Home workouts are the worst. I’ve been *trying* to exercise in this space for months now, and each day it’s a battle. Home is where I’m least motivated because it’s the most familiar. But I’m learning that workouts aren’t the only thing that feel this way. God has called us to the work of sanctification
Reflections
Broken Bread
Every time I pull bread out of the hot oven, I’m aware of my own brokenness. And that it is a gift. Bread has a requirement of brokenness to it. The grain must be broken, split open, cracked wide for the wheat to spill out into flour. The olive must be pressed, pinned down, thoroughly
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Reflections
When Advent Isn’t Optional
The ceiling is dark and beyond my vision as I lay awake in bed. Yet I stare at it, trying to make out its distance and depth while my mind turns over the week’s happenings and to-do lists. Is it 2am? 4am? 10pm? I don’t know. All I am aware of is that at some
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Creative Writing
Sourdough Bread and Local Church Ministry
I’ve been baking a lot of bread lately. This is due, in part, to the fact that colder weather always draws me to any homemade carb; the other part is due to the fact that our kitchen has finally been fully unpacked and it’s like Christmas morning every time we rediscover a baking tool we
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Uncategorized
When Christmas Feels Dark
I straighten the stocking on it’s fireplace hook and take a step back to evaluate my work. Something about the way the loop is sewn to the stocking itself makes it resistant to my every attempt to help it hand plumb, and I concede that it is good enough. Decorating for Christmas is a bit
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Creative Writing
The Broken Supper
Last Sunday was the first Sunday evening meeting for Trinity Church Greenville, the church plant Austin and I are grateful to serve. I had great visions of how our first meeting would go, how prepared I would be, how ordered all the details would look. Particularly, I was excited to be baking a loaf of
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Practical Theology
Proof of Presence
I love good food. I love small plates of fine foods and big bowls of pasta. I love the unctuousness of quality EVOO, the richness of salted butter on homemade bread, the cold familiarity of ripe watermelon, and the bite of lime squeezed over a taco. I love food. But … though this doesn’t happen
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Christian Living
On Work & Worth
Here is something that I want myself to know (and, you too if you need the reminder): our worth is more than our work. Our world tells us again and again to do more so that we can BE more. We should work harder and faster and produce more good things (necessary or not) so
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Christian Living
The Theological Reason to Avoid Negative Self-Talk
I’m not an avid shopper, so it caught me off guard this afternoon when I found myself spontaneously pulling into the TJ Maxx parking lot. I was in a need of a few new work shirt (for this brutal eastern NC humidity), and before I knew it I was in the fitting room with a