Simply Light Hearted

In this week's episode, we talk about the shepherds, the glory of the Lord and how "Here on earth, we will have disruptions".  If you're like me and starting to sense the building tension of about the final stretch before Christmas - take a minute to listen in and wonder with me about the delightful disruptions that are right in front of us now.  

The Christmas story is full of examples of lives that were going one way and then got disrupted by something totally unexpected.  Listen in to this week's episode as I share some of my own life's left turns along with the story of the wise men who came from afar to worship Jesus.  

Welcome to week two of this year's Advent Series. As we continue in this advent season, I want to invite us to spend some time thinking about the interesting and beautiful disruptions you could have never planned for in your life. Things you maybe prayed for you, but received in a way you didn’t expect it. Or something you didn’t think you wanted, but then when it came you can’t imagine your life without it. The two key players in this week’s story are two that do get talked about a lot at Christmas, but I don’t think we often talk about them in this light. This week I want to talk about Zechariah and Joseph. With both of these men, their lives were forever changed by the disruption a child would bring to their lives. One was a longed-for, prayed-for child, the other was completely unexpected and in a lot of ways inconvenient. 

When I first started thinking about Advent and this podcast series I wanted to create for you, I thought I was going to be sharing stories that were all about comfort and joy. But as I dug into the Christmas story - it turns out that although we talk a lot about wanting comfort and joy during this particular time of year, it isn't really a theme that shows up very strongly in the Biblical Christmas story, at least not in the ways you expect it to.  Instead what we can find throughout the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus is a whole lot of disruption.  Join me as I unpack and lean into this theme of having a 'very disruptive Christmas'. 

Some days of the year feel complicated and hard. Mother's day is one of those days for me. It's complex there are many factors to mother's day that make it so.  Moms are great!  I love my mom! AND not being able to have children of my own means that mother's day is a reminder of that pain I feel in my life. 

I have not figured out a pathway through.  Every angle I've tried in my life so far still feels hard, complicated, layered and full of grief.  But what I have learned is that even in those messy, complicated feelings - I have a good shepherd who loves me and is with me.  Especially in my messy grief.  Join me as I remind my heart that we have a good shepherd who loves us deeply. 

Today is Mother's Day.  It is a complicated day for many.  Complicated because of how some long to be a mother, complicated because of a hard choice that had to be made, complicated for so a very long list of reasons.  I found so much comfort and depth to the topic of motherhood nestled into the first two chapters of Exodus.  Shiphrah and Puah, Jochebed, Miriam, and the Pharoah's daughter - all very different kinds of motherhood.  All with their own pain and trials, yet in the end, we can see the ways that God is at work.

Motherhood is complicated.  It's not a straight line. And I hope you can hear the ways that your mothering matters and is valuable in this episode.  

This is a podcast where we take time to look back at what has been true about God in the past so that we can move forward with hope.  In this episode, I explore the origin story of the Israelite nation.  We take a step back all the way to Abram (later called Abraham) and see the ways that the string of God's faithfulness is pulled through the entire story.  With this being the start of a series, the end was hard to wrap up because we have so much more to dive into over the next few episodes.  Thanks for listening in. 

We are entering our fourth and final week of Advent of 2020. Advent is such a special time because it invites us to put ourselves in a place we don’t like to be. The middle, the waiting and the mundane. If there is a feeling we all want to escape it’s the muddled mess of waiting. We have programmed our minds to skip past these vital moments of waiting for we long to get to the moment of celebration.

Advent reminds us that there is something good about waiting.  We can find what is true and right and good when we sit in the tension of waiting.  

Listen in for a retelling of the Christmas Story.  

It's the third week of advent and we are talking about JOY!  

Can you think back to the way that you used to play as a child?  What types of play filled not just your time, but your soul too?  For me, it was about playing 'house' or something we called 'old fashion'.  Playing house was an earmark for me and the ways that I would later see God's faithfulness on display in my life.  

Listen in to hear more about how to play 'old fashion' and what it has to do with my joy today. 

Advent is a beautiful season that helps us slow down and take in the gift of Jesus coming to earth as a baby.  

This episode is about 3 different love stories. The first one is my own love story, the second is one of two famous people in the Bible and the third is about you.  I hope you enjoy this storytelling offering about love this Advent season.