The call to "carry our cross" is... intense. I don't know that talking and thinking about it means as much as just doing it, but then Jesus did leave us not only His example but also His words. We have to understand what He calls us to do; we have to count the cost. Reading books about cruciformity such as "The Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and "Cruciformity" by Michael J.…
Lucinda J. Kinsinger, author of "Anything But Simple: My Life as a Mennonite", recently published "Turtle Heart: Unlikely Friends with a Life-Changing Bond". Today we're delighted to share an interview with her conducted by That Jesus Podcast (featuring author Emily Smucker as well) and a written book review. What happens when Anne from Anne of Green Gables meets Roseanne from the 1988 sitcom? Well maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but…
I've spent the past year focusing on my husband’s recovery from a bad fall, our many offspring, and my own mental health. Yesterday I was happily poking around on the porch, re-potting and watering geraniums, when I thought it might be time to branch out more. Maybe I should once again ask God to bring people to me if he wants me to "do ministry." The last time I prayed this prayer,…
“Prayer is for normal Christians. Fasting is for super-spiritual Christians.” I don’t think anyone ever told me this directly, but it’s the impression I got, growing up in the general modern Mennonite/white evangelical culture. Preachers sometimes informed us of the long fasts they did. “The hunger pains go away by about day three,” they’d say loftily. But if my peers fasted, they never discussed it with me, and my Sunday School teachers…
My near-Hippie mother is such a perfect product of the 60s and 70s. She’s brave, outspoken, brazen. And at once, she’s also deeply invested in maintaining the homeostasis of peace by letting people live how they choose. She wants people happy, healthy, thriving, and most of all, free. I’ve always been my mother’s child this way, and now so is my daughter. We’re sort of “social Amazons”, walking head-down ever-forward, always laughing…