Love Entered In
When I don’t understand someone, and when I can’t get them to understand me, I tend to move away. I judge and worry and retreat. I give up on the…
God Enters Into the Messiness of a Broken World
The family of God is a family with sex scandals and petty infighting and alcoholism and abuse. With disease and suffering and betrayal. With rejection and heartbreak and violence. The…
Jesus Came From a Dysfunctional Family Too
Jesus came from a dysfunctional family. I wrote those words for the first time a few years ago, and I remind myself of them every year around this time. The…
Why Do We Know So Much About Mary?
Why do we know so much about Mary, the mother of Jesus? Why do we still have a record of this young, poor, Jewish woman from 2,000 years ago? We…
S6 E8 | Christmas, When Church Lets You Down with Bekah McNeel
It’s Christmastime! But how do we celebrate Christmas when consumerism and church hurt bring complicated feelings to this season? Journalist Bekah McNeel talks with Amy Julia Becker about divisions within…
The Infinite Became Finite
I read an essay about math (of all things!) in the New Yorker a few months ago that made me all the more grateful for what happened at Christmas. Let…
Am I Willing to Be Interrupted by God’s Work of Love in the World?
Jesus’ birth was only noticed by the outsiders. The Magi, non-Israelite foreigners who worshiped a distant god, nevertheless paid attention to the star in the east and came to find…
Order Your Advent Devotional Today!
Is anyone else out there in a season of waiting? Waiting for healing? Waiting for change? Waiting for your child to get news about college? I’m in a season of…
Were Mary and Joseph Social Outcasts?
I’ve often wondered: Were Mary and Joseph social outcasts? Were they rejected by Joseph’s relatives because she was pregnant? Joseph’s family lived in Bethlehem, and there was “no room” for…
What Is God Saying to You this Christmas?
At Christmas, we are invited to use our spiritual imaginations. (I talk about this on IG Live, which you can watch here.) What is God saying to you this Christmas?…
