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Giving Up Worry
A coworker’s words recently led me to an unnerving discovery: I have a anxiety addiction. Here's what I--by God's grace--did about it.
Continue reading Giving Up Worry...
January 16, 2012My “So What?” Attitude toward Hospitality
I wasn’t sure I wanted to follow this particular command from Scripture, so I learned a way around it.
I’m one of those people who love the idea of hospitality. I dream of people hanging out in my home, noshing on my made-from-scratch mini-quiches and hors d’oeuvres (that I can barely pronounce) off my two sets of china. I love the idea of opening my guest room for people to come and stay, and offering baskets of little soaps and mini-towels in the bathroom and little welcome chocolates on their pillows.
I also dream of discovering the cure for cancer, bicycling across the United States, and losing the final 20 pounds of baby fat I’ve been carrying around since the sixth grade.
All worthwhile endeavors that will probably never become realities in my life.
Continue reading My “So What?” Attitude toward Hospitality...
January 10, 2012Assessing the Year that Was
Through the good, bad, and ugly I discovered one consistency
As the clock approached midnight on December 31, I watched as the “farewell 2011” Facebook statuses started rolling in. Many of the posts showing up on my feed also summarily categorized the year about to pass as a “good” or “bad” year in the life of the poster. I wondered if my 2011 had been a good or a bad one; I hadn’t really thought about it. Sure, both good and bad things happen in a year, but nothing so awful and overbearing permeated the full 12 months to a point where it would negate all the good things.
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January 3, 2012I Lost Everything in a House Fire
I was forced to decide if I truly could be grateful in all circumstances.
With virtually all of our material possessions destroyed and damaged (my neighbor literally gave me the coat off her back), we checked into a hotel. At dinner that first night, my husband looked at each one of us. With a catch in his voice, he said, “Everything I ever needed, I still have around this table.”
In that moment, I understood what it means to be thankful in all circumstances.
Two weeks later, we moved into a fully-furnished apartment with a short-term lease. All we brought with us—our family of five—was a laundry basket of clothes.
Continue reading I Lost Everything in a House Fire...
December 20, 2011Best of 2011 from Kyria!
Check out our most popular offerings this year.
The Kyria.com team can relate to the topics you’ve made most popular. We’ve wrestled with feeling misunderstood and accepted, trying to figure out our reactions to bizarre news stories, and finding God-centered ways to relate to our spouses, kids, and friends. We’ve also grown through each issue of the digital magazine we’ve put together as we’ve looked at spiritual practices such as simplicity, acceptance, and submission. You can stay up to date on the newest Kyria content by signing up for our free e-newsletter here.
Thank you for walking this journey with us in 2011! Here is our collection of Kyria.com Top Lists.
Continue reading Best of 2011 from Kyria!...
December 12, 2011Bah, Humbug!
Getting past the glitter of Christmas to the gold
I’ve developed an allergy to evergreens, so we’ve had to resort to putting together our Christmas tree piece by piece—a task I find revolting. Gift giving is always agonizing for me. I want the recipient to be surprised and awed by their gift, which is almost impossible in a culture that has everything. Sometimes this hunt feels like an epic quest to the ends of the earth on the level with The Odyssey. I try not to overeat, so all the temptations at work, home, neighbors’ houses, and church are like walking a tightrope that will drop me into a cornucopia of food if I slip to the right or to the left. Although I love receiving everyone else’s Christmas cards, I find the process of doing them myself tedious and overwhelming. Do I sound like Scrooge yet?
Continue reading Bah, Humbug!...
December 5, 2011When We Help Others
Maybe we wouldn’t pass up as many opportunities to care for others if we had eternal repercussions in mind.
Glenn Bolander had fallen behind his harvesting schedule because his wife, Carol, is battling cancer. That’s when nearly 100 volunteers from the farming community came to their aid, and a great number of combines harvested the Bolanders’ fields in a little more than five hours. It would have taken Glenn four weeks. When the farmers finished, they shared a potluck dinner together and even set up a meal plan for the Bolanders during this difficult time.
Continue reading When We Help Others...
November 29, 2011When a Loved One Leaves the Faith
What do we do when those closest to us walk away from Jesus?
But somewhere along the journey from boy to man, he loses his faith. His mother watches and prays as her son gives in to a life of lust, preferring sexual exploits over the “rules” of Christianity.
As time passes, his mother continues to pray desperately as she watches her son become attracted to an alternative spirituality and then join a cult-like religious group.
Eventually, her son rejects this belief-system and becomes a skeptic, eschewing religion for philosophy. She continues to wait and pray.
Continue reading When a Loved One Leaves the Faith...
November 22, 2011A Hand to Hold on Thanksgiving
Learning joy through gratitude
Surprisingly, my answer came from a work project. We were working on the November 2010 digital magazine and in the first question of our interview, Sally Clarkson answered my question of how to be joyful. “You can’t have joy unless you’re grateful.” So simple, so clear. Yet it seemed like I’d never heard it before. It always amazes me how God instructs us, how he uses the ordinary to answer our prayers and to direct us onto the right path.
Continue reading A Hand to Hold on Thanksgiving ...
November 15, 2011Living in Jesustown
Choosing comfort over mission is all too easy.
I asked why she was making that decision—except I still had my toothbrush in my mouth, so it was more like, “Eye are ooh baking dat debidon ?”
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