When you hustle for your perfect life, you still don’t feel like enough. So you start wearing a mask. Those of you wearing masks right now know exactly what I’m saying. With your mask you get this painful truth: only your mask receives love. Maybe you made it to the “in group” but no one […]
“Perfectionism says, ‘It’s not enough.’ Gratitude says, ‘It’s more than enough.’ “Perfectionism says, ‘I’m lacking.’ Gratitude says, ‘I’m living in abundance.’ “Perfectionism says, ‘God is holding out on me.’ Gratitude says, ‘God is good and gracious.’ “Perfectionism says, ‘I must try harder and go farther.’ Gratitude says, ‘I will be fully present in this moment.’” […]
I know so many people struggle extending forgiveness to those who have wounded them for this one reason: they believe that forgiving someone let’s them off the hook and fear then that they are free to do the bad behavior again. Nothing about forgiveness says you are to put yourself in harm’s way to be […]
I miss you. I have missed you since you were in 9th grade. So many life landmarks I’ve missed of yours, and I wanted to be there. I really enjoyed lunch with you last week. It was good to see you. But I didn’t feel comfortable saying that to you, because our walls are up […]
I wrote this in follow up to my son: I hope over all of this long long time you have grown your faith to become braver and braver. Faith and bravery do go together. Because life is a broken road of faith. It is hard. With God you have a chance to know that you […]
There are two stories that follow each other in Luke chapter 5 that I discovered have a unique Bravester connection to each other. The first story is one of the disciples first experiences with Jesus: One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him […]
Speaking first of being stuck. Our one son is approaching 20 years of prison sentence time. That is stuck. But even more so because he has been stuck at a higher level of prison for 18 of those years. Stuck for reasons that I won’t get into here because the “reform” system is too broken. […]
As I’ve said in this series, I’m a Matthew version of Holy Week person. In my church we are doing a deep deep dive on Holy Week from Mark’s version. But in my daily Bible reading I ended up in Luke for Holy Week. And this part of Luke gave me a giggle: But very […]
The crucifixion continues. As the body fatigues, cramps sweep over the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless pain. With the cramps come the inability to push upward. Air can be drawn into the lungs but cannot be exhaled. Carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs. Hours pass of limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, […]
The crucifixion continues. Now Jesus’ two legs are nailed together onto the cross with one even larger spike which will equal two scars. All of Jesus’ body weight is now on the nails nailed above his ankles causing excruciating pain which shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain. All […]
