Everyone should be able to do at least one pull up. Or so I’ve heard. This has never been a reality for me. It’s never bothered me that much either–physical strength and muscle tone just haven’t been a part of my life. I’ve always considered myself as very middling: not UNfit, but never truly fit, and never someone who could be.

Lacking physical strength is a relatively unimportant issue… sort of. Because along with this lack of physical strength came other handicaps that were so much a part of life I didn’t even consider them. My back got easily strained in everyday activities. My calves were always tight, sometimes painfully so. If I put my baby in a carrier for more than 20 minutes my shoulders hurt badly, meaning I seldom wore her. Spiritually speaking these are not important problems, but they were still inconveniences, and ones I never even sought to change because it didn’t occur to me that I could. They were just there, a side effect of being alive.
Continue reading Spiritual Muscles →

The Lord designed it such that people are supposed to be teamed up to take on the world together. People are not meant to be alone. Men are not meant to be alone, and women are not meant to be alone. The Lord intends for everyone to find a teammate along the way.


“For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave until his wife and they shall be one flesh.” Genesis 2:24

So why are some people alone? Freedom is the obvious answer. If the Lord wanted it to be so, He could just make it so that every person found their partner and lived happily ever after, but He values our freedom above our happiness and even above our salvation. It is a necessary part of life for us to choose Him, for us to choose each other, and for us to make each decision in freedom.



Now that isn’t to say that the single people of the world have freely chosen this path. Some have chosen to be single — but that’s not why I’m single — and I’m sure there are a lot of other people who would choose to be married if they could.



Why are there people who want marriage and are not married? Did something go wrong? Single people are not lesser people. The Lord loves everyone. Though single people aren’t entitled to less of His love, do they perhaps feel it less? Are they as happy and fulfilled?

 Continue reading The Marriage of Good and Truth →

Fear Of Missing Out is the most common meaning of the abbreviation: FOMO (pronounced: “foe-moe”). As much as I can identify with this meaning I think a more accurate version for me would be Fear Of Missed Opportunity.

I loved going to the Academy of the New Church and have so many fond memories of the wide variety of activities I took part in. As I get farther in time from my high school experience, I am able to recognize just how big of an impact it had on me and my personality.

I took a lot of things with me after leaving the Academy and most of them are pretty typical of all high school experiences. But the biggest thing I took away was not only unique to the Academy, but also totally subconscious. In high school we were encouraged to try everything, to participate in everything, and to always do our best. The faculty had high expectations for their students and the student body was small enough that they could hold each of us personally responsible for our success. You had to be a good student to stay on top and earn the approval of the teachers. That isn’t to say that they held everyone to the same standard or individually chastised us, but there was a definite attitude that you owed it to your teacher to get good grades. Continue reading FOMO →

Once upon a time, a little girl in Bryn Athyn dreamed of visiting England, where three of her grandparents had come from. Time passed. The 6th grade countries project was an easy choice for her – England. More time passed. She returned from a prom one evening to the news that Charlie Cole was going to send her to the British Academy Summer School [BASS]!

While in England, she met a young man whom she thought looked a bit like Paul McCartney (Beatle mania had been at its peak only 2 or 3 years before). More time passed. He came to travel the USA on a Greyhound bus, spending time with her family. More time passed. She decided to visit this young man in his homeland, to get better acquainted. She would ‘earn her keep’ by helping in the New Church school in Colchester [long since closed]. Before a year had passed, they were engaged. They returned to Bryn Athyn to marry (because who wouldn’t want to be married in the Cathedral she’d attended almost every week of her life?). They returned to the UK so he could finish his college course. And she has made England her home since that day nearly 45 years ago, living happily ever after. The end.

Except it’s not the end. I’ve been ‘blooming where I’m planted’ for a long time now. I have evolved from a young woman fully immersed in Bryn Athyn life (the hub of the General Church) to someone living happily as a ‘satellite’ member of the Church in England, with only occasional direct contact with other NC people (apart from one other family – great friends – in our own village). How did that transition happen? Continue reading From Hub to Satellite →