive on.

It’s sad that we shame single moms for needing help. They didn’t choose to have to live this way and the whole welfare queen stigma is a farce (a political stereotype that’s been kept alive for decades, often for partisan gain) even though fraud rates are incredibly low.

Let’s stop framing poverty as a moral failure. It isn’t. It’s a systemic problem that needs to be addressed at the corporate level. Let’s stop shaming single moms for not being able to work a full-time professional job while single-handedly raising kids. There just isn’t enough flex time, PTO, and vacation time to make that feasible.

Instead of looking down on single moms, get to know one. Offer to babysit (if appropriate), pick up groceries, mow the yard, teach a kid to drive, or help with school carpooling. And most of all, when you hear single moms being shamed, speak up! I promise – they’re doing their best to survive and raise some really good humans.

Single moms aren’t drains on society—they’re proof of its resilience.

When we invest in them, we invest in children, stability, and the future.

The real shame isn’t that moms need help—it’s that we make them feel ashamed for asking.

Edited: Shoutout to Jenn Riedy for catching my child support error! The average amount across the US is $430 per month, but that amount can vary widely depending on the number of kids, parents' incomes, etc.

Why Does America Hate Snap?

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 15:29:19 -0400

Scroll through any social feed and you’ll see the same fight: who ‘deserves’ help eating?

America. The wealthiest country in the world. The country whose capital is getting a golden ballroom. And the country that still debates whether hungry people deserve to eat. SNAP is under fire; it helps millions, yet it’s highly stigmatized to the point that everywhere you look, people are arguing about this much-needed safety net.

How is this evening happening? I guarantee that someone you know – and probably someone you like – is in a position to need them. They just don’t talk about it because of the stigma, vitriol, and misinformation from people who argue without doing their research.

Hopefully, by now, we all know that SNAP is federal nutrition assistance for low-income individuals and families. Its scope is quite large, considering that over 40 million Americans rely on it. That’s about 1 in 8 people. I’m sure you know more than 8 people, so there are probably a number of people that you know who quietly rely on SNAP. Maybe if you knew who they were, you’d have more compassion.

SNAP mostly benefits children, seniors, people with disabilities, and working families who struggle to bring in enough money. SNAP is just a supplement, though; it doesn’t fully cover food costs.

Myths That Won’t Die

I’ve heard so many tired arguments over why people should not be on SNAP. Misconceptions like:

• Most people on SNAP don’t work.

• It’s full of fraud and abuse.

• It’s a handout for people who won’t help themselves.

• It’s easy to qualify and live off the system.

• People are buying steak and lobster.

• They don’t want to pay for someone else to get free stuff.

But the truth is:

• Many recipients are employed, but their low-wage jobs don’t cover necessities. Corporations depend on SNAP to cover the difference so they can pay their employees less and get a tax break for doing so.

• Fraud rates are actually very low, as low as 1-2%. Most fraud comes from people skimming SNAP benefits. And once benefits are stolen, they’re not reimbursed.

• Most benefits go to children, people with disabilities, or older adults who cannot work.

• SNAP benefits average around $6 per person per day. That’s not enough to feed a person; it just helps.

So Why Are People So Angry?

So why all the resentment? It’s not really about the food.

• In America, poverty is framed as a personal or moral failure. If you’re poor, it’s your own fault for not working hard enough. You should suffer because you didn’t do the right things or you made bad choices. But that’s not actually true; poverty is a systemic issue because wages don't keep up with the cost of living.

• I see a lot of hidden resentment. Some people feel left out for not getting the ‘free handouts’, so they have a deep-rooted “what about me attitude” that just fuels their hostility. Why should someone else get a handout when I work so hard?

• SNAP has gotten stuck in partisan identity. It’s becoming a political symbol, divided along party lines, rather than a practical tool to fight hunger.

• Racial and Class bias is fueled by stereotypes about who uses assistance, which just amplifies the stigma and the anger surrounding it.

• Media distortion portrays high rates of fraud that aren’t actually there. But people get angry thinking their tax dollars are being wasted on criminals.

The Application Gauntlet

The application process is not easy. You can file online, but the website is not very intuitive at all. The questions are complicated. You need to provide your income, your expenses, citizenship, criminal history, bank statements, assets, utility bills, W-2s, child support, and proof of all of it.

Different supervisors have different interpretations of what counts as evidence, so if you are self-employed or have adopted children, things can get very complicated. Then you have to do an interview, which can be done over the phone. But if you miss the call, you usually can’t call them back directly. You have to leave a message with the call center and wait for them to contact you again.

If your situation is complex, you may need to talk to the supervisor a few times. But you can never directly call a caseworker or supervisor. It takes about an hour to get through on the main number; they take a message for you and present it to the caseworker, who will call you back within 3 days. If you miss the call because you are working, it can take a long time to actually speak to a real person.

A lot of people never apply because the process is so overwhelming, and they may not even realize they are eligible. It usually takes a month for benefits to begin.

If you see figures flying around online, they usually use the ‘max amount’ as evidence that people get ‘too much’ SNAP. But almost no one gets the max amount. It’s usually around $6 per person per day, which is very little compared to today’s cost of groceries. But SNAP is awarded on a sliding scale: higher income means fewer SNAP benefits, and lower income means more SNAP benefits. So someone just below the threshold may only get a few dollars in assistance each month, yet people get upset about that.

The Real Numbers

• About 41 million Americans use SNAP (roughly 1 in .

• Around 65% of recipients are children, seniors, or people with disabilities.

• Fraud rates are under 2%.

• Economic benefit: Every $1 in SNAP generates about $1.50–$1.80 in economic activity through grocers and local economies.

• Lifting power: SNAP kept nearly 3 million people out of poverty in 2022.

• Undocumented immigrants do not get SNAP.

Why It All Matters

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs states that kids need to be fed before they can learn. Adults need to be fed before they can work. But SNAP offers more than that. It offers stability. It helps people recover from poverty. It improves morale. It even keeps people alive.

Food insecurity and poverty are public health issues. It affects health, education, productivity, and family stability. You simply won’t have the energy to work hard or even concentrate if you are hungry. If you want people to work, they need to be fed enough to be able to do it.

I once knew a single mom who did everything she could to make it on her own. She made so many sacrifices, including barely heating her apartment, doing things in the dark because she didn’t want to use the lights, and ‘holding it’ so she could save pennies by not flushing the toilet. Imagine trying to make dinner for your toddler in the dark, risking bladder infections to save pennies so you have enough money to feed your child. That isn’t living, and that shouldn’t be happening in America when we have the means to stop it. The only thing we are actually lacking is compassion.

If you’re angry about SNAP, that reflects more on your personal beliefs about poverty than on the SNAP program. We have got to stop judging every minute detail of someone’s life just because they receive assistance. Let the experts handle that, trust me, they go through a complicated process to get those benefits.

We need to stop arguing and start looking for ways to make real change so people can thrive without assistance. We need to raise the minimum wage to a livable level, ensure affordable health care for all, and work together as a society.

If you’re angry about SNAP, channel it into curiosity. Look up how it actually works. Talk to someone who uses it.

Compassion and facts do more good than outrage ever will.

Churches and the Baby Formula Scam

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 15:27:38 -0400

I saw a content creator call a whole bunch of churches pretending she’d run out of formula and her baby was hungry. Very few churches were willing to help. Now, I’m not thrilled with tricking churches like that. That’s a pretty dirty tactic, and it’s possible some of those churches saw through it and just declined politely. But it still exposed something: there are a lot of churches that are either unable or unwilling to help someone in immediate need.

Then I saw another creator completely lose it. She was crying, yelling, and cursing because the church does not and has not done enough. Her argument was, “If the church was doing its job, we wouldn’t have people on SNAP.” It was hard to watch her raw emotion and her pain for the church at large, but there was definitely some truth in what she said.

I grew up in a family that believed in small government, more freedom, and that it was the church’s job to care for the poor and the sick. The church I grew up in, along with several I worked in, had a discretionary fund the pastor could use to quietly help anyone in need, whether they were part of the church or from the community.

But here’s the part people don’t want to say out loud: if you want small government, you have to fund the alternative. If you want churches and charities to handle poverty relief, then churches and charities have to be resourced at the level of the need. If the alternative isn’t actually funded, society won’t just magically be okay.

I was taught by my church that government assistance was a concession. Because the church at large wasn’t doing enough. And while I have seen churches make herculean efforts to help their communities, they simply can’t do it all. At the same time, there are just as many churches that think having a few dollars a month in a discretionary fund is enough to say they “help the poor.”

There’s also a structural problem we never name: even if every church were generous, churches in poor areas have fewer donors and more need. The places that need the most help tend to have the least church money. That’s not a compassion problem; that’s a math problem. That’s why public programs exist, because they can pool resources across regions and income levels in a way a single congregation can’t.

What makes this even stranger is watching some evangelicals vote for “Christian identity” issues like putting the Ten Commandments in schools, prayer, abortion, whatever, while Jesus’ most concrete commands about money and poverty don’t show up in their policy priorities. They aren’t willing to vote for the things Jesus actually did: feed the hungry, heal the sick, help the poor. He literally told the rich young ruler to sell everything and give it to the poor. If we want the public sphere to reflect Christian values, why don’t we start with the ones about the poor and the ones Jesus actually repeated?

Meanwhile politicians keep saying the U.S. is the richest country in the world. If that’s true, why do we have people who can’t afford to eat? Why are we criticizing single moms, disabled people, and the elderly because they can’t make enough money?

I can’t believe that in 2025 this is still a polarizing issue—that so many people are genuinely angry about other people having basic necessities. That so many people think most folks on SNAP are freeloaders. I’ve seen the comments:

• “Most SNAP recipients are scammers.”

• “People don’t want to work.”

• “It’s all single moms making bad choices.”

And those are just a few.

But that’s simply not who most benefits go to. They go to kids, to the elderly, to disabled people, and to the working poor. The people we claim to care about. The part that disturbs me most is that these stereotypes exist mostly because of misinformation and people only looking to confirm what they already believe instead of finding out what’s actually true. Some of these people are so angry about the government helping people.

But the fix doesn’t have to be government or church. It can be both.

The local church can and should be out there meeting the community’s needs—because churches can do things the government can’t: build relationships, know names, offer encouragement, pray, walk with a family. And the government can do the things churches can’t: provide consistency, scale, and a floor that isn’t dependent on whether donations came in this month.

The truth is, the church has the calling but not always the capacity. Charity is beautiful but patchy. Government is impersonal but scalable. When we insist the church should do it all, while refusing to fund it anywhere near the level of national need, we create a gap and then we blame the people who fall into it.

So now what?

If you love the church, support policies that make sure people eat even when the church can’t. Do both. Get out there and love your neighbor, even the poor ones.

I Bet You Won't Read this Social Media Post

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 15:24:33 -0400

Social media is rewiring our brains and it is designed to do so.

I’ve been studying social media marketing and I’m sure we all know that social media is designed to hold our attention. The longer we stay on the app, the more money they make. Simple enough. But how does it work?

How the Brain Works.

Let's think about how the brain works. I read a study comparing how we read when we read a physical paper book compared to how we read on a computer screen. The study showed that when we dive into a paper book, we read more deeply and thoroughly, whereas when we read an e-book, phone, tablet, or computer screen, we tend to scan for important details. Different parts of the brain ‘light up’ depending on what media we are using.

Another aspect of this is the dopamine hit we get when we come across the content we like. Or when someone likes or shares our post. It’s an instant reward and it's highly addictive. The social media companies count on this, so they organize the app to keep you coming back again and again.

What Makes a Good Reel?

A ‘good’ Instagram reel is designed to catch your attention amidst thousands and thousands of other reels. It typically involves a visual hook and a text hook. The visual hook is usually something that is novel, shocking, a pattern interrupt. It could be the Gen Z shake where you see the movement of the camera as the speaker sets it down in front of them. It could be someone applying ChapStick, getting ready for bed, or moving on and off screen. The movement catches your attention long enough to stop the scroll, then the text hook takes over to keep that attention.

The text hook is usually a 7-to-9-word phrase or sentence that is written on a 5th grade level. It is often a negative phrase, makes a bold statement, something controversial – anything to suck you in long enough to keep your attention past 3 seconds. The longer the reel holds your attention, the more people it is shown to. How many times have you ever looked at a headline and thought, “That’s clickbait” and then clicked on it anyway? That’s a hook that works.

Over time, the brain begins to adjust to this. The more time you spend on social media, the shorter your attention span gets. And the more you crave that constant influx of dopamine. But there’s more to it.

Your FYP

Social media apps learn what content you like to watch. For example, if a new creator pops up in my Instagram feed and I watch one of their videos but don’t follow them, as I scroll through my feed there will be at least 2 more videos by the same creator. If you constantly watch cycling videos on YouTube, your FYP is going to show you more and more cycling creators.

That’s cool and all, but it is rewiring our brains to be very inward focused, even to the point of narcissism. The social media algorithm is giving us what we want all of the time and training us to expect to get what we want all of the time. Streaming apps mean we can watch whatever shows we want at any time. YouTube tailors every advertisement to our algorithm, so we only get ads for things we are likely to buy.

The Good Old Days

Do you remember way back when we had to use a TV Guide to find out when our show was going to be on TV? And then you had to sit through commercials – commercials that might not even apply to you in any way, but they applied to most people that would be watching the show. No more arguing with your sibling about who gets to pick the show – you can each watch what you want on your own device.

Now there are no more shared experiences – it’s all individual.

People are going to tell me that’s old-fashioned, and we need to keep up with the fast-paced world we live in. And to a point, I don’t disagree.

However, all social media is designed to give us what we want – and to teach us that we should always have what we want. And because all we see is what we care about, we don’t see enough of what other people care about. Our worldview shrinks right along with our attention span.

We're Spoon Fed Sound Bites

The other challenge with social media is that it spoon-feeds us entertainment and information. We consume little bites over and over again. (We don’t have time to get into how social media is an easy way to spread misinformation or create soundbites of things that are too complex to be shared that way).

But if we want to enact real change in the world, if we want to make this earth a better place to live, we need to realize that being spoonfed is what babies get when they’re hungry because they cannot feed themselves.

So not only have we lost our attention spans and our ability to care about other’s needs and interests, we’re also losing the skill of critical thinking. Without critical thinking, we can’t figure out for ourselves why we have so many people in such a wealthy country struggling with food insecurity. We can’t see the weaknesses in our health care system – we can only see the symptoms of high bills and not enough coverage. We’re just waiting for someone to feed us the answer.

What's the Fix?

Real change asks more of us than scrolling does. It asks us to read past the headline, to trace a problem back to its causes, research, to listen to people we don’t already agree with, and to sit in the discomfort of ‘this is complicated.’

Algorithms are designed to remove that discomfort. They hand us pre-chewed takes so we don’t have to wrestle with anything. But a society that won’t wrestle can’t repair. If we want better healthcare, fewer hungry families, less abortions, and stronger communities, we have to relearn the grown-up skill of feeding ourselves information — books, long articles, primary sources, conversations with actual humans — not just waiting for the For You Page to tell us what to think.

I’m not trying to kill social media. It has its place. But if we don’t counter its effects, we will slide deeper into “me first” and “what about me?”

Do Your Research

So let’s push back: read long, slow, deep. Listen to people who see the world differently. Have real discussions, even when you disagree. People who think differently than you aren’t your enemies — they might be the people who help you build something better.

Don’t just accept the sound bites you find on Instagram – especially the hate-filled ones that disparage suffering. Take your time and do the real research to understand the actual problem so we can critically think about a better solution. You got this!

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 15:23:06 -0400

Do you think it’s ethical to be a billionaire? When I was younger, I thought people could just be as rich as they wanted. And to a point, I still don’t care if people make more money than I do. But I don’t think it is possible to become a billionaire without doing it on the backs of the people that work for you. And this is one of the main reasons that we have billionaires and still have 42 million people who need SNAP just to survive.

When I was younger, I also fell for Dave Ramsey’s Baby steps. I thought if I just did what he said, I would be able to afford everything I needed to afford. But his version of money management only works if you are mismanaging money and make enough. It doesn’t work if you’re not making enough salary to sustain yourself. (We don’t have to talk about how I got sick because I followed his grocery shopping advice either). I felt a lot of shame because his money advice, which is the ‘gold standard’ for evangelical Christians, didn’t work for me. I worked in non-profit and just didn't make enough money to get by. No amount of skipping lattes can make up for that.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and has been since 2009. Thankfully, most places don’t pay minimum wage. In Pennsylvania, Walmart averages $16 and maybe $18 an hour. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the purchasing power of that standard has dropped significantly. I’ve been trying to find out what the minimum wage ‘should’ be, if it had kept up with inflation and productivity, and I’m seeing figures around $26 an hour.

But guess what: the price of housing has doubled since 2009.

So not only have wages not kept up with inflation, they really haven’t kept up with the cost of housing. People who bought homes in 2009 have much lower costs for housing than people trying to buy homes or rent apartments now.

It’s no wonder people are struggling – they are having to work for amounts of money that simply can’t sustain them.

And here’s the big BUT. Large companies – like McDonalds, Walmart, and Amazon – are raking in the profits. Their business model depends on low wage workers doing the labor. These companies know that their workers earn so little that they require government assistance to survive.

So if you are angry at people who need food stamps, your angry is sadly misplaced. These big corporations lobby congress to keep that minimum wage low and to get themselves tax breaks. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a federal tax break given to companies who hire people who receive SNAP benefits. AHEM!!! Are you paying attention?

Walmart gets a tax break when they hire people who use SNAP. Walmart pays so little that its workers continue to need SNAP. And then those same workers go back and buy their groceries at Walmart with SNAP. (Walmart accounts for about 25% of all SNAP use).

This means that Walmart basically gets 3 separate advantages for keeping their workers low-paid. Meanwhile, the Waltons are worth about $432 billion. How is this ok?

Amazon pays its warehouse workers around $20 an hour, maybe up to $23. That’s still not enough to keep up with inflation. They know this. But hey, Jeff Bezos is worth over $220 billion. He easily dropped somewhere between 20 and 50 million dollars for his Venice wedding.

We can also talk about Elon Musk, who is on target to become the first trillionaire ever. He has more money than he can actually spend, why does he even need more?

Let’s contrast these folks with the Carnegie family. Andrew Carnegie was one of the richest men in history after building a steel empire. He sold his company, and do you know what he did? He funded libraries, colleges, and international peace efforts.

You may be familiar with Carnegie Hall or the Carnegie libraries. Do you know Makenzie Scott (Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife) who has given away over $19 billion (thanks to her shares in Amazon). At 82 years old, Judy Fualkner has pledged to give away 99% of her almost 8-billion-dollar fortune. There are some good people out there – just not enough of them.

Billie Eillish was right to call out the billionaires. A gutsy move for someone so young, but she is dead on. I agree with her – why are you even billionaires? You don’t need that much money. (I’m looking at you, Zuckerburg).

And many corporations depend on a business plan that sadly keeps low wage earners stuck on government benefits. The problem isn’t the workers – it’s the companies refusing to pay a living wage while still raking in the profit. And we all know that money is power.

“With great power comes great responsibility.” That is one of my all-time favorite quotes, and it comes, of all places, from Spiderman. If we want to get our citizens off of government assistance, we need our corporations to take responsibility for the problems they’ve created.

Micro-Preemies And Million Dollar Babies

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:21:38 -0400

My oldest was a micro-preemie—born more than three months early.

The NICU nurses called them “million-dollar babies,” these tiny humans hooked up to machines, clinging to life and to their mom’s little finger. My son actually hit his lifetime cap on health insurance before he ever left the hospital.

That used to be a thing. You could just…run out of health coverage. And what are you supposed to do if your child uses up their insurance simply by being born?

That’s one of the reasons the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) mattered so much. It banned lifetime and annual caps. It also banned insurance companies from denying you or charging you more because of a pre-existing condition—things like diabetes, cancer, even pregnancy. Yes, pregnancy used to count as a pre-existing condition.

The ACA also helped more people afford insurance through subsidies. During Covid, those subsidies were expanded so more families could actually keep coverage. Now those expanded subsidies are set to expire, and Republicans in Congress don’t want to renew them because they require government spending. At the same time, they talk about cutting Medicare and Medicaid.

Here’s why that matters for everybody, not just people who are sick.

Insurance works because lots of people—healthy and sick—pay into the same pot. Most people don’t need big payouts most of the time, so their premiums help cover the people who do.

But if subsidies go away and premiums jump, the first people to drop coverage are usually the younger and healthier ones—the folks who think, “I’ll risk it.” The people who stay in the pool are the ones who really need care and can’t go without it.

That makes the whole pool sicker and more expensive.

When that happens, premiums and copays go up again, which pushes even more healthy people out. It’s a feedback loop.

And it doesn’t stop there.

People without insurance skip the basics—flu shots, checkups, mammograms, colonoscopies. Preventive care is how we catch problems when they’re small and cheap. If fewer people are getting that care, doctors’ offices and hospitals have less steady income, so some of them cut staff or close—especially in rural areas where margins are already thin.

Meanwhile, more uninsured people end up in the ER with problems that could have been handled in an office visit months earlier. Emergency care is the most expensive kind of care. And hospitals that take Medicare have to stabilize anyone who walks in, whether they can pay or not, and no matter their immigration status. (We want that. We do not want people dying in parking lots.)

But when more people show up unable to pay, and at the same time public programs like Medicaid and Medicare are cut, hospitals get squeezed hard. Rural hospitals are usually the first to go. When they close, people lose both jobs and access to care.

So one policy change—letting ACA subsidies expire—doesn’t just mean “some people pay a bit more.” It ripples:

1. Premiums go up.

2. Healthier people drop coverage.

3. The insurance pool gets sicker and more expensive.

4. More people skip preventive care.

5. ERs get crowded with harder, costlier cases.

6. Hospitals and clinics, especially in rural areas, struggle or close.

7. People lose jobs and care at the same time.

The ACA isn’t perfect, but it was built to stop exactly this spiral. Letting those supports lapse takes us backward—to a world where a baby can hit their lifetime cap before they even come home.

Most rich countries – and many ‘well-off’ countries – have some form of universal health care that works. The US doesn’t, but at least with Medicare, Medicaid, and ACA subsidies we can help vulnerable people and support the entire health care system.

The overarching theme that I see in the political realm right now is this divide between people who are angry that some folks get free stuff from the government (like food and health care) and they don’t want to pay for that. But everyone who works pays taxes into that system. And the reality is that these subsidies really do benefit everyone in a indirect way.

Medicaid and Medicare help fund hospitals and doctor’s offices, making care more accessible for you. SNAP benefits for some spread out in the local economy, helping to pay cashiers at your local grocery store and supporting the farmer down the street.

And in case you needed a reminder, undocumented immigrants don’t get Medicaid, Medicare, free health care, or SNAP. They don’t qualify. They DO however get lifesaving care at hospital ERs under emergency circumstances, and yes, we want that for them. No one deserves to die alone in the street.

Maybe you like less government interference, maybe you like more. But I think we can all agree on the need for a country with more compassion for those suffering around us.

Climbing down off my soapbox to get my kids off to school.

Confirmation Bias

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:19:23 -0400

Do you know what confirmation bias is? Confirmation bias is the phenomena where we only take in evidence that supports our personal opinions and biases. And, when confronted with new information, we have a tendency to see that information in a way that supports our bias. In short, we look at everything in a way that supports or confirms the opinions we already hold.

The latest rage bait on Instagram is creators daring people on snap to try to steal their groceries as they are leaving the grocery store. I try to avoid interacting with these as I don’t want to lend them any more attention than absolutely necessary.

But these miserable people really highlight the stereotypes of people who are on government assistance. This is a huge issue because Instagram and Tiktok algorithms are notorious for giving us what we want and playing right into our confirmation bias. So if you watch one of those demeaning videos, you’re going to be sent more and more in your feed. The more you consume, the more you are given, and the more your opinions and biases are confirmed in your own mind.

The same thing goes for the AI videos of people crashing out over losing food stamps or claiming they get thousands of dollars in food benefits each month. The more of those you watch, the more you will be sent. The more you listen to them, the more likely you are to believe them. And they are wrong.

You’ve likely seen these statistics already.

41.7 million people per month received SNAP benefits in the year 2024.

That is 12.3% of the total population, or around 1 in 8 people. In Pa, that number drops to 1 in 10.

The average benefit is $187 per person per month, or around $6 per day. That isn’t going to get you very far.

First, I want to address the stereotype that is being propagated. I was absolutely shocked and dismayed to find a commercial on YouTube promoting this as well as content creators. SNAP recipients are not criminals. They aren’t lying in wait to ambush you as you saunter out of Costco. They aren’t feasting on surf and turf with their SNAP bounty. They aren’t lazy, dirty, or anything else that is being put on them.

Don’t get hung up on race, either. The largest racial/ethnic group that receives snap benefits are WHITE.

The largest group is white.

Many people on SNAP have full time jobs and just can’t make it.

You literally cannot raise a family on $20 an hour, yet minimum wage is still only $7.25. The national average for childcare for one child is over $1300 for the year. If you make $20 an hour, that’s almost half of your pay just for childcare for one. But if you don’t have childcare, you can’t go to work. So what are you supposed to do? As a single mom, I personally don’t have any family members who are capable, let alone willing, to watch my kids for even an hour. So no, RFK Jr, my parents can’t help with the kids.

We have people berating moms for not working, but childcare for 3 kids is more than you’ll even make if you only get paid $20 an hour. In Pa, the average pay for a Walmart employee is $16 per hour. If a mom has no family, how will she provide for her kids? It isn’t possible, yet we expect single moms to magically make that happen and blame them when they can't.

Second of all, these videos disparaging people on SNAP benefits are horrific, pitting the ‘right to bear arms’ in self-defense against the right to eat and survive. Assuming that someone is going to steal from you because they aren’t getting their government benefit sets them up to be put in harm’s way by the extreme right who is just looking for a reason to fight someone and make good on those 2nd amendment rights. These creators flat out state they are looking for a fight.

And yes, for every system there is going to be someone who tries to cheat it. Let’s just get that out of the way. But the actual number is very low due to the rigorous and robust process you have to go through to be able to get the benefit. And do you really want to take away support for the majority of people who are doing everything right just because a handful of people are trying to beat the system? What are they actually going to get out of it? More food?

Next, let me shout this out loud for you: undocumented immigrants aren’t getting SNAP benefits. They cannot quality nor can they sneak through the documentation system. There is no way to fake it. You aren’t losing money at the grocery store to hungry immigrants. Your food isn’t more expensive because immigrants exist. However, the more SNAP benefits that have been poured into a community, the more the grocery stores and even farmers and suppliers will benefit from them – not just the families in need. If you shop at a store that accepts SNAP, then you are also benefitting from the economic support that grocery receives from accepting SNAP.

Everybody wins when families eat.

Just remember, when you are doomscrolling today, that you have trained your algorithm to feed you exactly what you want to see. If you aren’t seeing any opinions other than your own, you might want to close the app for a bit and go talk to some real people. And really listen to what they have to say.

What's a Living Wage?

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 15:17:39 -0400

The federal poverty line is $15, 650 per year for a single person. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and has been since 2009. If you work 40 hours per week, every week of the year (no sick days, no holidays etc), you will make a grand total of $15,080 per year (gross, meaning before taxes are taken out).

If you are a single person, and you make double the minimum wage (which is roughly what big box stores like Walmart, Target pay) you might still qualify for SNAP benefits. What does this say? This says that double the minimum wage is still not a living wage. Remember, these figures don’t account for sick days, store closures for holidays, etc.

That is for one single person working full time.

Let’s say you make $15 per hour. If you work 40 hours per week, you’ll make $2400 for the month if you don’t miss any days due to illness, etc. (40 hours per week, 4 weeks in the month – keeping figures simple here).

Your tax rate will be somewhere between 18-22%, so for the sake of math, let’s say 20%.

So your take-home pay will be $1,920.

If you live in downtown Allentown, you MIGHT be able to get an apartment for $1000 a month. Where I live you are unlikely to find a place for less than $1500.

That leaves you with $920. You need some utilities: internet, electric, phone, and some sort of heat source. If you use Mint Mobile, you can get some slightly sketchy internet and cell phone service for about $45 per month. Your electric will likely be $100 and more if you have electric heat.

Now you are down to $775. But you still need insurance and transportation.

My cheap car insurance on an old, paid-for van and a clean record is $75 per month. Car maintenance can easily cost $100 per month (just think how often you need routine items like tires, brakes, oil change, etc). The average amount spent on gas is around $150 per month.

If you go to the USDA website and look at their food plans, a 20-50 year old male would need at minimum (the cheapest food there is) $310 a month for food.

If your employer sponsors your health care, you might be able to get a basic plan with minimum coverage for $110.

Now you are left with $30 in the month, as long as you haven’t had any sick days, flat tires, you don’t have any credit cards, school loans, or a car payment.

That $30 has to cover everything else – toilet paper, laundry soap, shampoo and conditioner, and an occasional bottle of Pepto Bismal or Draino.

Or say a $10 per month rental insurance plan which might be required by your landlord. A new pair of sneakers once in a while, since you’re probably on your feet all day if you work for $15 an hour. This budget doesn’t include water, sewer, trash pickup – hopefully that’s all included in your rent, but it might not be.

You can’t afford to go to McDonald’s even once, get a parking ticket, give to your favorite charity, or buy your mom flowers for Mother’s Day. No Christmas presents. No new clothes. No Netflix. No extras to make you feel better about life. Your apartment doesn’t have a washer and dryer – so off you go to the laundry mat. How much does that cost?

This doesn’t give you room to save for an emergency fund, retirement, or a new car. If you do any of that, you’ll need a second job. You won’t have time to go to school to get a better job because you’re working so hard already.

And even if you have health insurance, you can’t afford the copay. You can’t even afford to be sick since you can’t take any days off of work. Dave Ramsey says skip the latte, eat rice and beans and you’ll build the American Dream. Dave Ramsey is dead wrong because wages haven’t kept up with the cost of housing, and this is our problem.

The reason SO MANY people in America – like 42 million – need SNAP and medical assistance is because they cannot make a living wage. Meanwhile, profits for the shareholders of large companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon, just to name a few – are raking it in on the backs of people just trying to get by. I’m not anti-capitalism here, but it absolutely needs to be bridled if we don’t want people needing more government assistance.

Someone making $15 an hour as a single person MIGHT quality for SNAP – at about $24 a month. Less than $1 a day. Maybe they get some extra protein for that, or a bag of apples and some salad. But they aren’t getting rich. They’re barely getting by. A can of chicken is $3.99, a bag of apples is about $4.99. It doesn’t cover much.

People can’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps – the don’t even make enough money to afford the boots! We need to seriously consider what is a living wage and who deserves to earn one. (Hint: it’s not just the people at the top).

By the way, if you make $15 an hour, at the end of the day, you’ll bring home $96 max after taxes. Congress, on the other hand, gets $79 for lunch every day they show up to work. And that isn’t their paycheck. That’s just their lunch.

Food Insecurity

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 15:16:23 -0400

If only there were organizations that could collect wasted food and hand it out to people who need it… oh wait, there are! Food banks and food pantries are a great way to get food to the masses who need it. But… there’s always a but…

Roughly 1 in 12 people rely on SNAP monthly. 1 in 7 people use a food bank at some point each year. This means people you know are food insecure. Let me say it again – people you know are food insecure. Studies on the USDA website say it’s around 18% of households with children that have food insecurity, and the parents are more likely to go hungry because the adults don’t eat so that their kids can.

Pennsylvania ranks better than most of the US as far as food insecurity goes. Our state has a number of programs to support people in food insecure homes. For example, universal free breakfast is available at all public schools in Pa, giving students the opportunity to learn with a full belly. They also provide a number of state grants to counties to support food charities, known as the State Food Purchase Program (Pa is the leader in this program!). But even with all of this help, food pantries really are just a supplement and don’t provide enough food for a family that is hungry.

You can find food pantries near you by visiting 211.org or feedingamerica.org. Some of these organizations are able to work with grocery stores that would otherwise have to throw the food away. In Pa, at least, it is legal for food pantries to give away food that is past its best buy date, as long as it appears to still be good. The exceptions are baby food and formula, vitamins, or medicine.

But don’t just go raid your pantry for last year’s somewhat smashed box of taco shells. If it isn’t appetizing to you, why on earth would you expect someone that is food insecure to eat it? Don’t they deserve the dignity of good food, too?

And while some people truthfully enjoy shopping for others, the absolute best way to support a food pantry usually is to give your cash. Somehow, a lot of people feel better about handing out a few cans of black beans when your $20 would go much further in the hands of a food pantry.

The reality is that a food pantry has significantly better purchasing power than a single person. So putting the cash in their hands gives them the opportunity to buy in bulk, buy at wholesale prices, or get special deals that normal people aren’t eligible for. People who work or volunteer regularly at food pantries have a better pulse on what’s really needed rather than what the average joe thinks someone else should eat.

And when people donate random items, it’s harder for food pantries to put together usable meals. One influencer spent $25 on a mystery box at his food pantry (yes he had to pay for this one) and ended up with 30 pounds of croutons. This is what happens when food pantries can’t make decisions for themselves about what to purchase and distribute.

If you do have miscellaneous food to move from your pantry, consider offering it in your local buy nothing group. Often times, people who are in immediate need will post looking for specific items or any items available and you can offer what’s in your pantry to them.

If you really want to get grassroots and boots on the ground, offer to drive for your local food pantry. They sometimes need people willing to go to the grocery store to collect items and then deliver it to the pantry where it can be distributed. Or perhaps you want to box items or be someone who actually hands it off to people who are in need.

At this moment in time, it looks like only 50% of the SNAP funds will be delivered in the month of November. Gov. Shapiro has made an emergency order to get more funding to food banks. But food pantries are going to be overrun and probably still won’t be able to fulfill the needs. So if you’ve got more than enough, consider calling up your local food pantry and seeing what they need.

Thanksgiving is around the corner and Christmas and Hannukah are not far away. Now is the time to share not just your old leftovers, but your cash.

Real people are in real need and it’s going to get worse as the month goes on.

So if you want to help – and I hope you do- call up your local food pantry and ask what they need. And while you’re out there dropping it off, check on your neighbor. You never know who might be going hungry today.

The Poor Tax

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:14:46 -0400

You've probably heard of the 'pink tax' - where manufacturers will make something in pink or even something breast-cancer related and charge extra for it.

The poor tax is even more insidious.

The poor tax refers to the phenomenon that it actually costs more to be poor than to be middle or upper class. So if you're wondering why poor people can't just 'do better' - this is one of the reasons.

For example, if your grocery budget is small, you're being as frugal as you can. But you don't have any money to buy more than exactly what you need. So maybe you buy smaller packages with less food in them - but food packaged that way actually costs more per ounce. You don't have extra cash to take advantage of sales, either. Whereas someone with a little room in their food budget, or someone who has a full pantry they can rely on, can stock up on major sales. They might be able to buy a month's worth of cereal when it's only 1.77 a box, but someone who is poor can only buy one because there's no wiggle room to stock up, even though it would save money in the long run. So although they are spending less per week they are paying more for the food they actually eat.

Someone who has a lower income is usually paid by the hour, which means if they have to miss work due to anything from the flu to jury duty, they're out an entire day or more worth of income. That's a big deal, so maybe they have to put this week's groceries on the credit card. But because their income is low and their credit isn't great, their interest rate is 34%, which makes that food cost 1/3 more! They're trying to make the payments, but just putting a little bit of food on that card has maxed it out, because low income means a low credit card limit. So their score drops even more, and their interest rate might go up even further.

Now that they've missed work and have another bill to pay, they accidentally overdraw their account. Now, on top of being short money already, they have to pay a $35 per day fee for overdrawing their bank account. Where are they going to get the extra funds?

If you only make $15 an hour - which is double minimum wage by the way- it's going to take you a long time to recover from even missing a couple days of work.

You're trying hard to build up an emergency fund, but if you get more than $3000 in the bank - which is less than say first and last months rent if you need to move to a new apartment - you lose your SNAP benefits. So you can't just move and find a cheaper place to live, you're stuck where you are. Because if you save up money and lose snap, you'll have to use that money for food.

Let's talk about cars! You had an old but very reliable car to get back and forth to work. It wasn't fancy, but it was paid off. You get rear ended at a stop sign, and because the car is old, the insurance company considered it totaled. They gave you $2000 to buy a new car. So you search FB marketplace and you put that money plus all your savings into the best car you can find. You don't have money to get it checked out by a mechanic first, so you pick one that looks reliable and has an up-to-date inspection sticker.

You drive the car for 2 months, but you didn't realize that the car was never maintained and the transmission goes. Your savings are gone, your car is too expensive to fix, and now you can't get to work. What do you do?

Uber is expensive. You can't afford that. It's too far to walk because you can't afford to live near where you work. Oh, and since you live in a semi-rural area (the only place you could afford) there are no buses. You can ride your bike, but the road is sketchy and all of the drivers get mad at you because there isn't a shoulder to ride on. What do you do? (This is a true story, btw, although it didn't happen to me).

Your only option now is to finance a car. So you go to a sketchy car dealership and they do give you a $2000 car, but they charge extra fees because you don't have a downpayment. It has an R title because it was underwater once and everything smells bad.

And because your credit cards are maxed from buying groceries when you were sick, your interest rate is 29% over 3 years. How much more does that car cost verses someone who was able to buy a newer car at a much lower interest rate?

These are just a few real life examples of why it costs much more to be poor. Just getting a few hundred dollars of SNAP benefits a month doesn't make up for this low-paying, hourly income and the extra cost of goods. You would love to enroll in school so you could get a better job, but you can't afford it. And who would watch your kids while you go to class? It's hard enough working while they're in school, with all of the half days, holidays, and sick days. What do you do?

How are you supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when there aren't options for you to do so? You're not lazy at all, you work really hard at your job and you show up. But you are stuck and worse, you are hated because you can't 'do better.'

Who Deserves to Eat?

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 15:11:39 -0400

Who deserves to eat? Moreover, who gets to decide who eats? And what are the determining factors?

Does where you live determine whether you should be able to eat or not?

Does how much money you make determine whether you should eat or not?

Does your level of productivity determine if you should eat or not?

If you discovered your aging parent was missing meals because they didn't have enough food, wouldn't you bring them a hot meal? Or maybe you found out your college-age kid wasn't getting enough meals at school- you'd probably send them a great big care package.

But what the grandma whose kids have moved away and she has no one to bring her food that covers the hungry times? What about the 20 year old who is on their own, doing their best, but still going hungry?

What precludes you from being worthy of enough calories?

People are quick to say work harder, get a better job, work more hours....

Imagine you are a single mom through no fault of your own. Child care costs as much as your mortgage, so in order to go to work you need someone to watch your children. If you don't have family or friends that are able or willing to babysit regularly, you're going to have to have a job that makes enough money to cover the all of the costs. This is hard enough for households with 2 working parents, but somehow our society expects single moms to do it alone without help and without complaining because "they chose this."

Even if your children are school age, you still need after school care, which is more expensive per hour. But let's not miss out on all of the half days, holidays, school programs, conferences, IEP meetings, and it's not forget sick days, checkups, and dentist appointments. If your child or children have special needs, the number of appointments can easily triple or more. If they need speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational theory or other things, these are weekly appointments that can make it nearly impossible to work. Does that mom and child deserve to not eat because they have to spend all their business hours trying to get well?

Do homeless people deserve to eat? 50% of homeless people actually have jobs. They're trying, they just don't make enough money to afford a place to eat and live. They're working but finding it impossible to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Do they deserve to eat?

What about addicts? Addiction is a disease. Yes, it may come with a lot of bad choices and mistakes but underneath that disease is another human being just trying to get through life the best way they know how. Do you really mean it when you say they don't deserve to eat? Maybe a few hot meals, a chance to learn that there is some good in this world would give them the energy and security to invest themselves in rehab (which is another issue - rehab is expensive and hard and that's not their fault).

Who decides what people get to eat? A creator on instagram said people on snap should be given a box of only healthy fresh foods. But here's the thing.... processed foods are literally cheaper and they are much more shelf stable. Why on earth would you buy fresh meat or veggies that would go bad in a couple days when you could buy much cheaper noodles or even potato chips which will stay good for months? Furthermore, food is cultural and what is considered healthy in one area might not be the same in another area. Or even available. About 6% of the United States lives in a food desert - defined as a place where there isn't easy access to healthy food or good quality fresh food. So do these people not deserve to eat?

Have you ever eaten a piece of chocolate to make yourself feel better? Or gone out to eat after a stressful day because you're just worn out? Do you only deserve this kind of comfort if you are a certain social or economic status? or is it ok for a small child to eat a cookie after a long day at school?

We don't need to police WHO gets to eat or WHAT they want to eat. Let's just make sure that everyone has the opportunity to eat.

Shady AI Videos

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 15:13:13 -0400

This shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. There are a number of AI-created videos rolling around on TikTok and Instagram solely for the purpose of perpetuating the myth of the welfare queen.

These videos usually portray a non-white, non-skinny, non-educated person crashing out at the cash register over frozen food stamps. They're threatening to steal food or cause harm. There are a few variations and they just seem to further ignite hatred towards people who get assistance and push the stereotype about who gets help and why. That's the whole point.

These videos are shared by creators looking to get extra views by promoting harmful stereotypes. Don't fall for it! AI is quickly improving in its capabilities and the best thing you can do is arm yourself against falling for it.

Remember, if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Maybe you've seen videos of a small child being rescued from a tree falling by a dog. Another video depicts a bull defending a toddler from another bull. Bunnies or raccoons jumping on a trampoline. Grandma taking a herd of cats on leashes for a walk. And my personal fav, Grandma getting in trouble with the police for feeding a bear.

How can you tell if it isn't real?

Look for a watermark or a blurry spot where someone used poor editing to erase a watermark.

Look for a timestamp that doesn't make sense.

Watch for strange body parts - such as odd shaped fingers and hands, a weird arm, etc.

Keep your eye on the background - parts will move or not move in ways you would expect.

Watch facial expressions - those faces may look overly botoxed, filtered, - AI doesn't make the face move as much as it normally would.

Any unusual artifact - objects in the video don't look right, the video may be blurred in areas you would expect detail, or you may see spots where the AI didn't generate everything that should be there.

Security cameras. The trampoline bunnies look like the footage came from a Ring camera at night - this is intentional, because it's easier to cover up the AI mistakes. Also, the videos of animals bringing random animals into their owner's beds - these are AI. Who films their bed with a security camera while they are sleeping?

Things that are out of character. I watched a video of Mr. Rogers crashing out and screaming obscenities. That is completely out of character for his personality, both real and on-screen.

If you have to question if it's AI, it probably is.

AI videos are a lot of fun to play with but they can be very damaging, especially when they are used to further stereotypes that can cause significant harm to people (imagine the ramifications of the 'welfare queen' video or a video of real person doing something illegal they never actually did).

Use your common sense and please stop the stereotype narratives at every opportunity.

How Much Do You Spend on Food?

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 15:08:41 -0400

How much do you actually spend on food? How do you compare to the national average?

The USDA offers several food budget suggestions based on the national cost of groceries. You can find it here: [www.fns.usda.gov/.../cost-...](https://www.fns.usda.gov/.../cost-food-monthly-reports).

The thrifty plan is the cheapest budget, and you wouldn't be able to afford organic or luxury foods on this level, it's just the absolute cheapest most basic amount that the government thinks you should be spending on groceries. They even break it down according to age. Check it out and see where you fall! Then think about SNAP benefits - because SNAP doesn't cover the entire amount of a thrifty food plan. So the government knows that this amount doesn't fully cover your food for the month, it's a supplement.

You have to reapply for snap benefits every 6 months and if you don't complete your application on time, you lose them. In order to apply, you have to fill out a pretty large packet of information, which can be especially challenging if English isn't your first language or you don't have a good education. The directions are pretty confusing, and you will also need to include verification - copies of your bank statements, maybe your mortgage or rent, your utilities, etc. If you don't have a computer or internet access, it is harder and slower to apply.

Also, you cannot directly call the Department of Human Services or the caseworker that you are assigned. You have to call the call center, and you wait on hold for about an hour. Then you speak to a call center rep who will take your information and forward it to right person. I think they have 3 days to call you back and if you miss the call, you have to start all over again. And if you're at work you might not be able to answer your phone, so it could literally take you weeks to actually discuss your case with someone who can help you. But the caseworkers don't make the decision, the supervisors do, and you don't get to speak with them.

If you don't upload the right documents, they will reject your case but until you get a chance to speak with someone, you might not even know why your case was rejected. If you are self-employed or a contractor, it's even harder to prove your income. Last year's tax returns aren't enough, you need last months paystubs. If you don't get paystubs, you'll have to work with a caseworker to figure out what type of documentation is acceptable, because it isn't always the same based on your particular supervisor for your case.

Getting - and keeping - SNAP benefits just isn't that easy. And you likely have to miss work time to get them done because caseworkers are only available during business hours. You have to jump through a lot of hoops.

You aren't getting rich off of benefits. One woman used her SNAP benefits to make baked goods to sell in order to help her family. As far as I can tell from the story, her intentions were wholesome. But she got caught, was arrested, and may face up to 10 years in prison. If you commit fraud trying to get SNAP, you may have to pay them back, pay fines, face jail, or get booted off the program for life.

Two judges voted that the president must release the emergency funds earmarked for keeping SNAP going through a government shutdown. Hopefully, he complies, but even if he does, SNAP benefits will be delivered late this month.

People are quick to judge what SNAP users put in their grocery cars, but the reality is that food is more than filling bellies. It is security. It is health. It is comfort. It's a little bit of hope. A little bit of joy.

What the Bible Actually Says about the Poor

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 15:08:07 -0400

I saw a pastor on threads railing against people who were on SNAP benefits. He said if they are able bodied enough to be on TikTok, they can get a job. Clearly, he doesn't understand that 86% of households receiving SNAP benefits include a child, elderly, or disabled person. I am not sure where the stereotypes came from, but there is this image that people on SNAP are lazy and cheating the system.

Fraud rates for SNAP are estimated around 11%, but fraud by the people using them is probably less than 1%. The other fraud that is occurring is people skimming and cloning EBT cards, not people lying about needing them. If your SNAP benefits get stolen in Pa, they do not get replaced by the government. You just lose out. Furthermore, the largest group by race receiving SNAP benefits are actually white folks, coming in at 37%.

So-called Christian creators are using 2 Thess. 3:10 to say the government shouldn't provide for you if you aren't working:, "For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If anyone is unwilling to work, let him not eat". This is wrong on a number of levels. First, that verse was directed at Christians who were sitting around doing nothing because they expected Jesus to return any minute. Second, that verse has nothing to do with people who are poor, sick, children, disabled, or can't make a living wage. 3. The constitution isn't actually based on the Bible, and definitely not on that verse (however, Russia may have used it in their government reform to reinforce communism).

The Bible says to care for the poor over 2000 times yet Christians keep taking specific verses out of context to shame and bully people who need help. But Jesus never asked people if they had a job before he fed them... he just fed them. He didn't ask if they paid for their health insurance, he just healed them.

Jesus was against people that shamed others or that used Scripture as a weapon to bully others (Ie the Pharisees). Instead, he championed the poor, the widow, the orphan, the disabled... you get the idea. He never showed disdain for someone who society deemed as less, he actually invited them to dinner.

The reality is that Jesus called Christians into action. James 2:15-16: "If a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?"

That means that sending 'thoughts and prayers' are not enough - believers are supposed to be in the trenches, handing out the coats and food. Thoughts and prayers are not good enough!

The Old Testament said in Deuteronomy and Leviticus that farmers were to leave food in the fields so that poor folks could come along behind and get themselves food to eat.

Honestly, if you follow Jesus, you probably should be thankful that the government has programs to care for the poor in your neglect. When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what he needed to do to be saved, Jesus told him to sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor. I'm pretty sure if you have a nice home and plenty of food, Jesus would expect you to bring some homeless people over for dinner, give them some of the best clothes from your closet, and let them sleep in your guest room. Oh, yeah, and he would have washed their stinky feet first.

So if you're a Christian my question for you is, which kind of Christian are you? The kind that prooftexts Bible verses to reinforce their petty biases or the kind that follows the example of Jesus?

-sincerely, a doctoral student of Biblical exegesis.

Food Insecurity

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 15:06:39 -0400

Sometimes I'm still mad at myself for what I didn't know. But when I became a foster parent, I saw firsthand the effect that food insecurity has on children. It isn't just a hungry feeling in your belly - food insecurity damages the central nervous system and creates trauma and those of us raised in food-secure homes can't begin to appreciate it until we see it in real time. Children learn safety, security, and attachment through food. It's science.

Every time we are hungry and our caregiver feeds us is a transaction that teaches us about the world. We learn security, confidence, and comfort when our needs our met as infants. It shapes everything we know about the world.

On the other hand, when we are hungry and there is no food provided, we learn that the world is not safe, that our needs can't be satisfied, and that every bite of food may be our last. Short term, it looks like children eating non-edible things from hair, to chewing pieces of wood off their crib, to eating bugs, garbage, and hoarding. They try to eat anything they can fit in their mouths even if it's harmful. It looks like gorging themselves until they get sick because they truly believe they will never have food again. It is a pervasive hopelessness that creates trauma and the inability to trust for the rest of their lives.

Children do not get to choose the families they are born into, so if you were born into a family that was able to meet all your needs as an infant and toddler - you are lucky indeed!

Children born into poverty, addiction, abuse - this is not their fault and the only way to end the cycle of poverty, addiction, and abuse is to step in for these kids and provide for their basic needs no matter who their parents are or what they have done. Children do not deserve our disdain or punishment because they are poorer than us - they have zero choices, zero power, and zero ability to provide for themselves. It is ALWAYS the adults responsibility- as parents, yes, but also as a society who cares about the future of our world.

But the reality is that most people on SNAP benefits aren't addicts or abusive or any of that - they are simply people who are working hard to make ends meet and because of our broken economic system, they can't do it alone. But if we don't help, we are sentencing their children to a life of struggle and trauma. We make the world a worse place to live.

SNAP bridges the gap for many families who are doing their best every single day. A single person (without kids) working full time at minimum wage qualifies for SNAP. Let that sink in. It means our government acknowledges that the minimum wage is too low to survive on, yet we have allowed that to continue. Double the minimum wage is still not enough to afford rent, a vehicle to get to work, and basic food and clothing. Yet they are told to just work harder, work more, or get a better job as if it is their fault. How can a single parent work two jobs when childcare costs more than their rent?

I know that you are a good person and you can make a difference! Please get out there and show kindness - give some money to food banks and homeless shelters, offer to babysit for a single parent, cut the lawn or shovel snow for someone who is overwhelmed. Influencers on Instagram are saying if you see someone stealing food you should look the other way. I say we can do better. If you see someone stealing food - just pay for it and help them stay out of trouble.

We can make this better if we stop being cruel and just lend a hand.

False Premise on the USDA Website

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 15:05:01 -0400

If you go to the USDA website, you will see that the democrats are being blamed for the withholding of SNAP benefits due to them holding out for "healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation."

This is a false premise on several fronts.

1. The US has a $6 billion dollar fund specifically to cover SNAP benefits in the event of a government shutdown. The money is earmarked for this purpose so why have they not been released?

2. Illegal aliens do not qualify for Medicare, Medicaid, Chip, or ACA benefits. Hospitals that receive Medicare are required by law to provide stabilizing services to anyone regardless of insurance or immigration status. (This keeps people from dying in the streets).

Illegal aliens are not making your health care costs go up.

Insurance companies are what make your costs go up.

3. The partisan commentary on this federal website is a violation of the Hatch Act.

4. The Republicans have majority control over the House, the Senate, and the presidency. They took a three week paid vacation during the shutdown. The Democrats are outnumbered.

5. Using words like gender mutilation attempts to criminalize an already marginalized people group. Whether gender affirming care is covered by Medicaid is a state level decision with no federal mandate.

However, it should be recognized that the rhetoric being used on the USDA website is inflammatory regardless of which side of the aisle you reside. It is entirely possible to hold to your political beliefs without cruelty or demoralizing language.

Empathy and the Image of God

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 15:26:57 -0400

Of all the controversies I’ve experienced in my life, I never expected empathy to be one of them.

Lately, the religious right and some Christian nationalists talk as if empathy is suspect. It’s too “woke,” too feelings-based, too sinful, while people on the left treat it as essential. But empathy, at its simplest, just means this: to understand and share the feelings of another person. It’s walking in someone else’s shoes long enough to see where they’re coming from. It does not mean you have to believe like them, act like them, or even agree with them. It just means you’re willing to understand.

A lot of what we’re fighting about is semantics used to make a point. The Christian nationalist argument goes something like: empathy puts feelings ahead of truth. Feelings are dangerous; they can lead you astray. We should believe the Bible no matter what we feel, because sin can feel good. Therefore, we must focus on “facts” and not be distracted by emotions.

But that ideology ends up refusing to see the world any other way than its own. It acts as if feelings aren’t part of being human, as if really listening to another person might somehow “taint” us. That’s not Godlike love; that’s self-righteousness dressed up as holiness.

You can hear it in how some conservative clergy talk about transgender people: “You may feel like a woman, but the fact is you are a man and always will be.” That doesn’t sound like someone interested in understanding the needs, feelings, and worth of a trans person. It sounds like someone who would rather dismiss a human being than do the slower, holier work of listening. And when we do that, we end up missing what God called good in another person simply because they don’t line up with what we think they should be.

And it’s always easier to dismiss people we refuse to empathize with. It’s easier to look down on the poor, the marginalized, or the person with addiction when we never try to experience the world through their eyes. It’s easier to say “no” to SNAP or health care when we’ve never had to need those things.

So let me ask:

When was the last time you truly didn’t know where your next meal was coming from?

When did you go to make dinner and the cupboards were empty?

When did you pretend you weren’t hungry so your kids could eat?

When did you skip medical treatment because you couldn’t afford insurance?

If you’ve never been there, it’s very easy to scold people on assistance. I just saw a Facebook comment from someone in the cycling community criticizing Democrats for not having “a plan to get people off government assistance.” It didn’t sound like he cared about suffering. It sounded like someone who has never been in that position and doesn’t want to take the time to understand the need or help someone else. Without empathy, it’s easier to fight for your own comfort and your own money than for someone else’s survival.

What’s interesting is that sometimes we actually have more empathy for the wealthy. We want to be in their shoes—free from financial stress, not tied to a job we hate—so we instinctively side with them. Our empathy travels upward more easily than it travels downward. Maybe that’s why so many folks are ok with billionaire tax cuts but not SNAP and Medicaid.

I was raised conservative evangelical. I was taught that humans are worthless, dirty, filthy, and destined for hell unless Jesus steps in. But that’s broken theology. In Genesis, God created the heavens and the earth, the plants, the animals, the light and the dark - and then called it good. Then God made people in God’s own image and called them very good. That means people, poor, addicted, broken, marginalized, immigrant, you, and me all carry the imago dei.

So when we refuse to have empathy for someone because of their poverty, their addiction, their immigration status, their gender identity, we’re not protecting truth. We’re denying their image-of-godness.

And empathy is not the same as affirmation. You can have empathy for a person struggling with addiction and still believe drugs are destructive. You can understand someone’s pain without copying their choices. Empathy is the posture that lets us hold truth without throwing people away.

If I could encourage you to do anything today, it would be this: sit with the tension between facts and feelings. Ask yourself, Where does my disdain for the disadvantaged come from? Why am I so against feeling empathy for people who are struggling and suffering? Because very often, the problem isn’t that empathy is “too woke.” It’s that empathy forces us to admit other people’s lives are as real, as complicated, and as beloved by God as our own.

SNAP Benefits Everyone

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 15:02:52 -0400

Today I was called dense for believing that SNAP benefits the local economy. But look at this: If Jane Doe receives $100 in SNAP benefits, that $100 in SNAP benefits generates about $150 to $180 in total economic output. This happens through a chain reaction:

Grocer's Spend: The grocery store uses the $100 (and other revenue) to pay its costs.

Labor and Wages: They use the money to pay wages to the cashier, stockers, and managers who are also residents of your community. These employees then spend their wages locally (on rent, clothes, or even food).

Local Supply Chain: They use the money to pay for inventory, which supports local food processors, wholesalers, and regional distributors.

Agriculture Support: A portion of that money eventually makes its way back to local farmers and producers who supplied the goods. This means that if you or your family work in any of these avenues, you are benefitting from someone else's SNAP benefits.

However, if SNAP comes to an end, and these same people spend less money, the opposite happens and grocery prices might even go up for you and your family (due to the principles of supply and demand). If you consider that over 30% of the children in my school district come from economically disadvantaged families (who likely qualify for benefits) that is a large chunk of the community purchasing groceries. So just remember that if your neighbor gets food stamps it's actually good for everyone and SNAP has some of the lowest fraud rates of any government program. Please be kind. For the love of God and all that is good, just, and hopeful in this world, be kind.

Don't despise the small beginnings

Fri, 19 Apr 2024 13:57:35 -0400

I like to go all in. Rip off the band-aid, jump in head first, and throw everything I've got at my next new project or problem. Yep yep, starting Monday, I'm going to eat healthy. Or, starting next week I'm going to the gym three times a week to get strong! I'm quitting my job to go to school for a new career... I'm chopping up my credit cards and never using debt again!

Do any of these sound like you? You get fed up with the way things are and make a giant change, expecting it to stick. But change, no matter how necessary, is really incredibly hard, and most of the time, making that giant, life-altering improvement doesn't stick. It's simply too much altering at one time.

Or maybe you have a different challenge - the change is so huge that you are paralyzed. You're dead-still frozen like Han Solo in a slab of carbonite. Because getting to that space of making the change takes so much mental, physical, and emotional energy that you just can't start. I feel you! I keep putting off that healthy eating to another day, and then another day, and then suddenly it's been another month and I haven't made any changes at all. And I feel even worse for being that way. Feel familiar?

Maybe you've got that paralysis of analysis - it's such a big change that you need to make, that you can't make the decision about where to start. So you read books. You watch endless educational YouTube videos. You take another $37 internet course. And you're stuck researching.

Been there, done that, and it cost me thousands of dollars because the inventory for my 'new business' expired before I got out there and found the clients to buy it. I was too busy doing research when I just needed to start.

Oh do I feel you! I've tripped over each and every one of these... and they never really work, do they? We know we need to do something different, we just can't get from where we are to that thing that's better for us.

And that thing could be any number of 'things' - a new job, or getting organized, finding new clients, a healthier lifestyle, better parenting, or saving money. It's anything than seems big or undoable but would enhance our lives. I don't think you're lazy. I think you might be stuck.

If you read the Bible (and if you don't, don't worry - it's still a good story, so stick with me on this) - the people of Isreal were going to rebuild their temple - a monumental task, if you ask me. So God sent some visions to the prophet Zechariah so he would know how to encourage them. Then God says to Zechariah - "Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.” (Zechariah 4:10 NLT).

A plumb line is just a weight on the end of a string. And you can use it when you're building to see if your post, or pole, or wall is straight. It's a very simple tool you use in the beginning of a project to see if you're getting off to a good start. God is happy to see their work begin.

There's a lot more to the story and you can go and read it for yourself if you like. But I just want to point out one little thing here - God doesn't expect us to conquer our entire challenge all at once. He isn't worried about the results. He didn't expect them to build up this giant monument all of the sudden. He's excited to see the work begin.

We all have to start somewhere, so don't despise the small beginnings. Don't hate those first little steps. Just make the first step, no matter how small. Because small progress is still progress.

OK fine, but what does this look like in real life?

That's what I ask myself every time I watch an educational YouTube video or read a motivational blog post. It sounds great in theory, but does it actually do anything? What's the point?

A few weeks ago I decided to organize my pantry. I pulled everything out and I lined it up on the floor. I got so overwhelmed and suddenly fatigued from the sight that I just wanted to quit. Why on earth did I even start this dumb project anyway? What was I thinking? But obviously I couldn't leave my kitchen that way. I had to keep moving.

So I picked one thing to do.

I picked the easiest, most obvious thing that I could think of. So the first thing I did was just look at what obviously needed to be thrown away. I didn't look at expiration dates, or scour packages, or debate if it was something we would actually eat. I did none of that. I just got rid of anything that looked like it needed to be trashed. I took away the decision-making and went on instinct, and I did it fast.

One small step helped to create enough momentum to get to move on to the next step. Then I picked another step - putting away the soup cans. Then the canned veggies. Then the pasta. Just one easy piece at a time. I ate a cookie, I sipped some coffee, and I picked another thing.

Maybe this isn't the best example, but we all have those projects that we finally get inspired to start and then get overwhelmed, if we even start them at all.

The key is this: don't despise the small steps. Pick the easiest, most obvious thing and do it fast. And this helps us in a variety of ways.

First of all, it reduces decision fatigue. Honestly, we make so many decisions in a day from what to wear to what to eat, that by the time we have a chance to do something else, we've run out of the ability to make decisions. It's normal. Deal with the decision fatigue by removing that piece for now and do the easy part first. Plus, it cuts down on one more decision you have to make later.

Second, it creates momentum. An object in motion tends to stay in motion—and that is as true for people as it is for slinklies and soft balls (thank you to my amazing 11th-grade physics teacher!). It's hard to get moving, but once we get going, it gets easier to keep moving.

I often feel this when I ride my bicycle. When I first pedal, it feels hard! But if I put in a few hard, fast pedal strokes to get up to speed, it gets easier to keep the momentum and maintain the speed.

Third, it creates motivation. Just about every motivational speaker I've ever listened to (and there have been plenty!) has said that feelings follow action. If we wait until we FEEL motivated, we'll be waiting a really, really long time, if not forever. We don't naturally feel motivated (or at least, most of us don't). And motivating ourselves out of plain old grit is just hard and requires endless amounts of emotional effort.

What really brings out our feelings of motivation is results. So if we can get a positive result - no matter how small - it'll motivate us to get more results. I'm far less likely to overeat when the scale is dropping, but when it gets stagnant, I'm much more likely to grab an extra cookie or seventeen.

So don't think of small beginnings or baby steps as babyish. Small progress is the start of something big. It doesn't matter what elephant you're trying to eat - don't try to swallow the whole thing at once. Small and consistent (but not perfect) progress will get you there.

Don't despise the small beginnings - just begin.

Taking Inventory

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 09:54:07 -0400

If you asked most people, they would probably admit that their life just doesn't look quite like they had imagined it would. My life is not really anything like what I pictured when I went off to college, young, naive, and still really new to the world around me.

There are days when I wonder how I got off track...I had such a mission and vision for my life back then. A passion to make the world better, and a great big bunch of hope that the world could be better.

Where did that hope go? When did wanting to change the world morph into wanting to make it to the next paycheck? When did that dream of spreading hope to others pass into dreaming of when I can lay my head back down on my pillow? When did wanting to stand against darkness fade into just wanting to go sit back down with a heating pad and a bowl of vanilla ice cream?

In some ways, it doesn't matter what we wanted 20 years ago. We can't go back, we can't ever re-enter that time in our lives when we were so energetic and passionate and wanting to make a difference. We traded our enthusiasm for experience and it shows in our stringy grey hairs, and squishy squint lines, and crepe skin, I suppose. We've lost so much and we gained some things we didn't expect, as well.

We used to be excited to learn new things, and now we giggle nervously when we have to approach something fresh, when we embrace a new idea or are tempted to post in a new app. Learning new skills and trying new things used to be our normal, daily operation, not a class that we sign up for or a seminar we attend.

I am convinced that a large part of why we 'grown-ups' are so tired is that we've lost that wide-eyed wonder with which we used to view the world. When every day was a new experience and each morning we hopped out of bed, ready to slay pretend dragons because we didn't need to face any real live dungeon-master disasters or dragon-like firy problems. We had reserves of energy, ready to be spent frivolously on fun - and now, our energy is spent before we've even had the chance to nourish it awake.

Experience is a heavy weight and I often wish that we could set it down. So what if we just stopped in our tracks, and took an inventory of where we are. Set those heavy weights down for just a moment, to reconcile the life ledger that constantly runs through the back of our head. Some of us might be excited to see how far we've come, while others of us, ashamed, or simply weary of where the world has brought us. Or maybe, all of the above.

Where we are isn't the end of our story, of course. We know this to be true, else we wouldn't ever pour another cup of coffee or put on our big girl pants to slay the day. But we also know that making changes is hard, and sometimes, it is entirely worth it to stay the course we ended up taking.

But we'll never know unless we ask ourselves the hard questions. Am I happy in this space? Am I fulfilled? Is where I am worth it or will it bring more regrets than peace?

Did I get off the track I need to take or did I lose my way entirely? Or have I created an entirely new route, uniquely fitted for me?

As women, it is so easy to lose ourselves to raising kids, supporting our spouses, and helping others. We forget what actually makes us tick. We make ourselves smaller so others can be larger than life. And over time, the little things turn into bigger things and we get to our middle age and realize we're not even sure who we are anymore. But that's ok. We can still be found.

We can't ever go back, and most of us wouldn't even want to. But we can pick back up, recover some of the pieces we lost, and create things that are new and fulfilling in ways we never could have imagined.

Take a moment, just for you. Allow yourself to wander in your thoughts, to daydream. If you couldn't fail, what is it you would do today? What pieces of your life are missing that you would like to fill with something new? If your life could take a new direction, where would you want it to go? What do you love in your life and what do you want more of?

Give yourself the gift of a dream, whether something as small as a hot cup of coffee and a good book or something bigger, like a career. If you could reinvent yourself for even just a day, who would you be? Would you be your friend? Would you have hope?

No, we can't and we don't want to go back. But what do we want? I know what it is I want. And maybe you are the same.

I want to face each day with the energy and excitement of my small children, who can't contain themselves to their beds for one more minute when there are so many things to experience, and learn, and understand. I want to jump out of my bed each day, ready to tackle my kingdoms, forge new paths, and experience, in wonder and amazement, the world around me.

Seeds, Weeds, and Soul Soil

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 19:49:58 -0400

Seeds, Weeds, and Soul Soil by Amanda Whittington

I'm so excited to announce my new book, Seeds, Weeds, and Soul Soil. Weaving in Scriptures about farming, planting, and growing alongside real stories of homestead life, this devotional book will help you grow a little closer to Jesus. Get it on Amazon now!

When Your Dandelion Wishes Get Mowed Down

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 17:22:44 -0400

It was an exceptionally good year for dandelions. And as I looked out over our yard, I could see their white fuzzy heads waving and bobbing in the breeze, like a carpet of white fuzz. My children love those dandelions. They prance through the yard, finding the biggest heads and blowing bits of fuzz as far as they possibly can, making wishes and making up songs and dancing in the fluffy clouds.

And then came the lawn mower.

I couldn’t help but giggle as I watched a trail of dandelion seeds flying out behind the mower, forming giant clouds and then blowing away. And then I watched as that lawn mower cut a path, chopping down the weeds and grass and everything in its path. It made me a little sad, because all those hopes and dreams and wishes and giggles that were all wrapped up in those fluffy weeds were wiped out in a single path of the mower. And before long, the yard was mowed and all of those fluffy heads were gone.

Sometimes, that’s what life feels like. All of our fluffy hopes and dreams, just like the dandelions, get mowed off by the struggles of daily life. I had so many hopes and dreams for this year – I was excited for all of the possibilities that I thought 2020 would bring, only to have them chopped off and cut down by a global pandemic and the resulting challenges.

But just like the summer dandelions, this season will also pass. It wasn’t long before those dandelions popped back up, with new fluffy heads for children to blow away and new giggles and lots more prancing in the weeds. And just like life, maybe we lost a season of hopes and dreams but God is so good that He will bring us an entirely new season, with new hopes, new wishes, and new places to dance and prance.

NIV Artisan Collection Bible

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 12:41:14 -0400

I confess. I have a tendency to geek out a bit when it comes to books, but I really hit geek overload over fresh, new Bibles. So when BG2 offered me a free NIV Artisan Collection Bible to review as a member of the Bible Gateway Blogger Grid and #BibleGatewayPartner, I couldn't wait to say yes! Although the Bible was free, the opinions are my own and I'm not paid to endorse them.

When my new Bible arrived, the first thing I noticed was the beautiful dusky blue-marbled canvas cover with gold edging on the pages. This is a Bible so beautiful, you almost don't want to use it. It's a work of art. But this Bible wasn't meant to sit up on a shelf, it was meant for journaling, doodling, experiencing, and exploring the Word of God.

In this stressful year, God's Word is just as timely and applicable as ever. Take notice of Psalm 91 in the Artisan Bible, with its exclusive easy to read print and short notes at the bottom of the page. Two ribbon bookmarks help you keep track of where you are. And the best part of this Bible is the wide, lined margins where you can doodle, take notes, or jot down prayers.

Don't take my word for it, go check out this one and the other Artisan Collection Bibles at their store.

These beautiful Bibles are a great gift idea for your family, friends, and yourself. Honestly, the best Bible - and the best translation - is the one that gets you reading it and living it. While you're waiting for your new Bible to arrive, visit www.biblegateway.com/plus for access to Bible Study books, reference books, and commentaries that will enhance your Bible experience.

Chickens are easy keepers.

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 17:10:05 -0400

Chicken-love is spreading. From the suburbs of LA to the backyards of PA, chickens are the new black lab. Well, not exactly, but if you haven’t considered keeping a couple hens in your yard, perhaps you should. Chickens are an easy, delightful pet that feeds you and your garden. As long as your township or borough gives you the go ahead, it’s hard to go wrong with a flock of your own. And if you can keep alive a gerbil or a houseplant, chickens will be a very rewarding piece of cake. Here’s what you need.

Shelter. Just like people, shelter is a chicken’s basic need. But chickens aren’t choosy. You can DIY or just hit up Tractor Supply for an easy coop kit for a simple attractive coop. But we’ve found that our chickens don’t need much - a dry, draft-free shelter to protect them from wind, rain, and predators like raccoons and foxes. Most chickens prefer a roost, and you’ll want an easily accessible nest box to collect your yummy eggs. You can make your coop as simple or elaborate as you like, but the general rule of thumb says chickens need 3 to 4 feet of coop space per bird. If space is a premium in your back yard, just remember to keep 12 inches of roost space per chicken and one nest box for every 3 hens. Open their door every morning when it’s convenient, and once they learn the coop is their home, they’ll return to their roost every evening at dusk. Just lock the door to keep them safe from nighttime predators. Pine shavings are great for the floor of the coop, just sweep it out every week or so and replace with fresh shavings to keep your coop clean and your chickens healthy.

Need some ideas for coops? Check out these pretty and inventive ideas.

Food. Chicken are easy to feed. Adult chickens will eat about 1/4 pound of layer pellets a day, while younger chicks should be fed starter/grower crumbles. You can order commercial feed from any Tractor Supply, local feed mill, and even walmart.com. If you allow your chickens to wander freely in your yard, they’ll happily snatch up bugs, worms, and caterpillars that wreak havoc on your garden. Slip them your dinner scraps and watch the antics begin - your happy hens will go gaga over stale (not moldy) bread, scrambled eggs, or just about anything you’ve scraped off your plate. It’s a great way to keep food out of the trash bag and turn it into eggs. Give your chickens food and water each morning when you let them out.

Water. Water is critical to chickens and people. You can use a dedicated chicken waterer or a shallow, clean bucket. Just make sure the water is fresh and your waterer is clean.

Chickens are easy! They just need a little food, shelter, and water, and they will reward you greatly with delicious eggs, pest control, and fertilizer for your garden. Some breeds are great foragers while others, like Buff Orpingtons and Silkies, are cuddly and follow you around like a puppy. You can order nearly grown chickens from most hatcheries or find some locally on Craigslist. And while raising chicks takes a little more in the form of supplies and work, it is definitely fun and worth your efforts. Chickens are surprisingly hardy little creatures, but you’ll want to keep a phone number on hand for a vet that will care for them, just in case you need some help. Of course, we always keep an eye on young children around any animal (especially roosters) and always wash hands after handling.If you live in the suburbs or the city, you’ll want to check your local ordinances first. A quick call to the township office will let you know if you are allowed to have roosters and hens, hens only, or sadly, no chickens at all.

That’s it! The quick and dirty easy guide to keeping chickens in your backyard. With just a little care for their basic needs and comforts, you’ll be rewarded with eggs, fertilizer, bug control, and chicken love. It doesn’t get any easier - or better - than that.

Feeling dried up, worn out, deadened? We have hope.

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 09:39:57 -0400

Feeling dried up, worn out, deadened? We have hope. “Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’” Ezekiel 37:12-14, NIV

The Rose of Jericho, the Resurrection Fern, has an amazing capacity for survival. In times of drought, it dries out and shrivels up, looking dead, but hides a surprising secret. When given a long slow drink, that dead-looking fern resurrects and becomes lush and green and full of life again. If you’re a special needs parent, I bet you’ve got that same capacity for survival. We go through periods that are so hard, so exhausting, physically and emotionally taxing, that we feel pretty dead and dried up inside. I have days when I feel that way, don’t you? Worn out until there really isn’t much left. Just like that fern can live again, there is hope for you, and there is hope for me, too!

There is a pretty special prophet named Ezekiel who we read about in the Old Testament. I love the story of Ezekiel because he never intended to become a prophet. Ezekiel trained his entire life to be a priest. A priest had social standing, was respected, and admired. It was an honor to be a priest! But just as he was about to step into his role as priest and fulfill his duties, God called him to something entirely different – to be a prophet. Nobody really likes a prophet. They were looked down upon, disliked, and viewed with suspicion. But God used prophets to bring his stubborn people back to Him, so a prophet’s job was just as important as a priest’s. Few people desire to be a special needs parent, it’s something that often is thrust upon us, and leaves us feeling kind of isolated and at odds with the world, but it’s just as important and rewarding, isn’t it?

Well, God’s people seemed a lot like that dried up old fern – they were hurting, feeling alone, abandoned because they had rejected God. Have you ever felt alone and hurting? Isolated? It was Ezekiel’s job to bring them back to God. And God gave him an incredible vision, the Valley of the Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37:1-14.

In the passage, God takes Ezekiel to this valley of bones, old, dead bones. Because that’s how Israel felt, like wasted old bones. And Ezekiel was probably pretty horrified by those bones – because a priest would never touch a dead body! But God told Ezekiel to speak to the bones, and he obeyed. And the bones grew flesh, and became bodies. And God told Ezekiel to speak to those bones again, and he obeyed. And those bones were given the breath of life and became a vast army of living breathing people. This vision sounds more like something from the Walking Dead rather than a Bible story, so what does that mean for us?

It means that God sees us and hears us when we feel like we are dried up, wasting away, cut off, and abandoned. And it means that God wants to breathe new life in us! He wants to restore our weary souls, energize our lifeless bodies, and help us stand to our feet, ready to face another day. Just like that Resurrection Fern comes back to life with just a bit of water, God wants to breathe new life into our hurting, dead places.

Maybe you never planned on being a special needs parent, but now, somehow, you are. And it’s hard, and it can be isolating. It’s exhausting. And just as you are breathing life and love into your special needs child or children, God wants to breathe life and love into you. Breathe in, my friend, breathe in God’s Spirit and let God give you new life.

Dear God,

We cry out to You with our hurts, our loneliness, our isolation. We cry out to You in our deadness, our dryness, our weariness.

We give you the dry places, the hidden places, the hurting places so You can resurrect them.

Fill us, Lord, with Your Breath, fill us with Your Spirit, and give us strength to stand, strength to fight, and strength to thrive.

Give us Your infinite love so we have love to give to those around us.

In the name of Jesus,

Amen

-Amanda Furbeck

This post originally published at Comfort in the Midst of Chaos on August 4, 2016.

Are You Ready for Christmas?

Wed, 30 Nov 2016 23:31:29 -0400

Are you ready for Christmas?

The closer the big day looms, the more frequently those very words are uttered. Are you ready for Christmas?

It’s quite the loaded question, really. We love to be busy about Christmas. We love the frenetic shopping, the baking, the parties, the clothes. Making magic and meals and mastering the art of all things festive. Are you ready for Christmas?

I am not ready for Christmas. Not one little bit. The shopping has not even been started. Admittedly, I don’t even have a list, rather a distant, vague understanding of my family’s wishes. The Christmas tree is still waiting - down the road, with all of the other Christmas trees at the Lyon’s Club fundraiser in the local grocer’s parking lot. Maybe tomorrow we’ll get the tree, I assure my hopeful wee ones. Christmas decorations? Yeah, there are a few out and about but most are still stuffed in their boxes, barely put away from last year’s extravaganza. The Christmas lights were all deported to the local landfill, useless, shorted out, burned out, and dead from the flooded basement after last winter’s blizzard. The cookies are not baked and the meals are not planned and I haven’t the faintest idea where the leftover wrapping paper has gone. In this season of preparation, I am not too well prepared. And that’s ok.

In the Lutheran tradition, Christmas Carols are not sung until Christmas. Instead, only Advent Hymns echo through the church, melodiously proclaiming the coming birth of the baby Jesus, and the return of Christ, the King. It is a season of preparation. Preparing our hearts to receive our Savior, preparing our lives for the return of the King. Are you too busy celebrating Christmas to celebrate Him? Or is your heart getting ready to worship, ready for God to do something new in your life, ready to accept the challenge of living for Him in the new year ahead? Let me ask you, are you ready? If Christ came today, are you ready?

If His return were today, or tomorrow or the next, what would He find? A bustling family battling for bargains and begging for gifts or contentedness, service, and hope? It’s prep time, for sure, but are your prepping your presents or prepping your heart? I have a lot of prep work to do. My heart is too busy, my days are too full, and the noise in my life is just plain loud and threatens to drown out the beautful strains of Christmas joy and the Savior’s love. If I am not intentional with prepping my heart to thank and praise and worship Jesus this time of preparation will slip right by. And once the cookies have left behind nothing but crumbs and the presents are unwrapped and ribbons are scattered and the pine needles are dropping from their Christmas boughs, will my heart be satisfied? Or will I be longing for more of Christmas that can only be filled by the gift of God’s Son?

Let me ask you, just once more, are you ready for Christmas?

10 ways to get more done today

Fri, 29 Apr 2016 14:23:26 -0400

Turn off the notifications on your cell phone. Only check email and messages during designated times. Don’t look at your phone more than once per hour.

Every time it beeps, blurts, or dings your brain gets distracted from its current task, even if just for a millisecond. Turn them off until your work is done. Put the phone somewhere where you won’t be tempted to constantly glance at it.

Do the hard things first. Whatever it is that’s hard, distasteful, or annoying, do it first, do it quickly and get it out of the way. Your other tasks will seem easier and you won’t do them slowly to put off doing the yucky thing.
Have a short play session with your kids, then give them something fun to do on their own (.like playdough! ). They’ll be more content after having played with you for a bit, and you’ll have more chance to get something done with less interruptions. We use playdough, coloring, snacks, and reserved happy meal toys for just such occasions.
Take a nap if you need one. It’s hard to be productive when you’re exhausted, so squeeze in a power nap even if you have a lot to get done. It may seem counterproductive to waste time sleeping, but if you’re really dragging, it will help.
Make a plan. Take a few minutes to logically plan out everything you have to accomplish, putting it in some kind of logical sequence. It’s a lot more effective than just running around like crazy.
Be strategic - what needs done during nap time, and what can you do when the kids are awake? I can fold towels amidst games of duck duck goose, but I can’t focus enough to pay the bills when there’s a lot of commotion.
Fuel yourself. Drink water and eat foods that are going to give you solid, sustained energy, like protein rather than sugary carbs.
Don’t multi-task. We love trying to do 6 things at once, but our brains focus better and work more quickly when we focus on one thing at a time.

2. Get kids involved! Even young children can spread peanut butter on bread (with a child safe knife, of course), carry toilet paper, put dirty clothes in a hamper, etc. They love being helpers, and its great for them to learn the satisfaction of a job well done. You’ll be amazed at what they can really accomplish - you’ll all be proud of their new skills!

Turn off facebook! 'Nuff said.

The secret to saner mornings

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 10:24:50 -0400

There is a dream I have, of gently easing into my day, with a cup of coffee and a magazine and maybe some dippy eggs, and I am still resting in my bed, all snug and cozy, with cat at my feet, while the sun comes up, and I feel awake, rested, and at peace. And I have a few minutes alone with my Bible before the busy of the day begins, and I can think, and pray, and clear my head and just breathe. Oh to just breathe. Breathe in the scent of lavender, or peppermint, or the fresh morning air while I am at rest and at peace and the scent of coffee brings comfort and love.

Reality is so much harder. It is dark, and I am tossing about because I’m too hot or too cold, or maybe it’s my allergies and I think I can’t breathe, or maybe it’s the cat breathing in my air and asking for her breakfast. And finally, finally, I doze off again.

And suddenly there is squealing and shouting and pounding on the floor above and small children bounding in my door and jumping on my head and begging to be fed and I realize there is no gentle easing into my day, there is a harsh knocking awake and my body takes a small beating from excited children who cannot contain their energy because it’s a new day and who could possibly ever want to sleep another minute when there is a world to explore, a language to learn, and new discoveries like worms and dirt and tasty foods and math equations and a pizza party in the classroom and can’t we have apples for breakfast or bagels or eggs or just anything? And the bounding babies make me smile and laugh and cringe and dive under my pillow for just one more moment of sleep.

And finally the coffee maker turns on and there is the smell of dirty diapers, not the smell of lavender and lace and the harsh reality that the day has started long before I was ever even ready. And I drag my weary body up and out and sizzle up some breakfast for tiny little tummies who have much exploring to do.

And getting going is not so hard because there is no leftover work from yesterday. The dishes were done, and the backpacks were packed and the lunches were ready and in their little bags and 6 little sets of pants and shirts are all laid out in a row so there is no scrambling for baby socks or stain-free shirts and hole-less pants. Homework’s been checked and rechecked and signed and even water bottles are waiting in the fridge, ready for little fingers to grab and take along. And it may not be quiet, and it might not smell sweet, but I can sip a few sips of coffee as the baby sips her bottle and I can savor my eggs as the kids savor theirs and we can talk and tell jokes and jump together into this new day.

And the single secret to saner mornings isn’t to do lists or well-behaved babes or skipping breakfast or doing something that is very hard at all. The secret is simply finishing yesterday before it’s a new day, and putting away, and planning ahead, and whenever you can, to work until the work is done so that rest is more restful and the day starts shiny and new, without dragging along the baggage of the past to weigh down the newness and dull out the shiny and ruin a day before it begins. And it might not be the daydream beginning that is soft and sweet and smelling so good, but it is the closest and best that I can come to making the dreams I dream be my life. And someday the bounding bouncing babies will be seeking coffee of their own, and cringing under their pillows in their own cozy warm beds and I’ll remember the times they bounced me awake and all I wanted was peace and dreams and lavender and a saner morning. And the mornings are hard but they are good because they are full of laughter and sillies and bounding babes and I’ll just do my best to cuddle and sip as they drag me along and it’s ok because yesterday is already wrapped up tight and cleaned away and I can face this new day because joy is in it, and love is in it, and babies are in it, and God is in it first.

I heart salsa. Or how to grow your own salsa garden on your very own homestead.

Wed, 06 Apr 2016 10:36:27 -0400

I never saw myself as much of a gardener, until last year when I suddenly developed an appreciation for being able to plant, nurture, and harvest vegetables right in my own yard. Maybe it was the joy of my 5 year old, who would grab a juicy tomato right off the vine, and bite into like a golden delicious apple. Or maybe it’s how my very picky 8 year old will crunch away at fresh green peppers just as willingly as a chocolate chip cookie. Or maybe it was knowing where my food was coming from. Likely, it was the peace and joy I found from connecting with God in my garden. When things got hectic, I would steal away and visit my garden, and enjoy a little alone time with God over my precious tomatoes. My husband called it therapy. Tomato therapy.

Well it must have worked wonders, because last summer, I had a bumper crop of tomatoes. I mean, massive amounts of tomatoes. I mean, had I sold them at the grocery store, the profits from the tomatoes alone would have covered the cost of putting in the entire garden, from renting the tiller, to buying the fence, to buying all the pre-started plants for the garden. But I didn’t do that. Instead, I learned to make salsa. I love salsa. And I especially love homemade salsa, because I can completely customize it to my taste. We ate lot of salsa last summer, froze a lot of salsa last summer, as well as a few other tomato based dishes. It was completely successful, so I am planning my own little ‘salsa garden’ within my garden. You can do this too, and you can start it now, inside. (Keep reading for the link to my homemade salsa recipe).

Salsa gardens do very well in pots, raised beds, and in regular gardens. They are pretty much fool proof, even for beginners like me. Tomatoes and peppers are self-pollinating, so you should be able to bring your pots indoors at the end of the season to get at least a few more weeks out of your plant. Just be sure to bring them back in before it frosts!

Here’s how to start - Fill up a couple of empty cardboard egg cartons with organic seed starting mixture (yes, you can buy organic dirt! ) Plant your peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro seeds in your egg cartons. Keep them moist and place them in a warm sunny location inside, away from frost and cold. After the sprouts have started, you can cut apart the cartons and plant them right in your pot, green house or garden (after the danger of frost is done). You’ll also want some onion sets! And anything else you’d like to put in your salsa!

If you’re not ready to try your hand at starting seeds, you can pick up already started plants at Walmart or your local garden store. Or get one of these cute little kits from amazon (this is an affiliate link): Salsa Garden Kit. I’ve already got some seeds started in my library, but I’m ready to plant some more. I’m planning on at least 20 tomato plants and 20 pepper plants this year, but maybe I’ll find room to squeeze in a few more! After all, you can never have too many tomatoes to share. And with your abundance, you can pass on a little bit of the peace and joy and love you feel from God when you spend time alone with Him, over your tomato plants.

And now… the moment you’ve been waiting for… SALSA! I hope you enjoy the recipe - please let me know if you try it and how you adjust it to make it your very own. And may God fill your heart abundantly as you enjoy an abundance of delicious summer garden salsa.

New Recipe: I Need a Chocolate Fix 3 Ingredient Paleo Chocolate

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 10:52:27 -0400

Chocolate.

In my house, it’s one of the 4 basic food groups. You know, protein, fruits and veggies, coffee, and chocolate. I’ve been taste testing lots of varieties of homemade paleo chocolate, and finally came up with my own version that I love! It’s totally delicious, decadent, easy, and versatile. I’m sure you’ll love it too, so I conjured up a recipe page so I can start keeping these yummy ideas all in one place. Enjoy!

Go here for the recipe: I Need a Chocolate Fix 3 Ingredient Paleo Chocolate

A zombie apocalypse of biblical proportions

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 12:37:29 -0400

Are you a believer? In zombies, I mean. In that utterly fascinated, can’t turn away but totally can’t bear to look, peeking out from behind your fingers at the gory, horrifying images kind of believer. My seminary profs labeled it ‘fascination with abomination’ - when the horrors of this life, the frightening, the gory, the abhorred and abhorring, the terrified and the terrifying- capture our attention and we cannot break away, cannot escape its grasp.

Zombies are in the Bible. Yes, zombies. In the very Bible. You probably didn’t read that story in Sunday School, did you?

Well, maybe they aren’t exactly called zombies, but the Bible has some remarkably similar imagery. I’m not gonna lie, there is some stuff in the Bible that even Stephen King couldn’t have dreamed up. God has a pretty amazing imagination and I’m pretty sure He can imagine anything He wants, zombies or not. (If you like zombies and horror movies, you can read more about some of the imagery here, in this nifty article by Michael Gilmour). We don’t talk about in church much, but it’s there. Right there, in this Bible of ours.

There is this crazy, horrifying, can’t-turn-away zombie-esque story in the Bible that speaks to me. It hits me in the gut, in hits me in the heart, and leaves a mark on my soul. You might know it from an cliche of a children’s song, but the prophet Ezekiel experienced it as a kind of zombie apocalypse, a frightening, gory, can’t turn away, can’t get away kind of a vision - and it was all God’s idea.

I cannot bear to watch horror movies. I hid under the covers when my husband watched Kujo. I still have nightmares of Freddie, and Sweeney Todd turned my stomach sour in the first five minutes. But this story - this little piece of history that is just one small part of His Story, I cannot break away from. It’s the Valley of Dry Bones.

I love this story because it shows me that God doesn’t always do as He’s told; He doesn’t always fit that mold we made for Him- He is an imaginative cinematographer, a detailed Creator, a hope-instiller. Ezekiel trained His whole life to be a priest so he could serve God. And in that apportionment of history, in that little time-lapsed view we see what an honor this was for Ezekiel and His family. And when he was just about 30 years old, when Ezekiel was just about to step into that honorable position of serving God as a priest, God gave him a new assignment. Ezekiel was to be a prophet instead. Ezekiel kissed his honor goodbye and stepped into the unpopular role God had been designing for him all along. Isn’t that just like God? To do something surprising to us but something He had planned all along, something beyond our imaginations.

Fast forward a bit, to a time when the nation of Israel felt utterly hopeless. A whole nation of people without hope. Feeling alone. Feeling abandoned and rejected by God. But God was up to something, and he showed Ezekiel what He was up to through a horrifying, can’t-turn-away zombie kind of a story. God showed Ezekiel a valley of dried up old bones. Maybe you’ve watched enough horror movies that a valley full of old, sun-bleached, dried up bones wouldn’t make you a bat a pretty little eye. But to Ezekiel, who was taught his whole life that he, a dignified, ceremonially clean priest-to-be, must never come in contact with a dead body, it was the worst. It was stomach-souring, hide under the covers, peek behind his fingers, vomitous stench, kind of awful. And then God told Ezekiel to talk to those bones, to tell them to get up. And then those bones did the unthinkable, the ultimate, silent-screaming-inducing kind of a thing that only an old skeleton could do. Those old dead bones got up. And they grew muscles. And veins and arteries and tendons and organs and everything else that makes the difference between a skeleton and person. Those dead bones became living, breathing, hoping people. And this entire, horrifying, stomach-souring show was so Ezekiel would know without any kind of question that there was HOPE for his nation, that God was going to bring that dead and deathly ill nation back to life. Ezekiel became far more than just a priest that day, he became a hope-instiller for an entire nation that needed to reconnect with God.

I hate to admit that I have a few dead bones around - dried up dreams, hopes that fell by the wayside. Plans that went wrong, horribly wrong. There’s a few spots in my life that have felt abandoned, rejected, dead. There are skeletons of failures tucked away in a few dusty closets, buried beneath smelly old shoes and lost mittens. But God is the hope-instiller, the breather-of-new-life into dead bones. The resurrector of people and broken plans and dead dreams. And this story is exactly what I needed, this gory, horror movie created by a loving God to show me that nothing is too dead and old for Him to breathe into it new life.

God, the instiller of hope, the imaginative designer of our stories, is breathing new life into some of my old dead and zombied dreams in surprising ways. What old bones, and dreams, and zombies, and plans, are you hiding away that need new life?

16 things I've heard as a foster mom.

Mon, 21 Mar 2016 23:56:25 -0400

Most folks are well-intentioned, merely curious, really good , kind people who simply don’t know all of the foster care lingo that we, on the parenting side, have become quite comfortable with. And after being a foster mom for several years, I think I’ve heard it all from complete strangers, from very sweet, kind comments about my darling babies, to funny, witty, and sometimes even dirty looks and down-right rude remarks that secretly make my blood boil. Usually, though, I’m too busy tending to my bustling brood to actually care what other people think, but sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I had a snappy comeback to pass along with an impish grin and a sticky hug from a quite thoughtful child. So here’s a quick list of some of the funny things I’ve heard - and what I wish I had said in the moment. Enjoy!

You're a saint for taking in those children. ME? A saint? You must have me confused with someone else, because I'm just a normal, boring, regular, non-perfect, plain old, run-of-mill human being with normal, boring, regular, non-perfect, plain, old, run-of-the-mill problems who happens to be a mom. I'm taking life one day at a time just like everybody else. I make messy mistakes, sneak chocolates when the kids aren't looking, beg God to let me sleep a little longer each morning, and I long for the peace and quiet of bed time every night. I'd say those children are saints for not complaining when all of the yummy dark chocolate has completely disappeared from their Easter baskets after I accidentally ate it all. Shhhh don't tell them I told you...

2. Are you a daycare? Not since the last time I checked.

3. Which one is yours? All of them. They are all mine. Every single one. Some people collect shot glasses, I collect children. Hoard them, as a matter of fact. And no, I won’t trade, sell, or barter any of my precious collection, they are worth far too much, but I’ll gladly help you start your own collection of highly adorable, completely priceless miniature human beings.

4. Is the mom in jail? Well, I’m the mom and I am definitely NOT in jail. But thanks for asking about how I’m doing… as a matter of fact, I do feel a little trapped by the all the laundry I have to do each week…. How about I bring over a couple of loads of wash for you to fold?

5. What’s wrong with that one? What’s wrong with you?

6. I could never love another person’s child. Wrong. Just wrong. If you’re saying that (out loud even), you’re just trying to convince yourself not to get involved. Here’s how I see it. Any child under my roof is MY CHILD. And I will love him or her for the rest of my life and well into the next. Because that child is lovable and worthy of love. Love is a choice, an action, and I double dog dare you to choose it. You haven’t learned what love can be until you hear that child call you “Mommy” and I promise it will make your little heart burst with joy.

7. They’re lucky to have you. I don’t believe in luck. I believe in Jesus.

8. Don’t you have enough kids? Nah. There’s always room for one more.

9. Are you going to adopt that one? Which one?

10. Doesn’t the mom want them? Of course I want them!

11. Did the real mom do drugs? I’m the real mom.

12. You look great for just having a baby, I didn’t even know you were pregnant. Gee, thanks, at least someone thinks I look good!

13. Is the kid safe? Does he ‘have something?" Well, the last time I checked, there were a couple of rocks in his pocket and he had just picked up a frog, but I’m pretty sure they don’t bite because frogs don’t have any teeth.

14. You must be in it for the money. Hahahahahahaha.

15. Your husband must make a lot of money. Again. Hahahahahahaha.

16. Is that a drug baby? Nope. “That” is a child. A tiny soul, created by God, to grow and love and live and spend eternity worshipping Him. Why do you ask?

Just don't look in my garage: 10 tips to declutter your space

Thu, 17 Mar 2016 23:55:42 -0400

Clutter kills my calm. I cannot stand to work in a cluttered messy environment. In order for me to be my most peaceful, creative, content, joyful self, I need visual order. I need ‘white space’ in my home and work. I need a clean slate when I wake up in the morning so I don’t have to deal with yesterday’s dirtied baggage before I start a brand new day. I need to be able to vacuum, scrub, and put things away quickly and easily. And I need to be able to childproof thoroughly. Very very thoroughly. That means clutter has got to go or I cannot function well. And as a mom of 6, I need to be running on all cylinders, all the time. There is no time for me to misfunction over missing stuff because there is just so much stuff that I can’t find what I need when I need it. It’s amazing how much stress clutter adds to our lives - whether it’s junk mail, email, extraneous stuff that piles up around the house, junk drawers that are too full to even close, and basements full of boxes unopened since the last move. It takes so much time and energy to deal with all of the stuff, and to me, a cluttered home means a cluttered brain. People often comment how clean, picked up, uncluttered my house surprisingly is for being a mom of 6. It’s probably not so much clean as it is uncluttered and picked up. And don’t you dare look in my overfilled cabinets which have to contain food for 8 or especially, my garage, where all the clutter actually hides.

10. Get the kids on board. Have you ever noticed what happens to a child’s playskills when there are too many toys at their disposal? The play area becomes a dumping ground, and the actual playing turns into chaotic game of running around and screeching rather than developing age appropriate play schemes and scenarios. But given just a few flexible toys, the imagination unfolds and amazing worlds and characters develop into delightful play. So get those kids involved in sorting, tossing, organizing, and storing toys. Let them show you their favorites and make some of the decisions.

Throw out anything broken, old, hazardous, junky, or that comes out of a happy meal. No ifs and or buts. You’ll thank me for it in the long run.

Donate anything that is clean and in good condition that isn’t played with on a regular basis. No matter how much you love it, if your kids don’t play with it, send it to someone who will. Hint: If it’s lost in the bottom of the toy box, they probably won’t miss until you show them that you’re getting rid of it.

Put away anything that isn’t age appropriate and save it for the next child or donate it, sell it, pass it on.

Keep it if it is sentimental, the kids play with it a lot, or there is a developmental need for it.

If you can’t possibly bear to part with toys and books, at least put some away for short term toy rotation. Just make sure that they are well-labeled and stored without batteries (trust me, you’ll think you’re going crazy when those plastic bins start talking in the damp basement). After a few weeks, take out the current toys and replace them with the stored toys. Unless your children are very young, try to only keep as many toys in rotation as your children are able to clean up with minimal to no help from you. You can always add toys back if you see they are able to handle cleaning up after play.

9. Avoid it. If you have an older child, it’s ok to just shut the door. Don’t look at the clutter if they are capable of managing it on their own. My bedroom rule is not that the rooms must be clean but that I must be able to walk to their beds and dressers without tripping, falling, or suffering from lego induced agony to my naked toes. If there is some clutter that you just can’t get rid of (um, bill paying, perhaps?) find a way to hide it, disguise it, or cover it up so you don’t have to look at it when you don’t need to. I keep my vacuum cleaner in the garage because the closets are full of coats and clothes (yup, mom of 6 equals an overflowing coat closet) and I don’t want to see it every single time I enter a room.

9. Home it. Do you remember the old saying, a place for everything and everything in its place? All of your stuff should have a home of it’s own. Shoes go in the shoe cabinet by the front door when you come in the house (plus it helps keep dirt, germs, and chemicals out of your home). Keys and wallet go right in the drawer (the one with the baby locks on it). Have the kids put their backpacks and coats away as you come in the door so there isn’t extra clutter just lying about for people to trip on or little kids to get into.

8. Rehome it. If there isn’t a space for it, rehome it. Give it away. If you have more coffee mugs than can fit in your coffee mug spaces, than find them a new home - either a cabinet that’s bigger or one that belongs to someone else!

7. Eradicate it. Seriously. Be ruthless. How often do you really use the waffle maker? When was the last time you made yourself an espresso? Examine your closet and get rid of anything that doesn’t fit, anything that is worn, broken, out of style, or that you don’t wear on a regular basis. You probably have just a few outfits that you love and wear all the time. Get rid of just about everything else and you’ll spend much less time digging through your closet, your dresser, your laundry bins for the perfect shirt.

6. Erase it. The delete button works wonders! Treat your computer like you would your home - either file it, send it, or delete it.

5. Deal with it. One of the reasons we have clutter is that we hang on to things in order to deal with them later. For example, we put the stack of mail on the counter to ‘look at later.’ But later gets busy, so the mail piles up and pretty soon, the counter is full, something gets spilled, and the pile of mail, which is mostly just junk, gets sticky and gross. Do yourself a favor - as you bring the mail in the house, deal with it. Toss it, file it, put it with the bills to pay. Same goes for kids' papers, lunch boxes, toys, and receipts. Procrastination leads to piling. And piles of stuff destroys your calm.

4. Don’t buy it. Just don’t. Don’t buy pictures, or pretty things, or anything at all unless you absolutely need it. The less tchotchkes the better. It means less things to distract your brain, less things to dust, less things to clean around. Less things to get broken, less things to have to child proof, too.

3. Sell it. If it’s saleable, consider selling it. Make a little cash and get rid of stuff. It’s a win-win.

2. Organize it. Give it a home, the right home, in the right spot, in the right order, with the right label. And put it away every single time.

Exchange it. The best rule is 1 in, 1 out. Kids got a new toy for their birthday? They get to choose one to donate or toss. Hubby got new underwear or socks? Make sure he remembers to remove the "holy" ones. Got a new purse? Send one packing so you don't have to store the other.

Yes, yes, I make it a mission to seek and destroy clutter so that I can think clearly, create easily, and clean more quickly. But please please please, just don't look in my garage..

In the waiting

Mon, 14 Mar 2016 01:07:56 -0400

Waiting is hard work. It is blisteringly, back achingly hard work. I wish it was as simple as sitting around with thin mints and a black coffee, watching the chickens go by, but it isn’t. And I wish I was better at this waiting game thing (Why the heck do they call waiting a game anyway? It’s not like it’s fun or even entertaining. It’s more like waiting torture). This is one of those hard lessons in the educational institution that is my life that I just can’t quite seem to grasp. The answers on the test somehow elude me just when I need them most and I cannot seem to study hard enough to get a passing grade. Somehow, I cannot learn seem to learn to wait well. Oh sure, I can bide my time in line at the grocery when my smartphone is handy. I can manage to entertain my kiddos with sugar laden lollipops while we wait in the car line at preschool pickup, but what I cannot ever seem to do well is wait on God. I want to turn the next page of the chapter of this book so that I can see what God has planned for me, to get started on the next stage, but the page won’t turn. I have to wait. And waiting is hard. It is blisteringly back achingly difficult.

I was thinking about it today, as I started prepping my garden for spring. Technically, it’s still winter. And there is still a heavy danger of frost for another 2 months even though we had summery temps all last week. I cannot wait to get my garden planted, to see the tender shoots breaking through the soil, to taste the warm tomatoes and smell the earthiness of fresh picked carrots. But it isn’t even time to plant much less harvest. If I placed my tender plants out in the garden, they would wither, and freeze, and die. It would all be wasted. And so I have to wait.

Like in the middle of the winter, when everything seems dark, and cold, and endless, I know that spring can only be so many weeks away. But I cannot feel the warmth of the sun or smell the sweet spring breeze. I have to wait. I know it is coming because after winter, spring always comes. And just like in the waiting, I know that God is at work and the next chapter always comes. I just have to wait for it.

But in the waiting, there is so much work to do. I thought about that as I raked straw from the garden this afternoon, hands blistering, back aching raking to remove the excess dead plant material and reveal the damp, meaty soil below. The chickens followed me around, digging around for bugs in the places I had raked, filling their bellies up from all the work I just did while I am waiting for planting time to start. I thought about all of the planning that I needed to do to decide what to grow, and where to grow it, and when to plant it and where. It thought about the friends that came to help us begin construction of our hoop house, and how we all need friends that are willing to pull on their work boots and muck about with us in the mud to help us in our waiting. I thought about the miracles of new life that God would bring about from our preparation, when the time is just right for those tiny seeds to be planted and grow and provide food that fuels our family. And I thought about all of the work I had to do right now during this time of waiting as we all laughed and giggled and chased wayward chickens back to their coop.

Waiting is not for the faint of heart. Sometimes, I think that God is silent when I’m waiting for Him to show me my next move in life. I have asked God to show His plans, to direct my path, to give me a vision or have an angel - or at least a good friend - tell me what to do so that I can get beyond this time of waiting. But angel didn’t knock on my door, the vision didn’t show, and the answer hasn’t come, and I am still just here waiting. Why won’t He answer me? Did I screw it all up and now I have to wait? Is this a spiritual time out? And what is wrong with me, that I am still floundering for His answer - why can’t I just wait to hear His voice at the right time? Where is my faith that God is at work even when it doesn’t seem possible? Why am I in such a rush to be something significant when I know that God can do more in a single word than I can do in a lifetime of homesteading?

But perhaps God is already at work, doing that hard work in me, the blistering, back aching work that needs done to prep my heart to become the fertile soil that is ready to grow and nurture something new; something that will become a miracle. Perhaps in my waiting God is raking away all of that hard deadness in my heart, gladly taking on the blisters of digging out all of the stuff and sin and baggage and wasted time that gets in the way of His work in my life. Perhaps God is prepping me for a new kind of planting and a harvest beyond my wildest imagination; perhaps He is turning me into just the right soil for a special kind of seed that only He can nurture. And just perhaps, I'm not waiting on God so much as I'm waiting on God to do His work in me.

Friend, what are you waiting for?

Philippians 1:3-6, NLT

³Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. ⁴Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, ⁵for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. ⁶And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

What to do when I've lost my happy

Mon, 07 Mar 2016 14:56:58 -0400

My ‘normal’ state of being is a happy contendedness. How I feel when all is well, life is normal, and I am simply feeling pleasant. It is where I feel most like myself, with an inner calm and a sense of excitement about what life will bring. It is my happy. It’s usually accompanied by coffee.

Only most people would probably agree, my life is far from normal. My family size is definitely not normal - an almost 20 year marriage and 6 kids (a combination of biological, adopted, and fostered) under the age of 9. My dream profession, also not normal. My deepest desire and calling is to be a pastor. My lifestyle - not typical - trying to build a miniature farm on a suburban 3 acre lot. My preferred food plan - clean/Paleo with an ~~occasional~~ cupcake - is not for everyone. My love of chickens, and cats, and baby everything. My passion for foster care and special needs. My love of fitness and essential oils. My excessive furniture rearranging. My penchant for dreaming up possiblities. My collection of books, both physical and electronic. And my need for creative expression through music and writing, well, OK, that might be the most normal thing about me. These are all of the things that are a part of who I am, whether they are normal or not. And they are the things that bring me to my happy.

But sometimes, I simply lose my happy. I’m not talking about clinical depression here. Not grief, not chemical imbalances. Sometimes, I simply cease to be happy. Maybe it’s when I feel stuck and the possiblities for moving forward have been exhausted. Maybe it’s when I’m taking on too much at once, when I allow the mommy guilt to build up and set in. If you have a child, you know all about that mommy/daddy guilt. Maybe it’s the state of my budget (red), or when I feel like I’m not accomplished enough for a person of my age (kind of old), when I’m overtired, or when I think everyone else has it better. There - I said it. Comparison.

Comparison. It kills my joy. It steals my happy. It makes me cease to be me because I’m looking outward, wanting to be someone else. I’m pretty sure that this part is normal because a lovely friend - who happens to share a lot of the things of life that I love -reminded me that research studies have shown that Facebook causes depression. Facebook. A freaking website, where we all - in college dorm style - share our breakfasts, heartbreaks, triumphs, vacation pictures, job changes, children, and dirty laundry. All in the same place. All at the same time. It is a caucaphony of life’s stuff. And then we look to see if each other’s best moments are better than our own. Facebook is fun, but Facebook sometimes steals my happy.

But if facebook steals the happy, did you know that exercise restores it? Somehow, exercise brings out some feel good endorphins, causing us to feel happy. Today, I did Pilates from Daily Burn. And it was tough, not because this intermediate level, 19 minute, core strength workout was so hard, but because I was simultaneously managing 2 toddlers who were climbing, throwing, shouting, hiding, singing, playing, dumping, and crashing all around me while I was trying to get 19 minutes to do something to make myself happy. And in that moment, I didn’t feel very happy. It tested the limits of my inner sanctum, but I did it anyway because I know that even though it was difficult in the moment, over the course of the day that little workout would help me to restore my happy, as well as burn fat, get stronger, and seriously stand up straight like my mother used to say. (Guess what - standing up straight can help you feel more… happy).

Other things that help me restore my happy - sleep! Oh how I need sleep, and I also crave alone time with God (but I am never ever alone), taking pictures of my 31 (yes, 31, you have a problem with 31?) chickens, dreaming about the next step in building my homestead (hoop house, goat house, or just a plain old bird house), rearranging the furniture, playing with my 6 children, and blogging during their nap. At least, I pray-plead daily that they really really take a nap.

So if you’ve lost your happy - (not a depression or grief type of lost your happy), but more of a daily grind got you down kind of lost your happy - consider this. Shut off the phone. Close the computer screen. Grab the kids. Go for a walk. And then move the sofa. It will get you moving forward towards your happy.

Finding the awe and wonder.... in myself

Thu, 03 Mar 2016 13:37:41 -0400

At 14 years of age, I mastered squats, wall sits, pull-ups, bear plank leg lifts, and dieting. Because I didn’t like the way my body looked.

In high school, I biked, I lifted, I did calisthenics for 5 hours a day and I secretly followed my parent’s Weight Watcher’s plan. Because I still didn’t like the way my body looked.

I thought that once I achieved the right degree of thinness I would like myself more. By age 20, I was 20 pounds underweight. I was skinny! But I was tired, I was very weak, and I felt sick. And I still didn’t like the way my body looked.

Loving your body has nothing to do with how skinny you are. No doctor ever told me to lose weight. No doctor ever told me to change my diet and get skinnier. In my twenties, Weight Watchers turned me away because I didn’t weigh enough to participate in their program. My BMI was probably never too high. But still, I thought loving myself and having a positive body image would come when I was the right weight, the perfect degree of skinniness. But it never did.

It took something else entirely. It took learning to see myself as God sees me - as fearfully and wonderfully made - to start to get my body image under control. And I’m not there yet; I sometimes still have to remind myself to be healthy, not skinny. To be strong more than slim. To love the body I have and not compare it to someone else’s. For too many of us, we see ourselves as ‘fat’ no matter how thin we are, because we try to compare ourselves to models in fashion magazines, to our thinner friends, or to young teenagers who haven’t even hit puberty. But God doesn’t compare you and me to someone else. He designed us, He loves us just as we are. I love - and I need- that verse in Psalm 139 that shows us that God’s works are wonderful - and we, yes you, yes me - are one of those works:

Psalm 139:13-14

New International Version (NIV)

¹³For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

I need to let those verses sink in to my head, my heart, my soul. I need to see myself with the awe and the wonder that God created in me and recognize all of the amazing things my body can do (birth a tiny human, for instance). I admit, I still want to shed a few pounds that somehow appeared as I worked my way through seminary to earn my MDIV. But I'm working on healthier, happier ways to go about it because I don't want my daughters or my sons to equate thinness with self-love. I want them to learn to love their bodies and show love to their bodies by eating mostly healthy meals, by being strong and fit, by seeing themselves as I see them, and most importantly, as God sees them. I wouldn't love my children any less if they were short or tall or obese or thin - so why would I put the same pressure on myself? God's love means I can love myself no matter what my outsides look like.

I've done Weight Watchers, Pilates, the Daniel Plan, biking, low fat, low carb, It Works!, Zyng, I've juiced, given up sugar, flour, and attempted just about every other diet plan you can imagine. And none of them ever filled up my soul and made me happy because my soul simply doesn't need to be skinny. My soul needs Jesus. My identity is in Him, not in the shape of my outsides.

I don't have all the answers, and I'm not totally sure what the right fit and healthy me looks like yet, but that's ok. I'm just taking a little step at a time, finding the right balance between Paleo and clean eating alongside an occasional donut, staying active every day and exercising sometimes, and trusting that God loves me enough to have made me wonderfully. And that feels better than skinny ever did.

Like a chicken led to safety

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 22:21:53 -0400

Psalm 91:1-4, NIV from www.biblegateway.com

¹Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.^[a] ²I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

³Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. ⁴He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

I never intended to become the crazy chicken lady.

I just wanted a few chickens to run around my yard and lay a few eggs for breakfast. Honest. But somehow I ended up with 24 Silver Laced Wyandotte hens and 1 chicken of a rooster named Captain Jack. And that’s when the ‘addiction’ began.

There is a never ending supply of chicken pics on my Facebook page. I post far more chicken pics than pics of my kids. I sent my poor hubby out to the coop in the middle of a blizzard with cracked corn - because digesting cracked corn makes the chickens warmer. The chickens know my voice. And when I pull my big white van up next to the chicken run, they all come running to see what I’m up to.

Lucky for us, the rooster mostly crows from inside the coop. But I love seeing my chickens dig around the chicken run, winging flight as high as the hardware cloth allows. I love bringing them my kids' leftover Mac N Cheese, peanut butter and jelly sand which crusts, and the leafy celery ends that no one wants to nosh. They are happy, well-fed chickens, for sure.

But my chickens are stubborn and they don’t head to safety on their own. Our yard is not a safe haven for chickens - there are hawks soaring overhead, ready to swoop up a wayward chick. There are bobcats, and coyote, foxes, and raccoons, all waiting at edge of the tree line, salivating for a tasty chicken wing. One snowy evening, the wind howling, snow spinning around the yard, and the chickens huddled up against the side of the coop. It wouldn’t take much for them to go in - they could fly, hop, walk, and bob the few steps up the ramp and into the coop to safety. But they refused. They refused to be tempted by treats, by light, and warmth. Those ridiculous chickens just wouldn’t head for safety from the storm and hungry predators. Instead, they waited, cold, scared, and without protection.

I don’t know what was wrong with those chickens - maybe they’re just stubborn. Like me. I had to pick up each and every chicken in that freezing snow squall and move it inside to the safety and warmth of the coop. God is our shelter and our safety. He’s waiting to spread his wings over us when He seek our haven in Him. We, stubborn at times, look for safety in all kinds of places - homes, alarm systems, guns, family, church, work. I get it, because I seek comfort and safety in those kinds of things, too. But our ultimate place of shelter is in the loving arms of our Heavenly Father. This is what I need to remember when the storms come. And they will come, just like they already have come - in the form of snow squalls or hurricanes, financial difficulties or the stormy days of bad health, family dramas, or lost jobs - God is the shelter I need to seek.

Where are you seeking shelter? Are you huddled up on the outside, getting battered by the winds and the storms, quaking from those that would devour you? God has spread His wings and all you have to do is go in. I still don’t mean to be the crazy chicken lady, but if it helps me learn about God’s loving kindness for each of us, well, then, just maybe it’s worth it…

Psalm 91

Emmanuel, God with Us

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 15:07:00 -0400

Advent - that glorious time of year where everything sparkles and shines and smells of cinnamon and spruce. That time of year when we hustle around, surviving on coffee and spurts of shopping-frenzied adrenaline and perhaps a sticky bun or two, and squooshing and squeezing in one more thing before we have to be at that next one. When, now more than ever, we are beckoned, courted, and teased by all manner of delightful, stuck-in-your-head-forever Target ads, provoking us to empty our wallets for all those lovely, sparkling trinkets that our beloved little people simply cannot be without. Advent - the time of waiting, seems to be the time when we are never still, but instead, constantly juggling the added responsibilities of pageant practice, and children’s choirs, and school programs, and Christmas parties and all of the fun and all of the mundane that takes up our every spare second. Advent - the time of year when we stuff our homes to the brim with hidden gifts, waiting for the opportune moment to be given.

This season of Advent is also the time when the church lays aside it’s typical worship music for something of a more traditional fare, carols steeped in nostalgia and restyled for the new styles. Where typical Advent sermons, I find, are heavily laden with sincere, heart-warming, stories, practical advice, and Scriptural helps to keep us keeping Christ first and in the forefront at Christmas. And we need this! More than ever our hearts long to be tugged by anecdotes, like the often recounted account of the widow who surprisingly received a puppy for Christmas from her late husband, giving her a reason to celebrate the season when she thought she had none. The time of year when we are taught and groomed and reasoned into putting our focus on the Christ-child, the baby born in a manger. Emmanuel, God with us. And it never, ever gets old, no matter how old we get, because the baby in the manger was born for each and every one of us. And we who believe will never forget the joy of the earth in that moment. We can’t forget, we shouldn’t forget the moment that Peace came to earth to be our Emmanuel. But as I reflect on the Christmas story, I think maybe we did forget something. Or at least, maybe I did.

At Christmas, we seem to forget that baby isn’t in the manger anymore. That tiny baby, God with Us, that gave up the glories of heaven to be with us in a whole new way isn’t just a baby all wrapped up and tucked in the hay. That God who became flesh isn’t helpless, or frail, or even new. The baby that we celebrate grew into the God-Man that walked among us. That healed us. That forgave our sins. That baby was crucified and rose again - not as a baby, but as our Savior and King. And He did it all to restore a broken world - to restore a broken me and a broken you - to redeem every mess we ever made, to reshape our bottomed out hearts and breathe new life into our tired, weary existence. He became a baby because He loved us. But He didn’t stay in the manger.

This Advent, don’t forget God with Us. The baby doesn’t lay still as a tiny wooden idol beneath our sparkling trees, or tucked neatly into manger scenes dressing up our altar tables. He’s not just the God with us, He is the God who is STILL with us. He is the God who is with us when we are hustling and bustling, and shopping and serving, and cooking and cleaning. He is our Emmanuel our God with us when we feel Grinchy or giving. He is the God who is always with us when we are singing Christmas carols and sweeping up Christmas cookie crumbs and when we are weeping for Christmases and souls gone on.

Don’t just put the baby first this Christmas. Put the baby who became our Savior first this Christmas. Jesus Christ, our Messiah, our Healer, our Hope. Our Friend, our King, and our Savior is with us. And we need Him.

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Wed, 25 Nov 2015 13:04:37 -0400

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Baby steps towards joy.

Wed, 25 Nov 2015 12:40:12 -0400

I might have a bone to pick with Thanksgiving.

I mean, I love a sleep-inducing, kitchen-trashing, dirty-every-pot-in-the-house, gain-five-pounds-in-one-day, deliciously decadent traditional Thanksgiving dinner just as much as the next person. Even when it means scrubbing mashed potatos off the radiator (courtesy of the 1 year old), sweet potatos off the fish tank (courtesy of the 3 year old with a really good arm), and fishing pie crumbs out from under the stove (that wouldn’t be my fault would it?). It’s like the ultimate in comfort food feasting shared with family and friends. And I’m not even sure I mind the added expenditures - a turkey dinner with all the trimmings adds up fast, especially for a family of 8 plus relatives. (My grocery budget is bleeding out, but that’s ok, the leftovers will sustain us for quite some time).

Thanksgiving is a great day to celebrate being together and being thankful for all that God has given us. Except that I think spending 1 day being thankful for 1 giant feast kind of defeats the purpose. Spending 1 day proclaiming our gratitude for our families, friends, jobs, food, warm homes, sports teams, toys, tech, and pets is just the tip of the iceberg. Hmm, maybe more like the size of an icecube. It just doesn’t cut the cranberry sauce, er, mustard.

Joy is born out of gratitude. Not just a one time, once a year spirit of thankfulness. Not just a once a day blessing on the dinner meal. But a life lived in constant gratittude to the Giver of all good gifts. I can’t help but wonder if, when I’m unhappy, its because I’m not being grateful? Today, I caught myself getting cranky because - just when I wanted to show the tiny humans a video on letters and the sounds they make - the computer decided to install 36 updates. 36! Tiny humans can’t wait that long. And apparently, grown up humans aren’t so good for 36 updates, either. But then I realized what a ‘first world’ problem that is. I’m feeling a little bit entitled here - to a clean, warm home, with lots of food, cars that go, tech constantly at my finger tips, while some people are struggling to find a meal or to live in a home with heat and electricity. I am so routinely blessed by what we consider to be basic necessities that I fail to appreciate them.

Last night, I lay in bed, listening to the quiet crackle of the fire slowly dying in the wood stove and the gentle hum of the baby monitor reminding me that my children were cozied up peacefully in their quilts. A kitty purring happily at my feet. A house-full of filled up tummies, snuggled up and warm, resting sweetly. The struggles of the day fading into the shadows of the night, as I try to pass them on to our God who never slumbers or sleeps.

This, I thought, is the real thanksgiving. It is beginning of contentment, the genesis of gratitude. Baby steps towards joy.

Nourish the body, nourish the soul and apple cobbler in a cup

Fri, 20 Nov 2015 11:29:20 -0400

[caption id=“attachment_33” align=“alignnone” width=“300”] Hot coffee and apple cobbler in a cup[/caption]

There is an udeniable connection between food and the soul. From tiny babies who comfort nurse in their mommy’s arms, to the little hands that grasp a lollipop in the doctor’s scary office, to would-be, wanna-be, hopefully-becoming grown ups seeking asylum in a steaming gingerbread latte. There is comfort in the rhythms of a morning cup of coffee or a glass of milk and a bowl of oatmeal, shared before the busy day begins.

We love food.

Food nourishes the body while gathering around the dinner table with our favorite people nourishes the soul. It is no wonder that Jesus asked us to remember Him with a glass of wine and a loaf of bread shared among believers. A shared meal binds us together, delicious aromas remind us of happy times, and shared stories bring us hope, laughter, and joy. A family meal fosters love, and isn’t that just what we all need?

I am no Martha Steward, no culinary genius, no master chef. But I can whip up a mean grilled cheese sandwhich, simmer soups from scratch, and I know how to delight my little ones with Goldfish crakers, pretzels, veggies, and plenty of dip. I readily accepted ketchup as vegetable since my small people have forever devoured it on any number of side dishes like green beans, apples, and even, gag, strawberries. But then Baby number 5 came along and opened my eyes to the potential of ketchup as an entree. He can make a meal out of a plate of ketchup and a spoon. And again I say, gag.

Food doesn’t have to be fancy to fill up the soul. A hot meal, a cold meal, a simple dinner or a fancy fare, Jesus gave us the right idea - share it together among loved ones, remember Him, ask for His blessing. My busy, big family doesn’t have it all together often, we’re too busy running here and there, cleaning up, picking up, dropping off, and taking naps. But if we do nothing else right, we eat together and often. It nourishes the soul and grows the family stronger with every bite.

This morning, while my kids snacked on Goldfish crackers and milk, I tested an idea that I had been dreaming up. And surprisingly, it actually worked! This might make a yummy, easy snack, a quick desert, or even a steaming hot breakfast for a cold day. Try this out…

Apple cobbler in a cup. Serves 1.

Cut up one apple, any kind will do, into bite size pieces in a microwave safe mug.

Cover with a layer of brown sugar (you can substitute maple syrup if you prefer).

Top with four small chunks of butter (a tablespoon or two will do)

In a small bowl, mix equal parts of instant oatmeal and whole wheat flour - just a couple of spoonfuls is plenty. Add a drizzle of olive oil and mix until crumbs form -you may need to add a bit more olive oil until you find that just right consistency. Dump your crumbs on top and microwave for 2 minutes.

The results? Delicious! Just becareful, because the apples in the bottom are very hot!

Make one mug per person and enjoy!

Slow Down and Sleep

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 14:07:20 -0400

It took me a week, an over-filled, sweaty, ripe, grimey, headachey week to find 42 minutes to plop myself on my plumped up sofa, prop my feet on the coffee table, and zone out for an episode of Bones on my laptop. Yes, it took a good 7 days to find that quality time to spend with Hulu. And do you know what happened?

I promptly fell asleep.

What’s going on here? Am I that old? I don’t even have enough energy to relax! Something is very wrong. How can I discover God’s hand in my life - how can I gaze in awe at Him - if I can’t stay awake? If I am so busy that I fall asleep the moment I sit down, then I need to make a change. When people talk about priorities, they usually mean putting family first, or making time to spend with God, or date nights with their spouse. But what about sleep? Where does rest fit in? Somewhere, I read that Rick Warren commented on this when he said that sometimes, the most spiritual thing that we can do is to take a nap. Our human bodies need rest, and I am no exception. The problem is, how?

My life is so full that I get in the bad habit of thinking that the only thing that can give anymore is sleep. And with 6 small children in my house, uninterrupted sleep is impossible to find when babies need fed in the early morning hours, nightmares need soothed, and cups of water need to be dispersed. With all this nighttime activity, I need to spend more quality time with my pillow as well as weed out some of those energy sappers - scrolling Facebook on my phone is one of them. Oh, I’m not anti-facebook at all, it’s a great tool. But filling every second of each day with mindless scrolling and random information doesn’t give our brains the needed time to process the days events and emotions, and it distracts us from thinking about God. I’m not going to say I won’t scroll at all - but maybe I can give those spare minutes a good trim? To let my mind wander over God’s gifts rather than Facebook memes and status updates.

So there are 2 steps that I’m taking this week towards finding more awe and wonder in my life. The first is to keep tracking my sleep with my Fitbit, and keep trying to add a few minutes to my night time by doing little things like shortening my shower, enlisting the kids' help in cleaning up toys, and heading to bed a few minutes sooner. 6 hours of sleeping is my goal, and last night I didn’t even clock 4 1/2. I can’t keep this up.

The second step I’m taking this week is to cut down on cell phone app usage, including Facebook. Whenever I have a few seconds to wait, such as in the parent pickup line, or while waiting for the spaghetti to cook, I want to pause, and think about God first before I pull up my favorite apps or check up on my FB friends. Less information for my brain to sort through means less brain power being used, and more energy being reserved for things that matter all the more.

2 small changes. Let’s hope for some big rewards. What lifestyle tweeks are you making this week? What small things can you prioritize to make big changes in your life?

Pray for me and I’ll pray for you as we seek out the awe and wonder of God.

Sense of wonder, sense of awe.

Wed, 07 Oct 2015 18:26:22 -0400

Is this all there is to life? I am thirsty for something more.

Each day is more of the same. A never ending onslaught of bills and school lunches and scrambling to get there on time and trying to look like I’ve got it all together when all I really want is just to go back to my bed. Wishing this phase of life would go by more quickly; begging time to stand still. I need to be alone but I want more out of my relationships. I want something more, something different, something better. I want my life to be easier. I want more interesting challenges.

If I have everything I need, why do I crave something more?

Each one of us has a deep need, an inner desire, an insatiable hunger that we strive to fill. We sometimes ache with emptiness, and we try to fill it up with work, and school, and children or vacations, health and wellness and exercise. We search for significance on social media, sending snaps to show how well we’ve fulfilled ourselves, scrolling Facebook to see how others have satisfied their thirst for something more. But we never get enough because these things cannot fill us up. I find myself scrolling page after page, but it doesn’t fill any need. I’m not sure that it is even fun when everyone else looks like they are filling their lives more successfully than I. What if they’ve found it and I have not? That thing that I am searching for. I’ll look again, just to check. Are they winning at life and I am not?

Life wasn’t created to be despised.

We weren’t made to dread the day, detached and listless from the humdrum of each day’s routines and work. We weren’t purposed to numb our minds with mobile tech, pushing out the pains and fears and hopes and joys of each moment with a constant influx of media posts, and excessive facts, and video clips. We were made for so much more.

We were created to glorify the Creator. To live with a sense of awe and wonder, expectation, and joy. Here I am, searching for more. Reminding myself that nothing can satisfy my thirst except for Jesus. Some days I feel like I’m racing to the finish line. Some days like I’m limping along the way. but here I am, chasing His heart, in hot pursuit of His holy, wholly loving grace, and finding awe and wonder along the way.

Want to come along for the ride?