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Showing posts from January, 2024

Being Single is Kind of Like Not Sleeping Through the Night

For as long as you can remember, you have been told that normal people sleep through the night. You've been trained to sleep through the night. The vast majority of your friends sleep through the night. Your entire family sleeps through the night. Everyone at church sleeps through the night. But you don't.  At first, a number of years ago, you were really frustrated about not sleeping through the night, and the frustration was compounded by people consistently asking questions as to your ability to sleep. Have you tried medication? Have you turned all your screens off before bed? Do you exercise? Do you drink caffeine in the afternoon? The fact of the matter is, you do all the things you're supposed to do, but you still wake up in the middle of the night, for apparently no reason.  You're confused and frustrated, so you pray. The next night, when it happens again, you pray. Soon, waking up in the night has changed from a time of frustration to a time of worship and gett...

Seeing the Good

 A couple weeks ago I spoke a story on Instagram that received mixed reviews. I was talking about all the happy reels that people had posted, summing up their 2023. Birthdays, weddings, ultrasounds, babies, vacations, all the things. And I said that if you had posted a happy reel that was great, I'm glad you had a good 2023, but I just wanted to say a few things to the people who didn't post a happy reel because they did not have a happy 2023. For some people 2023 was incredibly hard. Then I talked about Psalm 136. You know that one. The refrain goes "for His mercy endures forever."  Here's a brief summery of the mixed responses. The people who had a difficult 2023 messaged me saying "thank you for giving voice to our feelings." The people who had a great 2023 responded that its fine to post about one's own happiness even if other people had a difficult time. And you know what, they're both right and maybe I'll talk about that in later blog p...