“As soon as you stop looking, that’s when you’ll find someone!” And other unhelpful messages we circulate.

The thing about a turtle on a fence post — you know it didn’t get there by itself. I am that turtle and these are the people who got me here. So many contributed to this master’s degree! Acknowledgments abound…

As we plumb the depths of Mary’s Magnificat and the glorious works of God that she extols, we may also rejoice with women who nearly 2 millennia earlier received God’s promissory word for the fruitfulness of his kingdom. The relatively unsung story of Shiprah and Puah may be heard to the tune of Mary’s song.

I am from the chocolate chip cookies that everyone craves.

I am from queen bee confidence to bully-born insecurity.

I am from never knowing my grandparents.

I didn’t learn to tell this narrative because my parents had regaled me with it repeatedly. It was a kindness of the Lord to imprint this memory in my young mind and heart.

Is God’s grace any less magnificent in the lives of those who meet him early, for lack of an extensive, outwardly rebellious backstory?

No one gets their medical license so they can finally have authority to declare the time of death over a patient. Jesus is not only training his people to preside over the worst case scenarios, but he’s licensing the church to diagnose and treat the problem of sin early and often.

When sin threatens to destroy our relationships, we have Jesus’s power and presence to restore.

It’s often suggested that if we would only trust Jesus, we could “move on” from being bothered by what remains broken. What if clinging to Christ actually means that we can look directly at the most complex problems and still hope and work for better?

The beauty of Jesus shines not mostly through our bold vision-casting for familial love, but by its steady demonstration in the extraordinary lives we live with one another in the ordinary world -- an unlikely family persevering together by his grace.

In our evangelistic enthusiasm, may we not proclaim what we are unwilling to sustain.