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What If You Hate Your Vocation
By Vanessa Rasanen Years ago I found myself sitting in a fairly small, basement office contemplating how to answer my manager’s question. I was fresh out of college and grateful to have landed the job (and not have to spend another few years in graduate school). I had loved my major, so it was a bit of a shock to find my first job — one in which my title actually matched the words on my degree — held so little resemblance to my expectations. And there I was, facing my manager and struggling to find the words to explain where I hoped to be in five years. Five years…
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Hard Does Not Mean Bad
By Vanessa Rasanen Sometime last year in a desperate attempt to find reprieve from the exhaustion that comes with having four kids (including a newborn), a husband traveling for work, and a full time job, I found list after list of remedies that I couldn’t fathom fitting into my daily routine of craziness. Go to bed earlier? Ha! Post-bedtime is when I finally get to sit and enjoy the quiet so I can hear myself think… assuming there isn’t laundry to be folded or dishes to be done, of course. When my husband is home, that’s our time to connect, talk, or watch a show together. Exercise? Yeah. Endorphins-shmendorphins. I…
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Some Dreams Have to Wait and That’s Okay
By Vanessa Rasanen Years ago during my active blogging days I attended a conference for Christian bloggers and writers. It was a disaster for many reasons, none of which are pertinent here, but there’s one piece of advice a fellow writer had offered to me — unsolicited, of course — that has nagged at me since. We had been discussing how to write a novel while being a parent with young kids. Her advice? Don’t put it off for years. Get it done. Make the time. It was really the only piece of advice I heeded from that awful weekend, and I set to work on my manuscript. I worked…
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I Make Motherhood Look Awful
By Vanessa Rasanen Tomorrow is Monday. Again. I will get up before the sun — and hope I rise before any of the kids do. I’ll feed the dog, let him out, and groggily reheat coffee that I brewed on Sunday morning, because 1) I only know how to make 12 cups at a time, b) I can’t drink 12 cups in one day (*for shame!*), and finally, meh. Reheated day-old coffee is as home to me as cold eggs on a slice of toast that my three year old has snuck a bite out of while I hear cries of “Mom! I need help wiping my bum!”. After feeding,…
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Finding Help Shouldn’t Be This Hard, Should It?
By Vanessa Rasanen I am not the most private person — classic oversharer, here. It’s pretty easy to open up, to let people in, and to yammer on about even the hardest of situations with others, and I have always processed situations — especially difficult ones — by talking. If I try to keep it inside and handle it on my own, it seems stifling, suffocating. Yet, I have also spent years upon years individually processing and analyzing my life experiences and the resulting scars. Tirelessly. Endlessly. That horse? It was beaten to death long ago. After years of self reflection, some growth, and much prayer many of my scars…
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Born Still Part Three
Post 3 By Genevieve Wagner Editors Note: Genevieve is a dear friend of mine for many years. She has graciously agreed to share her family’s recent full term stillbirth, and the hope and faith that her family has. After the birth, our family photographer was allowed to come back while I was getting stabilized – we wanted to make sure I was okay before calling the children back. Soon they came to the room with our friends who had been watching them as well as our pastor. They were surprised to find out the baby was a boy – that brought my son to tears. They were each offered the…
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Open Letter to My Non-Christian Family and Friends
Dear family and friends, I am sorry. I have failed you. Time and time again I have let you down. I have not cared for you as I should. I have been selfish, putting my own comfort ahead of your well-being. Even now, I’m choosing the easy route, typing this out rather than saying it directly to you. Please forgive me. I know it seems strange that I became a Christian, that I attend church every Sunday, that I teach our children God’s Word, that I believe in God’s creation of the earth in seven days thousands of years ago, rather than millions. I know it probably seems like I…
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The Defense of the Augsburg Confession
Philip Melanchthon Presents His Greeting to the Reader. After the Confession of our princes had been publicly read, certain theologians and monks prepared a confutation of our writing; and when His Imperial Majesty had caused this also to be read in the assembly of the princes, he demanded of our princes that they should assent to this Confutation. But as our princes had heard that many articles were disapproved, which they could not abandon without offense to conscience, they asked that a copy of the Confutation be furnished them, that they might be able both to see what the adversaries condemned, and to refute their arguments. And, indeed, in a…
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Augsburg Confession Conclusion
Conclusion 1] These are the chief articles which seem to be in controversy. For although we might have spoken of more abuses, yet, to avoid undue length, we have set forth the chief points, from which the rest may be readily judged. 2] There have been great complaints concerning indulgences, pilgrimages, and the abuse of excommunications. The parishes have been vexed in many ways by the dealers in indulgences. There were endless contentions between the pastors and the monks concerning the parochial right, confessions, burials, sermons on extraordinary occasions, and 3] innumerable other things. Issues of this sort we have passed over so that the chief points in this matter,…
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Forty for Lent
By Holly Scheer It’s almost time for Lent, and this year I’d like to invite you to consider giving up something. I’d also like to encourage you to add something. Stick with me for a moment. We’re all used to New Year’s Resolutions (that we don’t keep … or maybe that’s just me) and it’s not new at all to think of penitentially doing without something during Lent to remember Jesus and His sacrifices. This year, I’m not giving up chocolate or coffee or bacon. I’m not swearing off beer, and I’m not going to promise I’ll exercise. Instead, I’m going to work on giving up on stuff. The accumulation…
