WOMEN'S MINISTRIES BLOG

You know how it is when you hear a new word—an interesting, elegant, nuanced or unusual word—for the first time? It seems that suddenly everything you read and everyone you listen to is speaking or writing that word. And you don’t know how you got along without that word! “Egregious” [outrageously bad] was that way for me. Besides, there truly is so much these days that is egregious. Years ago,…

As a child raised in the city, I absolutely LOVED going to my grandparents’ farm each summer. Along with catching fireflies and holding baby pigs, a true highlight was riding the ol’ John Deere tractor with my grandpa. When I had three small children of my own, I wanted them to experience the same things I did. Since Grandpa was long gone, I arranged a time to meet my grandpa’s…

In a few weeks, our women’s Bible studies at Fullerton Free will be studying the Gospel of Luke. I’ve been reading through this book over the summer, and the other day I was struck by something. If you have read any of the Gospels, you’ve met the Pharisees, those noxious religious leaders so intent on following every letter of the law that they would rather someone remain crippled than be…

Asking God to break our hearts for what breaks His is what one might deem a dangerous prayer. Early this year, I asked God to do this, which brought me on an unexpected journey of grief and grace. I am a teacher and have, on occasion, found myself considering my students as more of a burden than a blessing. With still-developing frontal lobes, pre-teens can be challenging to interact with…

The year we lived in Costa Rica, each Sunday morning, we would board an old city bus with our two toddlers and travel 30 minutes south. Then we walked a kilometer into the small town of San Lorenzo to attend the tin-roofed church. There were loud enthusiastic praise songs as we swayed and clapped our hands. The preacher held up God’s Word. The church people brought offerings — a small…

I was born during the Khmer Rouge, a genocide that was responsible for the killing of millions of Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. During those four years, more than half my family members died. Fortunately for me, my parents fled Cambodia, and I was born in a refugee camp in the neighboring Southeast Asian country, Thailand. It was there where my parents were introduced to the gospel for the first…

I stand in the oldest cemetery in the city I’ve lived in most of my life. Generations of my family—linked by blood and marriage and adoption—are buried in this ground. Cemeteries are strange places. They hold the physical remains of human beings. They hold memories and stories and griefs and joys and no-longer-answerable questions. They hold connections one to another, long lost to present knowledge. I read names and years…

It had been a long, hard day full of unexpected hurdles at work and even bigger parenting hurdles waiting for me at home. I was sad, frustrated and disheartened. I pulled out the cutting board to prep for dinner and began to chop with an intensity that matched my emotions. And when there was nothing left to chop, and my eyes were beginning to well up (and not from the…

One January I noticed my daughter was missing a little hair on the top of her head. It was right at her hairline and could mostly be ignored. Soon that little spot became so noticeable that I called my nurse friend. Three spots turned to five and her back hairline was suddenly gone.

On Sunday, June 13, 2021, the President and First Lady of the United States attended Sunday services at Sacred Heart Church, St. Ives in Cornwall. The two were in town for the G7 Summit in which talks among world leaders centered in part around concern over global warming and care for the planet. Father Philip Dyson had not been given advance notice of his prestigious guests and, according to The Guardian, “admitted he was slightly nervous while conducting the service.”