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What is A Place Called Braverly?
Before I moved to Thailand, I bought this beautiful wall tapestry with wildflowers that weave in and out of letters. They scatter themselves across the tapestry, making room for themselves rather than waiting to be invited. They don’t sit nicely in a vase on a table....
On Cultivating Places of Happyniss
In Chicago, I lead a small homework center where kids can come and work on their math and reading and everything in between. It’s certainly not what I thought I would do in life, but I love it. Maybe that will be the title of my next book because that seems to be a...
You’re Invited to Breakfast on the Beach with jesus
I am a doer and a worker who comes from a long line of doers and workers. We are pioneers and pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of people who value long days and even longer hours. My ancestors are farmers and hustlers in their own right—providing for large...
Did you Know You were Made for More?
I can’t shake this idea. It fills my heart and mind when I least expect it and burns in my spirit. You were made for more. You were made for courage. You were made for abundance. You were made for peace. You were made for trust. You were made for...
The Most Important Thing you can do today
Stuck in a Lie I think you and I have bought into a lie, and it’s crazy destructive. This lie says tells us we are behind, that everyone else’s life is perfect, that we need to catch up. We see perfectly curated photos and captions on social media or we hear the...
Why You Should Try Again
I live in this beautifully diverse and densely populated neighborhood on the north side of Chicago where the government resettles refugees and immigrants make their new home. Chicagoans know it as Little India. When you walk the streets of my neighborhood, you don’t...
A Place Called Braverly – Available for Pre-order!
Sometimes God asks us to do things that feel impossible or overwhelming or completely outside of our capabilities. Often, He calls us out of the boat to dance with Him on the waves. Sometimes this dance is just shaky legs on an already unstable ground. Come dance on...
What’s Still Going on in Burma
This week we received news from our translator that we can’t move forward with translating our book into the tribal language of Karen. If you’re just showing up to the party and already feel confused by this sentence, let me explain. In 2018, I moved to Thailand...
in the Stillness, He is there.
This week, winter showed up in Chicago. We’re talking snow and below freezing temperatures most of the day. The wind whips through barren trees and through all the layers I wear when I walk to different homes in the neighborhood. I forgot how much I despise winter in...
A Letter to the Parents in my Neighborhood
To the parents in my neighborhood,I’ve never seen a love quite like yours. I’ve never seen so many moms and dads, grown men and women, give up so much for the sake of their kids. To be fair, some of you came from very humble, war-torn places, so maybe it doesn’t seem...