A few years ago amid swirling rumors of Tiger Woods’ infidelities, newsman Brit Hume waded in with a bold claim about Christianity: “The extent to which [Tiger] can recover seems to me depends on his faith. . . . I don’t think [Buddhism] offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

Many were up in arms about Hume’s direct on-air promotion of Christianity—but what struck me most was the aspect of Christian faith that Hume drew attention to. It wasn’t God’s love or how we’re made in God’s image or even about God’s wonderful plan for your life. It was the desperate need we sinners have for forgiveness and redemption.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 ?”

A few years ago this group would have been a nightmare for me. Not because this particular group is strange or the women are scary, but because I hated women’s ministry. Or at least I thought I did. I’d been part of women’s groups before that reeked of shallowness and gossip and high-pitched voices offering Sunday school answers for real life issues. These groups were cliques and used cattiness with pride. I continually felt as though I was in a competition for best outfit with everyone else in the room.

And then there were the stereotypes of women that they lumped everyone in. They assumed I love girly-girl things just because I’m a woman. (I actually went to a retreat once where the speaker wore a bright pink feather boa and had her hair in a ponytail that stuck straight up out of the crown of her head. She demanded we do the same—to tap into our feminine side—if we wanted to get anything out of her message.)

A few weeks later I still find myself humming Rosalyn’s arrangement and thinking about the idea of compassions.

The nursing home is a sad place. Residents generally have some degree of dementia or some other mental disability. Millie often cries, seemingly out of the blue. She buries her wrinkled, mournful face in her cupped, knotty hands. Her shoulders shake. I wish I could know what specifically makes her sad, but asking questions doesn’t get me far. This week I’m going to take her some photos of my puppy. Maybe they’ll make her feel happy, at least for a time.