Have you ever considered that God values your body and wants you to do the same? He created you as an embodied human being, where your soul and body are equivalent components of your personhood. In other words, both your soul and your body are equally valuable and essential to your existence. At times, however, Christians focus so much on spiritual matters that we forsake physical matters—tending...
A few years ago, I was attending a conference with a bunch of college students, and the speaker on stage asked the crowd if anyone in the room had trouble with decision-making. A vast majority of the people in the room raised their hands, and then he asked if any over-analyzers were in the room. Again, a lot of hands went up, this time coupled with some nervous laughter. Finally, the speaker...
What do you think when someone you know is diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder? Or has started to take a psychoactive medication? Do you say to yourself, “Finally, he is getting the help he really needs!” Or do you feel skeptical about either the diagnosis or the solution (or both), and wonder if what the person really needs is simply to trust in Jesus more? It doesn’t take too many...
I began ministry life as the wife of a church planter in the American South. My cultural influences and ministry models were wrapped up in being the godly, virtuous woman I had been taught was represented in Proverbs 31. My models for ministry were extroverted, competent, self-confident women who seemed to navigate the church world effortlessly. I saw the woman of Proverbs 31 as a competent doer...
At first it was just a diet. Then it was exercise and weigh-ins. Then it was lists of rules and pictures cut from magazines. Then suddenly, a car accident shook my world of order and planning. At one moment, I was standing on the edge of a metaphorical cliff of my own making, and the next I had toppled into a world I had never intended to fall into. My eating disorder felt like normal behavior...
