The Thursday Threads 1/31/13

Ya… I am really happy I started doing this. Been read­ing a ton and feel­ing more con­nected. So much truth and inspi­ra­tion just ripe for the pluck­ing out there. Grate­ful to the blogosphere.

Run­away Perfection

Con­fes­sion #73- My Silent Half

It is always gor­geous when a writer is able to pro­voke the mind and the heart through a mov­ing story. Here My Silent Half shakes at the tree of ques­tions, ones we all must answer about our story and our spirituality.

Run­away Shame:

I am Dam­aged Goods- Sarah Bessey

Sarah touches on some­thing that is a con­tin­u­ous theme in scrip­ture and quite promi­nent from pul­pits every­where– the sin of sham­ing. She tells her story about feel­ing less than after hear­ing a pas­tor talk about girls that aren’t vir­gins. Def­i­nitely the must read of the week.

Run­away Change

A Tale of Two Grav­i­tys– Kevin Shoop

This post was ridicu­lously relat­able. He talks about two songs that res­onate with two very dif­fer­ent stages in spir­i­tual walk. My favorite line is maybe– “For me, the song rep­re­sents my long­ing to feel the way that praise band wor­ship lead­ers feel when they are emot­ing breath­lessly on the church stage about God’s awe­some­ness.”

Run­away Loneliness

Lone­li­ness Can Go Straight to Hell- Andrew Whaler

In this piece, Whaler hits it out of the park and into the sta­tus quo’s face on what it means for the church to address Lone­li­ness. I feel like this is, and maybe will always be, a fear that haunts me. It may be a fear that haunts us all. And wouldn’t it be nice to have a Church that strength­ened us in that area?

Run­away Fear

Are We Really Afraid?- Julie at Incite Faith

Julie exem­pli­fies brav­ery and inspires us all through her hon­esty in her story. In this post, she poses a chal­lenge on us all that, one that really made me think. Are we afraid? What is fear exactly? How are you brought to that place of Fear? Once again, I am thank­ful to know (if only through email ;) ) this incred­i­ble individual.

Run­away Empa­thy (and so much more!)

I’m Divorced- Michael Kimpan

I have had the plea­sure of get­ting to know Michael, him and Andrew Marin stayed at my house a cou­ple week­ends ago, and I caught glimpse of this story, but I hadn’t seen his feel­ings fleshed out like he did in this post. All the ugly atten­tion and rejec­tion and the unfair­ness of it all. Then he turns his story into a mes­sage about empa­thy– his friend is gay and wishes he wasn’t. Both of them have strug­gled with what fair­ness in this life means. Very wor­thy read.

Run­away Mom

One Good Phrase: No Mat­ter What– Joy Bennett

Joy Ben­nett is eas­ily one of my favorite blog­gers. She wrote a post on Micha Boyett’s (Mama Monk) blog about her love for her chil­dren– no mat­ter what. This uncon­di­tional and unbe­liev­able love reminds me so much of my own par­ents. Made me feel blessed, and con­firmed what I thought about Joy– She is awesome.

Run­away Reading?

The Twelve Tribes of Hat­tie by Ayana Mathis

“At home in his hid­ing place under the stairs, Six squeezed his eyes shut and tried to sum­mon God, or what­ever had come to him, but it was like try­ing to remem­ber a dream– the longer he thought about it, the fur­ther it receded. The preacher had said it was grace. But what was grace if it came on him like a seizure and then left him as frail and hurt­ing as he had been before the visit?”

Six is one of the char­ac­ters of the book that I am prob­a­bly turn­ing the pages of… right-​this-​minute. He is a fifteen-​year old preacher that trav­els with his pas­tor to var­i­ous revivals. His gift is the words that flow out of his mouth. His curse is he can’t con­trol them, like a seizure. He has to grap­ple with all the praise that comes with how Holy he is, when he doesn’t even really believe in God. He doesn’t know how to con­nect with Him or if a Him exists at all.

I felt this way the other night, espe­cially the remem­ber­ing to pray like remem­ber­ing a dream part. Every word that came out of my mouth felt so rehearsed and copied, and I tried my best to be hon­est about it, but I felt like I was going to lose His atten­tion at any moment. I went home and read the above pas­sage and felt a bit more normal.

The Run­away Response to

I am a Scan­dal in the Evan­gel­i­cal Con­science

I meant to com­ment on this the other day. Very pow­er­ful words. I won­der how many young peo­ple feel that way – that they are fak­ing their way through their Chris­t­ian youth cul­ture because they have to hide some part of them­selves. The few peo­ple I knew who dared bravely assert them­selves were often belit­tled or ostra­cized in the church where I spent my teen years. I know it’s not the same, and I don’t want to make com­par­isons to your sit­u­a­tion, but I sus­pect pre­tend­ing is very com­mon due to the almost uni­ver­sal evan­gel­i­cal cul­ture of view­ing God as Cos­mic Thought Police and hav­ing a looooong list of All the Things Good Lit­tle Evan­gel­i­cals Never, Ever Do (all in the name of being “in the world and not of the world”). — Amy Mitchell, blog­ger behind Unchained Faith

Run­away Prayer Request:

Some direc­tion.

Have a great Thursday!

RR