Living life with steps of faith

I feel like my brain is being re-wired.  Actually, whenever I read God's word I feel the fresh breath of the Spirit's wind cleansing out my mental cobwebs and giving me new clarity of thought.  But, today I have to admit a courage-giving movement of the Word in my life.  I return to what I knew, but with greater buy-in and more depth of understanding. Infertility can strike the core of one's gender identity.  Doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman - there is a part of your femininity or masculinity that is attacked.  Part of the healing process is a restoration or a new creation of that identity.  What does it mean to be a woman whose womb doesn't seem to work?  What does it mean to be a man whose arrows miss the target?  Our culture is over sexualized.  I think that is one reason that homosexuality gets so much attention - we care a little to much about our gender as it is related to our sexuality. We overemphasize this character t...

The beginning of the story of the marriage of Jacob and Leah, captured in Genesis 29, is an interesting one.  I am not intending to write this as a seminary trained theologian, but rather as a person who is reflecting and de-tangling a biblical narrative. I find it interesting that Jacob uses his father's poor eyesight in order to gain his blessing.  Then his uncle uses Jacob's own poor "eyesight" to attain a blessing for his oldest daughter Leah.  I know there is debate about the meaning of the Hebrew adjective that describes Leah's sight, but what if it points to a form of blindness?  Wouldn't that be appropriate?  Jacob deceives his father taking advantage of his dad's difficulty in sight and as a result Jacob is deceived into marrying someone who has difficulty of sight?  And the purpose of both deceptions is to attain a blessing? And then this one sentence, stops me: "When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb, but Rachel w...

Sometimes a person can be oversensitive as a result of legitimate past hurt, but that doesn't mean their sensitivity is accurate. What do you think of this statement? Sometimes I wonder if one of the consequences of systemic injustice against a group of people who share a feature in common is that some individuals within such a group become ultra-sensitive which heightens the injustice. I've seen this in fellow women clergy. Where comments and events not at all related to their experience all of a sudden become related to their experience. I've seen this in peers who are of a minority race. Someone's kindness is discredited even though the person is genuinely kind to stranger and friend alike. I've seen this in people who have faced injustices in the criminal justice system. A police officer pulls him over for speeding and he thinks all cops are out to get him, even though the speed trap was set up before anyone knew he'd be driving down that ...