Girrrl Stop!

Years ago after finishing grad school I received a position with Kellogg. I remember how excited I was as I thought it to be a great opportunity with a great company. I had interviewed with a particular manager who upon my first day told me he was retiring. I was still excited and was ready to meet my new manager. Everything changed when they paired me with a young man to shadow. He had been at the company for a little over a year. He was very vocal about how he hated the company and the position. He would often say “I didn’t go to school to be stocking shelves”. His negative attitude about the job and his doom and gloom view on things quickly rubbed off on me. I then began to not like the job, the position and the tasks that I had to complete. Once that negative attitude set in, when the new manager came, I didn’t like him either! My how quickly things changed when my perspective took a shift for the worse! Needless to say, I resigned from that position only to find out after that wh...

Life is full of ups and downs, triumphs and challenges and wins and setbacks. Sometimes it’s hard to stay positive when things don’t look like what God has shown you. It’s one thing to go through a challenging time but it’s another thing to go through that challenging time after God has given you a vision of something that looks like the complete opposite of your reality. You’re like, “God I know you showed me A but X,Y,Z keeps appearing!” The times when things don’t look like the vision is probably one of the most difficult times to trust God, however this is the most crucial time to trust God!  I’m reminded of the story of Abraham and Sarah. God told Abraham at the tender age of 75 that he would be the ‘father of many nations’. What an exciting promise! Generations will derive from you, full cultures will come from you, and you will be the origin of multitudes!!! I’m sure Abraham was excited to get this promise and I’m sure he showed his wife his excitement daily (Gospel acc...

Thanksgiving 2016 a childhood friend, Dee, passed away in her early thirties. Her sudden passing was a shock to her family and as you can imagine, emotions were in full bloom. In Baltimore, the custom is to visit with the family each night leading up to the funeral. We bring food, drinks and sometimes just the ministry of presence. During my family's visit we of course prepared a meal for the bereaved family and came to sit with them and serve as needed. When we arrived, Dee's sister was attempting to prepare the obituary. I asked if I could help her and take that one thing off her laundry list of things to do, she happily said yes. She admitted that she was struggling with writing the obit and at that moment, a married friend of the family jumped in the conversation and said, "Yeah this one is hard to write because she was so young, wasn't married, didn't have any kids, I mean there is nothing really to write". One word to describe the feeling that came ove...