A friend of mine recently found out that her husband has been doing drugs behind her back for four years. The drugs have opened the door to all kinds of betrayal and hurt: lying, adultery, personality change, and absence. As she and I talked together on the beach in the perfect California...

My friend Adria Murphy writes for me this week, with thoughts on materialism, treasure, and the wisdom of Wendell Berry: The jewelry store in my mother’s neighborhood was going out of business. Sale prices intended to empty the shop of its shining inventory, handwritten on construction...

Sometimes I like to read a popular book, a book that everyone is reading—so that I can know what everybody is talking about and, maybe, join in the conversation. So a couple weeks ago I read The Fault in Our Stars—the latest young adult novel from author John Green. The book—about two...

I want to tell you a story. Five years ago today, I got dropped off on Biola University’s campus to catch a ride with a stranger to the Bay Area for Spring Break. My dear friend Sarah and her parents had graciously invited me to spend the week at their home on a vineyard in wine country...

Instead of writing something myself this week, I wanted to share-with her permission–a post from my dear friend Adria Murphy. When I read this, it spoke words of truth and comfort to that fearful part of my heart that is always unable to understand or accept that God loves me...

I celebrated my 26th birthday this last Saturday. And, though I am a little freaked out by the fact that I am now officially closer to 30 than to 20, on the whole I can only feel a deep sense of thankfulness: I am thankful to be 26, to have lived another year in the beautiful sunshine of...

It can all come to feel so mundane. Established. Foreseeable. So taken for granted. It’s a given. The daily commute. The workday. The repetition. All the hours, and things that we will do in them and see in them mapped out. We come to feel a certain predictability in our routines. We know...

He approaches us at the Chevron station on the corner of Rosecrans and Sepulveda, where, on a clear day, you can see the skyscrapers of downtown L.A. cupped in the palm of the San Gabriel mountains, and overhead the planes queued up in the vast expanse of blue sky, waiting to land at LAX....

When I took my job as a nanny/housekeeper, I had no idea how much repetition it would involve. My days revolve around the never-finished tasks of preparing food, making beds, washing dishes, putting away clothes, assisting with homework, sweeping floors, etc. At first I resented the sisyphean...

She approaches the table slowly, hands laden with plates of food, and I recognize her immediately: Marina from Moldova. She had been our waitress on our last visit, had spoken to us in Russian, and we had prayed for her health. That was at least six months ago, and now, though she isn’t...