Christian

The journey continues – Easter 2015

/ Rachel / 1 Comment

Now that Easter has passed (and the swelling has gone down in my fingers enough to allow me to type) and I’ve spent time reflecting back on previous Easter seasons, I realize that most of the impactful memories of mine surrounding this holiday are from my childhood. Overflowing Easter baskets from a very generous Easter Bunny who must have had Santa on speed dial since he brought me stuff I had been wanting. Ham dinners at my grandparents’ house, followed by Easter egg hunts and the hope that I’d find an egg or two with a dollar inside instead of candy. (Even at six years old, I’d choose cash over sugar.) Continue reading →

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Faith? Or Fear? – a devotional

/ Rachel / 1 Comment

I was asked to give the devotional at our Women’s Fellowship meeting this past Saturday, and although I had three weeks to prepare, I couldn’t find a devotional out there online that worked.  Most of them that I read were far too preachy, way too judge-y, and basically… well… they sounded nothing like me.  The worst thing I could do was sit in front of those lovely ladies (and our guest speaker, Pastor Mark) and read something that preaches a message of expectation that we all become perfect June Cleaver clones that live the type of sinless Christian life you only see in Hallmark Christmas movies. That’s not me.  So I came back to my own blog (because I certainly write enough) and read through past posts to see if anything might work.  I settled on this post from 2013 and, after modifying it heavily, created my very first devotional, which I’m sharing below.

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Christian creeps

/ Rachel / 11 Comments

A few years ago, I was a really crappy friend to someone I’ll call Summer.  She and I met back when we were taking college classes at Indiana Tech and we became fast friends.  Even after I moved away, we maintained a friendship.  This wasn’t a surface-level friendship, either.  We confided in each other about our struggles as wives and working women and we were always telling one another how thankful we were to have the other in our lives.

And then it all changed.
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That bumpy spiritual road

/ Rachel / 7 Comments

Let me preface the following paragraphs by saying this – I’m not just writing this to share my thoughts out into the faceless, endless black hole of the internet.  I would love comments/thoughts on this topic.  I’m inquiring because I’m truly, honestly curious and I want to have a real discussion (not a debate or argument) on this topic.

I’ve made no secret of my spiritual challenges on this blog.  I’ve moved around and I’ve left churches and I’ve explored others, and at the end of the day, I end up right where I was when I started – frustrated and confused.  Over the past few months, I’ve been too worked up and busy with the move and my role at work to really focus on thing of the spiritual nature, but it’s the holiday season now and things are slowing down.  I can breathe again, and I can think about things besides bus tables and traffic patterns and all those other things that dictate my life out here now.  Naturally, as we finally get “settled” here, we want to find a home church.  It’s important to us, not only for worship but for the community it fosters and that we so desperately need in a region where we have no family and only a few friends.

First, some facts I can deduce from my Christian journey so far:

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