Go to the desert this Lent

brown no leaves tree near hill at daytime

The season of Lent always stirs up images of entering a desert for me. I am brought back to memories of sitting in our gold van perched in my reclined chair with a pillow as I stared out the car window into the vast abyss of compacted rock forming a sea of brown. I think about the times I’ve been mesmerized by the National Geographic aerial photos, capturing the unseen patterns of the cracked earth worn from years under the piercing sun. The desert can seem mysteriously appealing from afar, yet becomes daunting at the thought of stopping the car, letting go of the security of its protective structure, the comfort of my plush pillow, and willingly walking across the cracked earth to the center of the desert.  I imagine willingly following Jesus into a desert. It requires courage to follow Him into the desert, not as a stop along […]

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Who will be your Running Partner this Year?

so the adventure begins pen paper

Hello, 2022. Has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? As I sit here writing this on the tail end of 2021, my mind is spinning at all that has happened in one year. Isn’t wild how when we are in the day-to-day, the days can seem so long and then suddenly weeks turn into months and you are back at Dec 31st, reflecting again at all that has happened in one year. The days go slow but the years seem to go fast. A year of blessings, change, loss, new life, friendship, conflict, hurt, encounter, and discovery of self– amazing all of those things can go on in the span of a year.  Each year right around this time I get the overwhelming urge that this year, I will not just run a half marathon, but I will buckle down and run a full marathon. It always feels good […]

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When Goals Become Idols

goals mock up

“I want to be a teenager, cheerleader, and have braces,” I proudly stated without pause from our kitchen table in Yorktown, Virginia. I was three when my mom first asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  The youngest in my family, I was greatly influenced by my older siblings and was captivated by the idea of getting older, which meant I could hang with the older girls on the block. My plastic high heels would become leather heels, and my given age would move from toddler to teenager… What more could I have wanted?  Looking back, I laugh, because my three-year-old self was successful in accomplishing her goals. Cheerleader was checked when my third-grade self had glitter cascading across her eyelids, and a silver bow equally the size of her head, on top of her high ponytail. The glitter sparkled as she experienced the effects of […]

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