Tag: Christianity

Listening For Wisdom | 2025

It has been a while since I shared any Bible Study reflection posts on this blog, and I wanted to dive into why there has been such a drop-off in talking about the Bible.

It’s not because I have stopped reading the Bible or questioned my faith, nothing like that. Instead, it is because I am at a loss for how to write about what God is teaching me.

This year has been challenging; there is a lot of hurt going on around the world, and there has been a lot of chaos and hurt happening in my country. I have friends and family affected by DOGE. I am unhappy with the way ICE and immigration is being handled. I have been fearful of the tariffs, the executive orders, and the student loan discussions. I’ve been outraged, in tears, and had moments of feeling hopeless.  But I know God is steadfast.

There has also been chaos within American Christianity. There is a distinct difference between a follower of Jesus, a far-right Christian, a far-left Christian, and the Gods, G*ns, and Trump crowd. I am disappointed in the divisions in the church politically and the lack of adherence to Jesus’ message. It’s not about political allegiance, it’s about doing what the Bible says – caring for the poor, not being proud, not creating division, and loving your neighbor as yourself.

I have been praying a lot and listening to all I can to learn and see the world with Kingdom eyes, not American eyes. I want to see those who need help in society and help them regardless of who they are. Knowing how to put these lessons into words has been tricky because I am still listening and don’t feel qualified to weigh in on anything going on. Especially as a white, Jesus following, female – I see a lot of hypocrisy, apathy, and exclusionary entitlement from this demographic, and I don’t want to be taking up space when other voices need room to speak.

The major thing I have learned this year from listening, studying, and my own prayer-filled conversations with God has been to love. When I ask God for direction or an answer on how to help, I feel the resounding answer – love. Love them, specifically. I also feel immense righteous anger at injustice. I can’t ignore it; my heart is broken. I have been asking to see things the way that God wants me to, and that means recognizing the evil being done in the name of “good,” and that is not aligned with the Bible at all. It’s a mess, but one that I believe we can fix if we remember to humble ourselves, to admit wrong, ask forgiveness, and change behavior on a cultural level.

A verse that I learned about in a discussion of the Exodus Way, I believe, or maybe it was the beginning of the City series, was this verse from Ezekiel about why Sodom in particular angered God.

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

Ezekiel 16:49 ESV

That verse has eaten me up inside, as I see the rich getting richer and the poor being hurt more. How can any of our efforts be blessed if we are being selfish with the blessings we have?

I have also been reading Galatians. Paul’s writing just nails it every time. As humans, we are so cyclical in our bad behavior, but if we came together in unity and with the fruits of the spirit, dang, we could do some good. I am hopeful with each moment of protest that is carried out with words and without violence, that those moments will shine bright in the darkness.

Hopefully, I will feel more comfortable soon sharing more in-depth thoughts. It’s just a lot of chaos to sort through with God, to discern what is good in this mess of 2025. Clinging to Him above all, I guess, is the biggest takeaway.

Have you read or heard that passage of Ezekiel before? I was pretty stunned by that. I hope wherever you are, you know that you are loved. Until next time, thanks for spending time with me today, dear reader.

Easter: A Confrontation of Oppression?

Something I have pondered through this Easter season, thanks to the Bible Project Exodus Way series, is Jesus’ motivation for His mission and how His ministry confronted oppression in the 1st century. Oppression from sin, society, and the corruption of the Jewish leaders, all under foreign occupation. It was a tense atmosphere. That is something I tend to forget. I think that the Pharisees were petty, and Rome was a casual player; instead of Jesus existed in the context of people who wanted to be free.

The Romans were incredibly brutal. If you have watched Gladiator or Gladiator II, there is a temptation to get caught up in the splendors of Rome, but they were a society sustained by oppression. Gladiators were slaves; any immigrants or conquered nations were slaves, there was a strict class divide, and women were not valued. With newborn baby girls and disabled babies being thrown away to animals, off of cliffs, or sold to human traffickers. It was a common practice.

Doesn’t this sound like eugenics and the practices we saw in the extermination plans of genocides? Yep. It’s a cycle of evil and sin that we fall into over and over again. Same ship, different day.

Under Roman occupation, the cross and crucifixion were a common and calculated practice of execution. Men, women, and children could be crucified, usually by the roadside. It was designed to instill fear and was engineered to be a horrific death, and yet Jesus willingly allowed himself to be crucified for us. All of us, His mockers, those scheming against Him, even those Romans.

He came to challenge our understanding of love through the radical expression of it, taking the sin of the entire world – past, present, and future – on His fully human, yet fully God, shoulders – to pay a price we cannot pay for freedom from oppression.

Jesus ministered to everyone in His path, but He sought out those who were abandoned by the society they lived. Jesus healed the sick, the lepers who were kicked out of society and left to live as outcasts, when they needed compassion and care. Those who were disabled were ignored, but Jesus saw them and healed them. He confronted the demons who took up residence inside people and cast the demons out, ending the oppression of their host and restoring peace.

He gave second chances. There were many times throughout His ministry when the disciples and His followers let Him down, yet Jesus forgave them. Even when they denied and abandoned Him, Jesus forgave. Forgiveness confronts the oppression of grudges, vengeance, malice, and bitterness.

Our society is embroiled in grudges, vengeance, and the oppression that comes with unwillingness to forgive. Justice with an iron fist, eye for an eye. That is not what the Bible calls for, even in those Old Testament passages that are brought up to challenge this – the Egyptians were free to join the Passover and be spared from the plague that killed the firstborn, the kingdoms that were in Canaan when the Israelites did it God’s way were conquerered not by violence. God is a just God, a righteous God, and even in the Day of the Lord is not a God of oppression. We are called to forgive, to be reborn in salvation as new creations in Christ, and to give second chances with generosity and love.

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen.

And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.
And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”

But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

John 2:13-22 ESV

It’s been a daily struggle for me and the rest of us who have eyes open to the oppression occurring in our midst. I am angry. I want to fight against the pervasive corruption. This Holy Week has been a week of me learning about the El Salvadorian CECOT prison, where there are no second chances ever, hearing that Autism is an “epidemic”, Putin launching missiles during Ukrainian Easter celebrations, and my state’s governor being the target of arson because of his faith.

The ceasefire, which I knew was broken, just fills me with frustration at the ongoing suffering and senseless death. Like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Romans, the apathy for suffering people and the greed for power and money is the “tale as old as time” plot playing on today. I wish the world would wake up. It’s also the tax deadline here in the United States, and I have to say, I am the least confident I’ve been in my adult life that my taxes are doing anything good for my community.

Especially when social services and disaster relief funding are cut. I want these leaders in my midst, and my fellow citizens who are lukewarm like the church of Laodicea, to stop perpetuating “Christianity” as a form tied up with politics and confront the ways that they are participating in the oppression of others and repent, because this week is about freedom. We are all invited to become a new creation.

True freedom. From who we are, have been, come from, or what we feel we can’t be. It is a transformative second chance of mercy and justice that we have not earned, but is freely given. No corruption or cronyism can take it away, nor can violence or tyranny.

If you are reading this and haven’t experienced this kind of freedom, may I recommend the Chosen, the Bible Project, and the gospel of John first? John is so thematic, and it’s a story that will pull you in. The world is a vampire, but there is hope. Stay strong, friends, and know that you are loved.

What About the Garment Workers? 2025 Edition

There are a lot of things about this new Trump term that are setting my jaw. The newest one, though, happens to be the tariffs zeroing in on Vietnam, and something we are losing sight of in this discussion—what is going to happen to garment workers?

Vietnam is one of many countries in the global south that are responsible for the garments and shoes we wear every day. In May 2024, they surpassed China as the largest textile and garment market share for U.S. imports. The nation employs around 2.5 million people within the 6000 garment and textile factories across Vietnam. This rapid growth of 37 billion USD worth of garments being made in Vietnam in 2024, from 26 billion USD in 2017, is due to the low wages of Vietnam compared to the higher wages of China and even higher wages in the United States. In the 1980s, before Clinton’s NAFTA in 1993, garments sold in American stores were made in the United States, but this changed during the Clinton era and has gotten worse in the 32 years since through the rise of fast fashion and the fashion industry’s reliance on cheap labor at the expense of the garment workers.

So, now we bring the so-called “Liberation Day” of tariffs, and since this is a space I like to keep safe, I’m going to move on because I have nothing nice to say. What I want to focus on is not making this job American again, the rising prices of garments, or anything political, and instead I’d like to zero in on what seeing the world with a Kingdom (God’s Kingdom that is) lens has taught me so far this year.

I’d say that my eyes being opened began last year with diving deeper into Fashion Roadman’s channel, which led me to watch two documentaries – The True Cost of Fast Fashion and Perfume’s Dark Secret in 2024. The other revelations that were exposed in 2024 such as the labor practices of Armani and Dior, were very telling for how are garments are made from luxury to fast fashion. It’s no secret that the fashion industry, including luxury brands, is not concerned with the moral cost of their decisions and is solely focused on getting money in their pockets for their shareholders. So, what is going to happen within the fashion industry as a result of these tariffs set on Vietnam, especially with no sign of negotiation from the Trump Administration? I think it’s going to be bad for everyone.

I think costs from the brands will be cut from the quality of the garments being made, to the materials, to the contracts with these factories. I think garment workers will probably see the biggest hit in their work environment and wages, as their economy is hurt. Or potentially the factories will no longer get these contracts to cut labor costs, meaning the production of garments will be further entrenched with slave labor in countries where workers are exploited. Then what will those women be left with? Garment Workers are primarily women, and they are skilled laborers who could be left without a way to provide income for their families.

It’s not okay for so many reasons.

That is why, as we look towards Easter, I am thinking about those who are oppressed in our world, because Jesus came to be a new Moses and lead us through the Exodus Way. Thank you, dear reader, if you stayed with me on this one. I wish this world weren’t such a downer right now, but just know, although we are from the United States, we are not pleased and empathize with how this is affecting you too. ❤

Beauty Advent Calendars and the Gift of Prayer

Advent calendars are becoming a strange phenomenon. When I was a kid, I knew Advent as the thing that happened on Sunday morning in more formal churches, like the ornate Presbyterian church in town, compared to the less formal Alliance church I went to, which had a gymnasium/sanctuary. A wreath would appear the Sunday, four weeks before Christmas, and a series of candles were lit in purple and pink, until Christmas Eve when the white candle was lit. There was scripture reading, as we looked forward to the coming of Jesus, by recalling the moments throughout the Bible pointing to his birth. It was a time of preparation and reflection on the deeper meaning of Christmas in the Christian context. I didn’t grow up with an advent wreath at home but I thought they were fascinating. I was more familiar with those small, wooden, or felt Christmas calendars that involved opening a door or moving a little trinket to a new pocket each day.

The term Advent calendar now has a different image in my mind. I can probably thank Alexandria Ryan’s Beauty Advent Calendar unboxings for this. I think of small samples, expired makeup, Augustinus Badder’s ‘The Rich Cream’, and Charlotte Tilbury. Now I should explain before this makes her channel sound posh and out of touch. I found her channel many years ago, I believe in 2017, as a makeup subscription box unboxing channel. Since then, it has evolved into a channel with ‘advent season’ that usually wraps up in spring or summer. She purchases beauty and snack advent calendars and opens them to see if they are worth the money by comparing the cost of the box with the total value of the items inside.

It’s a lot of math! For most calendars, it is a lot of samples and Ali-Express private-label junk being sold as exclusive items. It all started back in 2019 with the Sephora Holiday Advent Calendar, which was so poor quality, that she recreated the items from the Dollar Store. This led to an annual Sephora Advent Calendar tradition and grew to Advent calendar season each year. Including Halloween Advent calendars, which are now a thing for companies to sell. The word Advent is slowly changing in meaning from a particular Biblical preparation process to a countdown to Christmas Day to a catch-all seasonless countdown mystery box that can be 12 days(for the twelve days of Christmas)-24 days-25 days or even a 7-day after-advent calendar for the week after Christmas, to a free-form countdown signifying word which correlates to opening a box of mystery items from themed packaging. Instead of being opened daily, most of these are opened all at once and are treated as a good deal, a content generator, or a gift people give themselves or others. It’s far from the chocolate Advent calendars of childhood, it’s a whole cross-section of the consumer market now with Advent calendars that will hold anything and everything, for humans and pets alike.

Now, I’m not here to discuss this from a Biblical point of view, because Advent is not a tradition pulled directly from the Bible like communion, Passover, or baptism, it’s something the church began doing and traditions vary. The date of the celebration of Christmas varies between Orthodox and Catholic/Protestant calendars. Jesus was not born in December, it’s all cultural and has been adapted from European solstice and winter festivals, so it’s not a big deal to me. This is more of a fascination I have with humans and the way we imagine whole new things in such a short amount of time. Our culture of Advent calendars changed rapidly within 5 years! I don’t remember them being such a cultural fixation until a few years ago. Now every store and every company seems to have an Advent calendar that they are ready to sell you!

I believe this happened because we were looking for something to make sense of those weird holidays at the beginning of the decade, combined with late-stage capitalism and hyper-consumption, and boom – it’s a perfect storm for the boxes upon boxes of tiny things being offloaded into these boxes for a hefty price. It’s a way for companies to make a quick buck, offload products they need to sell but won’t move, or rip off customers by filling their calendars with useless junk – like the 2024 VIB Reward Advent Calendar from Sephora.

Even the word calendar is changing with this phenomenon, what is a calendar? Is it a way to track the time and year, by seeing a month at a time until twelve months have passed? Is it a box with doors that contain presents? How many doors equal a calendar? What separates this from a mystery box? Is it simply the doors, the numbers, and the packaging? Does it have to be tied to a holiday at all? Just like Advent in concept is changing so is the meaning of calendar and it’s interesting to me that as humans we do this and we do this so seamlessly? Language is such a curious medium. I can see through this process how words shift in meaning, dialects are formed, and why communicating with someone in the past or future speaking the same technical language as me would be quite difficult.

But what about Advent calendars without the products? Do they still exist and are they fun? I did an Advent calendar this year, the first time I’ve ever had my own. It was a 24-day Advent calendar, that I received in the mail from Prison Fellowship, and was a 24-day of prayer Advent calendar. It was completely free. I didn’t know I was being sent this item until it showed up in my mailbox a few days before Thanksgiving. There were no items to receive each day, just a scripture reading and a prayer. The prayer requests covered the varied needs of their ministry – those who are incarcerated, their families, the corrections officers, the children of those incarcerated, the ministry team of Prison Fellowship, people like me who donate, the communities and churches across the nation so that we can all work in synergy to be prepared and ready to serve God through our part in this mission.

What I appreciated the most about this calendar was how it felt interwoven, it covered needs at all levels. For example, over the 24 days, I prayed for those who were incarcerated who come to Prison Fellowship events and those who haven’t. I prayed for comfort in the isolation of being incarcerated, especially during the holidays when the incarceration process removes you from all connections, not to mention the pain caused by the action that led to incarceration. It is a time of pain for prisoners, their families, and friends. I prayed for the ministry of Angel Tree, the children of prisoners and families of prisoners, for comfort and reconciliation, and spiritual redemption. I prayed for churches and communities, as well as prisons and corrections officers to all work as one to facilitate the redemptive work of God in these communities inside and outside of prison.

It was truly powerful and did not feel like something that was made without prayer itself, because the scripture readings were so intricately tied to the prayers each day. A human could not have done that on their own. It was the first time I’ve prayed the prayers written for me without deviating. I usually try to say my own words and thoughts when given a prayer request, but I felt deep down that repeating the request inscribed behind the door was what was being called for most. It taught me that prayer is not about me nor my wish to put my stamp on it as a creative person. Prayer is more than just communion with God, it is about God and his purposes. His plan over my plan.

I don’t know why I specifically received this. I don’t know if everyone who has donated was sent one or just some people? I haven’t seen much reference to this calendar, but I am so grateful that I did receive it. It was an incredible experience and taught me that even if Advent calendars are being transformed into cash grabs and tools of overconsumption, they can still be a process that prepares us for the Christmas season and brings the focus to God and His work in our lives. It can also be a fun concept that brings holiday cheer, like Catvent, an Advent calendar for cats filled with cat toys. That was an Advent calendar my Instagram friend shared daily on her stories this year which I absolutely loved! It’s truly becoming a multi-layered concept and I’m intrigued, so much so that it is January and I am looking forward to catching up on the next Advent calendars to be unboxed by Alexandria in the new year.

I hope wherever you are you have a lovely day or evening or night. Thanks for spending time with me, dear reader. Until next time!

Blacksmithing – Micah 4:3

At the beginning of this blog I was reading through sections of the Bible that I did not know as well as passages that are taught quite frequently and I was letting God lead me in the process. This was my goal in 2023, and in 2024 I’m still doing that albeit a bit more chaotically than last year. I blame the move, but honestly, my focus has been all over the place except on my devotions since we moved which I am not proud of. Because of this I have been hopping around the Bible I was in Proverbs and then I was in Mark and now I’m sporadically reading through the minor prophets. I read through Jonah and now I’m back in Micah.

There was something that stuck out to me again as I read Micah chapter four yesterday but for a different reason than my reading in 2023. In 2023, verse three stood out to me because of the promise of peace, this time it was the historical process that caused me to stop and ponder.

He shall judge between many peoples,
    and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war anymore;

Micah 4:3 ESV

I was watching an I Like to Make Stuff video recently where Bob constructed a forge, followed by another video where he forges his own machete from a piece of steel. The process was fascinating! It is such a different medium from the fiber crafts I do because the material requires more persuading than scissors, stitches, or thread to be transformed. It requires heat to allow the material to be pliable, but you can’t form it unless you have a hammer to beat the metal into the form you desire. It can take many attempts of heating and hammering to get a crude shape. This doesn’t take into account the angle grinder or sanding to adjust the shape, plus the tempering of the metal through heating and dipping the blade to make it stronger. It’s a complicated process to make something.

This verse about ‘beating swords into plowshares’ and ‘spears into pruning hooks’ well depending on how expertly these weapons were made this is a lot of craftsmanship to be destroyed, and not reformed in one beat of the hammer. This would be a process. These would be precious resources that would need to be heated in the forge, hammered into shape, and reinforced with tempering. It would be a full transformation and would require work and commitment, so full submission to God’s will and full trust that you’re not going to need that carefully crafted weaponry or I think you would hold on to it. Because there was no Amazon 2-day to get more materials or a replacement sword or spear if you changed your mind. This was it.

Because we’ve lost this technology in our modern culture to other means, this picture of blacksmithing seems like an insignificant detail but I think it has a lot of weight to the meaning of the larger message in Micah 4 and the book in general. This was a full 180-degree shift from war to planting, something you only do if you have hope for the future and stability because you have to be there to tend to the crops and harvest at a later time. You are committed to the process.

I think it is also important that the weapons are not just laid down and cast away, instead, they are reshaped and forged by fire to reveal their new life as necessary tools in the kingdom. They had a past of different goals, but are shaped by a refining fire to become a new thing and serve a new purpose. For being an Old Testament book this surely has New Testament significance, as this is what being a new creation in Christ through repentance and salvation looks like. You are not cast away for a new thing, you are transformed for a new form and a new function.

Like a blacksmith with a forge and a hammer, the Christian life transforms us from one thing to another for a new purpose. Even if our former life was filled with contradictions to the one we are living now, that forge of refining fire changes everything.

Proverbs 31 – The Lady Who Is Not Well Explained

In early 2024, I read through the book of Proverbs and planned to share more of my study, but this year, I’ve been feeling imposter syndrome about sharing what I’m reading and what God is teaching me. I’m not sure why either because I love cataloging my notes from my reading and sharing them here for whoever would like to read them. I enjoy a good book discussion and I want to see how my understanding of books, like books in the Bible, changes over time as I re-read passages and gain deeper knowledge of the text.

I’ve been doing this with Pride and Prejudice and other Jane Austen stories through a podcast/YouTube channel creator named Ellie Dashwood, who I’ve mentioned before. I’ve been watching through her historical videos which explore fascets of Regency Era England to bring greater context to the characters of Jane Austen’s works of literature. I think the combination of a video I watched following what Elizabeth Bennet’s life would be like as the lady of Pemberley and a recent video by With Love, Kristina brought me back to Proverbs 31 and the woman described. It’s a bit of a web, but I’ll explain.

In Ellie’s video, she walks the viewer through what it would be like to be a Regency-era lady of a large estate like Pemberley, which is a pretty fascinating thing to consider because we don’t learn a lot about this period in history classes! What we as the viewers learn is that Lizzie would have a rather full day. It’s honestly much busier than I ever thought because history tends to paint women in a few scant roles like wife or mother, object of desire, or damsel in distress. It’s frustrating because we aren’t that different from people of the past and it doesn’t make sense to me why women would be so lacking in life and personality until 1900’s?

I thought Lizzie would be a lady forced to read and not take long walks, as she so enjoys, and have to take turns about the room with Caroline Bingley. But actually, being the mistress of Pemberley gave her a lot of jobs to do. Like Cora in Downton Abbey, Elizabeth would be in charge of the house such as making sure it was running smoothly, would be in charge of entertaining, etc. Lizzie would also be in charge of running the budget of the house to keep their expenses within their means.

Pemberley is a large estate in Darbyshire, therefore they would have tenants and Elizabeth would make social calls as part of her role as mistress of Pemberley. It was part of building a good community. As the family with the most money and resources, they were to take care of their tenants, as lady bountiful she would call on the poor and the sick and bring them food from their table. They would also have people staying at Pemberley and balls which would be hosted at the estate that Elizabeth would be in charge of planning.

I could tell from watching the video that Ellie put a lot of research into discovering what a lady of the gentile class’ life would look like. I think it sounds like a much more fulfilling role than I imagined, especially with the income disparities of the time, I was happy to learn that if the family who held an estate like Pemberley were good people the poor and the sick would be taken care of as well as the staff, like we see in Downton Abbey.

How does this connect to the video I was watching the other day, from With Love, Kristina’s channel? She mentioned the woman in Proverbs 31 but challenged me to dig deeper than the trite “Proverbs 31 woman” stereotype that gets peddled around Christian women content on social media. I was quite pleased to hear what she reminded me of because it reminded me a bit of the Mistress of Pemberley as well as what life looks like as a 2024 woman.

Kristina is a full-time YouTube creator and fiction author who is also a stay-at-home mom with five kids. In a lot of her videos, she discusses the intentionality and work it takes to find a balance between all these roles. She is incredibly down-to-earth and that is why I find myself sticking around on her channel when she is not talking about vintage fashion, writing, neurodivergence, or vintage cleaning routines because I don’t have five kids, I don’t have any kids, but her real-life perspective and authenticity teach me things that I wouldn’t know otherwise and I find common ground where I didn’t expect it.

In the video that sparked me to write this post, she was discussing the outside opinions viewers share in the comments about how lucky she is to be just a wife and just a stay-at-home mom, and what she shared I connected with. My husband and I share labor, as I have transitioned in lockdown from bringing in income from my full-time job to pivoting towards a new path, my role changed. Since I temporarily couldn’t provide financially anymore for our lives, I wanted to take a more active role in the unpaid domestic labor that makes life happen. I became much more serious about housekeeping and cooking because it made me incredibly uncomfortable to not contribute financially. It was a struggle actually to let him fully take that role, something I continually struggle with and strive to change because that’s who I am.

I’ve had people in my life treat me like a spoiled brat who doesn’t want to work or got saved from working by my husband like I’m a kept woman and this truly irks me. It irks me how people in my life can’t see that paid or unpaid, domestic labor is work and also on top of that, I am working to build something for myself through knitting and sewing which is still in process. But just because I don’t have that “job” or typical career anymore, my time is devalued and seen as me “playing all day with my crafts” not spending 8 hours a day doing domestic labor and my own work on Instagram, the blog, and my current projects. It hurts but I can’t make people see things differently than how they want to see them.

This is where the Proverbs 31 woman stereotype came in, after I was laid off a few people in my life brought up the Proverbs 31 woman as my new role model from the season I was in being unemployed and just a wife. I could just “wife” like her and have kids and make my little crafts and donate to charities and be a woman of good moral character that is secondary to her husband. That’s what the Proverbs 31 woman is. But she’s not that actually if you read the text, and Kristina reminded me of this.

The Proverbs 31 woman works and has a successful income all on her own. She buys land with the money she earns and contributes to her family’s finances through her work spinning wool and flax into textiles. She is a wife, a mom, an artisan, and a lady bountiful with whom she shares her blessings with her community. She is a fully developed character with a big life. A woman that I can connect with and I think most women today will as well. She is not the watered-down version I see on social media that is mostly clothed in dignity and grace like good things just came to her because she is special. It’s not about health and wealth gospel and faith in God providing you with three wishes like Aladdin.

I think it’s a shame that we are under-explaining her in the Christian bubble to create engagement and sell people a fake sense of Biblical feminity. I love studying literature and seeing that women are not NPCs and haven’t always been NPCs. Women are an active part of the storyline. Both inside and outside of the Christian bubble, we should be able to agree on this and, sadly, it isn’t always the case. How much more could we be supporting each other if we realized this? How much stronger could our communities be? And how could this bring light to overwhelm modern-day women are experiencing?


Her husband has full confidence in her
    and lacks nothing of value.
 She brings him good, not harm,
    all the days of her life.
She selects wool and flax
    and works with eager hands.
 She is like the merchant ships,
    bringing her food from afar.
She gets up while it is still night;
    she provides food for her family
    and portions for her female servants.
She considers a field and buys it;
    out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She sets about her work vigorously;
    her arms are strong for her tasks.
 She sees that her trading is profitable,
    and her lamp does not go out at night.
 In her hand she holds the distaff
    and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
 She opens her arms to the poor
    and extends her hands to the needy.
 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
    for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
 She makes coverings for her bed;
    she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
    where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
    and supplies the merchants with sashes.
—
 Honor her for all that her hands have done,
    and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Proverbs 31:11-24, 31 NIV

Mark 14 – Dipping that Bread

Today was a good day because I remembered to do my Bible Study, a bonus for coordinating my Bible Reading by lying on my yoga mat. It is incredibly peaceful. I’m reading through the book of Mark which I can’t study without thinking of a sermon series at my childhood church in Mark, which if you don’t know is the shortest gospel and is written with the intention of conciseness and fast-paced structure. Ironically this series took years, literal years with a lot of repetition and I just find it amusing. But focusing on what is important here – I was struck by something new while I was reading Chapter 14, a couple new things actually.

This is not my first time through Mark or the Gospels or the whole Bible actually, I read through the entire book from 2020-2021. Today when I was reading through Chapter 14 which is all about Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus for burial, the Last Supper, the plot to kill Jesus, Jesus’ arrest, and Peter’s denial, I noticed something that I had added to the story by paraphrasing in my previous study. Like clearly was not listening or comprehending what I was reading, which I get distracted easily so no surprise there! Thankfully I have started praying before I study and asking God to help me focus only on Him and guide me to what He wants to teach me.

“And when it was evening, he came with the twelve.  And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me.  For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

Mark 14:17-21 ESV

This is where I was adding something! I was reading it as this sign that Jesus would offer the bread and the cup around and each disciple was going to have the chance to dip and only Judas does in this ultimate sign of his transformation. Revealing his true identity in a bold betrayal like a movie or a strategy reality TV show. This was his mic drop of shadiness!

It doesn’t say that or imply that at all, it says one of the twelve who is eating with Jesus. I totally read into that and added a whole bunch of cinematic drama that isn’t what God intended here. I was struck by how convinced I was that this was in the Bible when it’s not at all. Judas betrays Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane a few verses later.

I was shook by how I could be so familiar with a story and not know the actual details of the events! It shows why you read the Bible more than once, and you continue to study it because there is a lot in here and it is hard to remember everything as I should. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try though!

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To Bridget, Just As She Is: Accepting My Neurodivergence

One of my favorite scenes from Bridget Jones’ Diary is the dinner party at Bridget’s flat where she makes the blue soup and assorted congealed things. Despite the chaos and mishaps where she is authentically herself, Bridget’s friends and Mark Darcy toast her effort – “To Bridget…who we love…just as she is.”

In many ways, I identify with Bridget. I am a chaos monster who tries my hardest to not mess up, yet I do. I am a bit awkward, a bit of a goofball, I often feel out of place with who I think I should be compared to who I am if I am just myself. I spent most of my twenties trying to be someone I was not because I thought I needed to change to fit in. I wanted to succeed in life and my relationships, without getting to the root of why I felt like a weirdo.

Self-Reflection and Seeking Wise Counsel

I mentioned before that I discovered I was neurodivergent this spring because of the eclipse. I see now how poignant that timing was as my life would transform from April to July. Everything changed overnight, like everything, my relationship with my parents, my marriage, my living situation, my mental health, and the current direction of my life.

All for the better I can say with relief because life doesn’t always go that way. I see now that if I hadn’t been prepared for this season of life, things may not have changed for the better, my life could be in shambles instead.

Being unaware of my neurodivergent personality traits, caused me to feel uncomfortable, overwhelmed, and in a place of survival instead of feeling steady, relaxed, and open to the adventures life has for us. Changes seemed unbearable. Trust unthinkable. Faith was hard to find. I fought it, resisted letting go of control, and let God fully take the lead of what I was worried about.

Unbeknownst to me as to why I would need to brush up on wisdom, I felt led to study Proverbs at the beginning of 2024, and through this study, I was challenged to grow and broaden my approach to how I live life. To seek out wisdom, to prepare for things before they come in faith, to be fruitful with my time, and to guard my heart and mind from toxic patterns.

It was not an easy task, I really like wasting time and worrying about things that I can’t control. I can also be a negative person, instead of focusing on things that are positive and helpful, I’d circle down spirals of negative, snarky, toxicity. This kept me from seeing forgiveness, and being a cooperative person in my relationships, and made me too afraid to step out on faith for what God was planning for me. I needed to renew my mind!

God putting neurodivergence on my heart to look into opened so many doors, I see now, to understanding myself, my relationships, and what I truly want out of life. So as chaos descended in April, I was incredibly thankful that God went ahead of me and gave me such tools of understanding to navigate the big and scary things that were on the horizon.

Fights and Communication

A week before I learned that I was going to need a buy a house or move, my mom and I had a terrible fight. Like a really strange unavoidable fight like we were two asteroids on a crash course with each other.

At the time I was hurting and confused but through the fight, we actually accomplished huge milestones in communication. We placed new healthy boundaries and were brave enough to be honest with each other about what we needed. I was honest about my neurodivergence afterward because of the new safe space we created.

I didn’t know at the time but I had needed that safe space for a long time, over a decade, and I was going to need it immediately as my life was going to be in upheaval with the move and house-buying process.

Having my mom as my confidant, my buddy, and my raft in stormy seas, was exactly what I needed. It was incredible. From chaos to order. That’s how God works.

In the same way, understanding my neurodivergence helped me draw closer to Kyle, finally being able to communicate what I needed and how we could work together and support each other more effectively. It was something we were going to need to be able to work in sync to determine what we were going to do. If we planned to rent a new place or purchase a house, and if so, where? I can see now how all these little things were woven together to make these steps in faith easier because I sought out wisdom and prepared before the trial came.

Bridget, Just as She is

When things got tough, chaotic, and tricky for me to navigate as a highly sensitive person, neurodivergent, and struggling to navigate the change without feeling overstimulated and scared, I didn’t have to explain how I was feeling. Kyle, my mom, and Scott my dad were one step ahead and ready to catch me as I stumbled. Most importantly God was with me every step of the way, and it was incredible to feel His love through the people around me.

As we moved through the process, the move, the closing, the navigating the weird limbo between renting and buying, the move-in, etc. This wonderful, gentle landing place was there for me through the love of my family and friends and around me, the sensitivity toward what I needed. They made me feel loved and worthy through my vulnerable moments, encouraged me when I was feeling low, and comforted me when this world felt too big and too much for me.

I am forever grateful for this journey because I feel secure like I’m on solid ground again. I don’t feel like a weirdo anymore that needs to change to succeed. I feel ready for this world. Okay with who I am and not afraid to be myself because I am a little different.

I have accepted myself for who God created me to be, differences and all. My loved ones have reinforced this. I see this came together so seamlessly because I first sought wisdom, which helped me figure out what I needed from my relationships, and most importantly I learned to give my loved ones a chance to be there for me.

Letting people in is hard. It can also be incredibly rewarding. So is taking the time to encourage, accept, and support people who you love. When a community comes together, amazing things truly do happen, even on the smallest scale.

I challenge you to seek out wise counsel, self-reflection, and healthy boundaries, and find the people who love you just as you are. Be brave and let people see the real you. Be even more brave and support others, a random act of kindness goes a long way! For example on Saturday, my mom reached out and held my hand when we were in a big crowd. That small gesture reminded me that all the overstimulation I was feeling, was temporary and it was going to be okay.

Thank you, dear reader, for spending time with me today. ❤

It’s Not Busy Work, it’s Motivation in the Chaos

When I was a kid and honestly, into adulthood, I thought studying the Bible and understanding the entire story, the nooks and crannies of the book that get skipped over, well I thought it was a lot of busy work that I wanted no part of. Especially after those four years of academia, no thanks.

But then I saw people in my life, who did spend all that time being consistent in the Word have much less stress and worry, despite stressful and difficult things. It didn’t make sense to me. I just thought they were more mature than me or could handle life better, as each stress and challenge KO-ed me into a tailspin of anxiety. Maybe they were lucky? Tougher?

They might be, but honestly, since I decided to try their method and read the entire Bible from 2020-2021, I felt like I had a new well of examples to draw on when life got hairy. A reminder of God’s promises to think about instead of comparing my circumstances to others and questioning why this bad lot was happening to me. It sparked the faith and hope for a tomorrow that sustained me through the past two months.

It wasn’t an instantaneous change. I didn’t realize I had made progress until I put work in. Like with everything in life, building faith, learning to hope, and having a scriptural reminder to lean on during the tough days took effort and consistency. Like a workout plan, a garden, language learning, etc. It all takes time and practice. I think that is why there is such an emphasis on perseverance and courage in the Bible because in those moments that test us faith, hope, and peace arrive because you have taken the time to immerse yourself in the manner in which God does things.

It’s motivation in the chaos when nothing makes sense and even you are second-guessing your own choices. For example, the eclipse, which I mentioned before I wasn’t a fan of, but in the moment of the totality, unless you have the knowledge of astronomy to understand that the sun isn’t actually disappearing, it just appears blocked because of the orbit of the earth around the sun perfectly lining up with the orbit of the moon at the right time. Although I knew that was happening, the eerie feeling of the sun ceasing to shine in the middle of the day was bizarre! I knew it would come back and the eclipse would only last a few minutes, there was that little voice in the back of my head that was whispering doubt that everything wouldn’t be okay and the sun would get lost back there, maybe take a wrong turn.

That little voice of doubt lives in all of us. It comes out at the most inconvenient times! It has arrived and set up camp in my head through this whole house debacle. Through all the chaos, I was spending time in prayer but I was struggling to find time to sit down with God’s word and find new motivation. As a believer, reading the Bible is a source of refreshment, it feels like listening to a song which amps you up, I also do that too. (My current favorite is WORK by Ateez). I was worried through all the chaos that not spending time in God’s word would lead to me running out of gas and losing my heart to carry on.

In a recent post, I spoke to where I’ve been but all the chaos of our landlord’s decision to sell the house we lived in and offer us a sketchy deal on it was just the half of it, as we were looking for peace from her lack of boundaries and decorum, we were also looking for a new place to live. There were days when my landlord would dump a whole bunch of stress on my shoulders and then personally the details for our new house would throw down hurdles of chaos. Endless paperwork, the possibility of it not being possible at all, and having to find a new plan, it was a lot and I was surprised in those moments how scripture passages of encouragement from Psalms and Proverbs or stories of struggle by real people in the Bible would find their way into my mind. It would reinvigorate my drive to keep going. It kept me from quitting in frustration.

As a kid, things with my dad leaving us at an early age reinforced this narrative in my head that I didn’t deserve happiness or that the other shoe would always drop. Even though God provided a better life than I would have ever had with my narcissistic and verbally abusive dad, instead of focusing on the good, my brain has fixed on the bad. I have given up on so many hard things in life because I hit a bump in the road and just thought it was what I deserved. It sounds so silly to say it out loud. By digging into the Word over the past four years, that time of study has assisted me in pushing that voice down, in order to reframe what God has in store for me.

Things will probably get bad, over and over again. This world is fallen and can really suck sometimes. There will be jerks but there will also be good people. In life there will be times of joy and sadness, there will also be times of hardship. One setback is just a setback, not a lifestyle. I wish I had pursued studying the Bible sooner because I think there was a lot of peace available in my life that I refused to acknowledge. I did it the hard way, alone. It didn’t need to be like that.

Even if you are not a person of faith, I hope this encourages you to prioritize your mental health so that you will have a deep well to draw from on those hard days. You are not alone. I think you are awesome. ❤

#54 – Keep Flying

Happy May! This is my favorite month of the spring season. The flowers have bloomed, in their vibrant glory of fuschia and periwinkles. The leaves come back! I love seeing the trees all dressed in the green finery for another year. The warmth of the sunshine as it washes me in its light. It’s the joy of feeling warm without that roasting heat of June and July. We have wildflowers, the days are still growing long, and a whole season of outdoor activities stretching out in front of us – it’s a great time to be alive.

This May is going to be a whirlwind for sure. It’s happening in good ways and bad. I can’t exactly say why yet, but I’d like to share something this month is teaching me – how to remain calm when I have no chill because big life changes are happening. Does anyone really? I’m not convinced, but I see that being able to step back from times of shaky ground and change to find peace in the storm of confusion is the secret of adulthood.

I’m learning to stick to a plan and focus on the finish line. It’s teaching me how to push my worries back into my head relax my shoulders and turn my attention to something else. Am I doing this perfectly every time? Heck no! I was frustrated and worried, completely done and ready to wave the white flag last night. Staying calm is such a tricky thing. It feels like a balancing act with fine china ready to smash with any small shift. A tightrope act of processing my emotions, making a plan, feeling overwhelmed, getting tired, and usually I would feel looped in this circle of stress, unable to turn my mind off and get a breather to recharge.

Growing in faith and maturity has given me a new perspective on this feeling. I don’t like it and I actually want to do something about it. I don’t want to be tossed around by the sea of life. I want to roll it. Be someone who can accept what they cannot change and keep moving forward with joy in my heart. So I have been applying new strategies. I only complete one big stress task per day and then I move on to a normal task and a creative task. I’ve been more honest with the people around me that are my support system and have actually let them support me without isolating myself in a state of overwhelm.

Talking has reminded me of the bigger picture and that although there are some big things on the horizon, it’s going to be okay because I have people who love me. I’ve sought out fun things in the evening like watching familiar favorite TV shows, video games and good meals. I’ve been challenging myself to eat healthy instead of giving into stress eating patterns. I’ve been drinking herbal teas for my immune system and emotional wellbeing. I’ve been pushing myself to either workout or get outside, away from scrolling to clear my head and relieve stress.

It’s not just a bunch of Hocus Pocus it’s truly been helping. And personally, Kyle and I praying together, has been a game changer. Getting on my knees and praying instead of praying at my desk, or in the shower, or as I do tasks throughout the day, has made a big difference. Which to be clear, those are not bad ways to pray, in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17 literally says, “pray without ceasing.” I’m learning a lot from all that is happening and I think, however everything pans out I am getting valuable life experience to keep going when it feels confusing or scary. Like it says in Firefly, find a ship, find a crew, keep flying.

I hope wherever you are, dear reader, that you are having a lovely day. I wish you a wonderful week and believe that it will be no matter what you are facing. There is a bigger plan at work. Thank you for spending time with me today, it means the world to me that anyone would take the time to read my blog. ❤

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