A period is a monthly reminder that our bodies were designed to create life. Are you ready to talk about it with your daughters? For all my fellow mamas, aunties, and big sisters, I offer three themes to get the conversation started about body changes and the path to womanhood.
Read MoreToday we reach the final trait that I want to explore in the mothering metaphor. We’ve looked at the ways in which all women are included in the maternal tasks of nourishing and housing life, but in order to dive into the idea of nurturing life, we have to take a step back.
Read MoreHousing another human is my least favorite part of mothering. It’s true, some women describe pregnancy as the time in life when they felt most beautiful. The symptoms of carrying a child can vary so widely from woman to woman that some will find they pale in comparison with the mysterious wonder of the life blooming inside. I delight in hearing these experiences. I rejoice for these women. But I am not one of them.
Read MoreI have good news for those of you who really don’t vibe with all this earth mama imagery. The point of the mothering metaphor is not for us to go all Moon Goddess, track our cycles to maximize our inner seasons, and homemake everything from soap to lightbulbs.
Read MoreIn many seasons and for various reasons, I have seen myself in Esther—her pain, her fear, the providence of her position, and hopefully sometimes, her bravery, too. But like so many women in the Bible, she’s susceptible to the Dorothy question, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
Read MoreIf you have been following for any length of time, you know this question is not new for me. Over the last several years, I’ve danced around it—from Hannah to Esther to Woman Wisdom, I have taken a deep dive into the experiences of different women in the Bible. I’ve pondered work and childbirth, motherhood and marriage. I made friends with Feminism and re-read Piper and Grudem. I managed not to rage-throw any books.
Read MoreDuring Women’s History Month we honor an incredible legacy of females that come before us. I love hearing lesser known quotes and stories about some of history’s great heroines—Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart, Amy Carmichael. But they always make me wonder, what would it have been like to call them “friend”?
Read MoreIn the book of Proverbs, Wisdom is personified as a woman. She speaks a powerful message full of rich imagery and timeless advice that colors our perspective on the book’s theme as a whole. My recent seminar at Cornerstone West LA walked through the text of Proverbs 8 and 9 to explore what Woman Wisdom can teach us about living wisely in our world today.
Read MoreThis summer I culminated the last few years of research into a seminar for Cornerstone West LA that offers a framework for how to tackle stories in Biblical narrative, an area of Bible reading that I’ve often shied away from. I’m proud of the work it took to pull that hour and a half together, as well as the opportunity to teach the topic…
Read MoreI have heard my fair share of horrid arrangements of “Mary Did You Know?”, with all their vamping and belty vocals, yet each time I listen to the song, I cannot help but tear up when I think of that young girl in ancient Israel.
Read MoreIt is no secret that as a young girl, I was the poster child for traditional, American femininity. My barbies had divine romances that ended in marriage. My favorite dress up dramatization was wedding. I followed the narratives of Belle and Jasmine and Ariel with an unnatural hunger, concocting for myself imaginative, desperate situations that would always end in dramatic rescue. In high school, I framed Disney movie stills and artwork above my bed. I dreamed that one day my prince would come...
Read MoreSilence. It is an unfortunate reality of digging through the records of women past. As we try to shed our 21st century perspective to listen to and understand what it was like to be a woman in ancient Israel, Greece, or Rome, we are confronted with one of the great tragedies of patriarchy. There is but a small body of scripture devoted to the words and stories of women because for so many generations of our world's history, these voices were largely considered unimportant...
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