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Interview With an Adult Convert
By Holly Scheer Vanessa Rasanen is a regular writer here at Sisters of Katie Luther and was kind enough to let me interview her about her experiences growing up as an athiest and coming to Lutheranism (and Christianity, in general) as an adult. Grab a cup of coffee and read along as Vanessa tells us about her experiences. How old were you when you became a Lutheran? 22 is when I became a christian. I didn’t really learn what Lutheranism was until I was 30 and became a member at our current LCMS church. What kind of religious life was in your family growing up? I vaguely remember…
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Amidst Every Distraction
By Vanessa Rasanen Above the exit of our church lies a sign — “The sermon is over. The service begins.” Or something like that (stupid mom-brain). This is the gist, though, and often when I pass under those words I think to myself “Wait. What was the sermon about again?” Some Sundays I can’t even recall the readings for the day — any of them. You’d think out of the Psalms, Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel I’d be able to remember at least one of them. But nope. Mom-brain is part of the problem, for sure. No, really. Every child seems to make my memory so. much. worse. But it’s not…
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Raising Our Daughters (and Sons) To Just Be
By Vanessa Rasanen Never, in all my years of growing up, did I doubt I would get married and have children. It was a given. It was part of my dream, my goals, my plan. Despite my liberal and feminist upbringing — which emphasized career over “just” being a housewife — I wanted a family and I wanted to stay home to care for that family. And no matter what it took, I was going to have it. And I do. I have three wonderful children, an amazing husband, two sweet dogs. I have a home filled with love and laughter, joy and hilarity. And though I’m no longer home…
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Blocking Out the World
By Vanessa Rasanen The world sucks. Now, this is pessimistic and a bit debbie-downer-esque of me, but some days this is the thought running through my head – a thought I can’t seem to shake. I read story after story of evil and sin, tragedy and heartbreak. Babies being murdered every day. People fighting to dehumanize those babies. Children being hurt and killed. Women being sold into slavery. So many people dying, starving and suffering. Every day there’s another new story or two that has me with one breath cursing the world and all the evil within it, and with the next breath praying for Christ to return so it can all……
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Navigating Vocational Conflicts
By Vanessa Rasanen Most of us — perhaps all of us — serve in multiple roles and vocations. We are not merely neighbors, but rather we are neighbor to a varied group of people — our parents, our siblings, our friends, our spouse, our children, our friends’ children, our coworkers, our customers, our congregation and our community. We serve each differently — in different ways and with different skills. How we serve our spouse should be quite a bit different from how we serve our customer. I should hope so, anyway. As if it wasn’t perhaps difficult enough to determine the best way to serve in each individual vocation, there may be…
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Getting Kids to Church is Simple
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Faith and Freedom in the Gospel
by Vanessa Rasanen I’m sitting in the late afternoon sun, my baby in her exersaucer on our back patio while the big kids help their dad with some yard work. It’s a struggle to see my typed words through the glare off my laptop, but I push on, because this is a rare moment when I have to just sit and write while enjoying the sound of our kids laughing and loving this spring weather. Never mind that just on the other side of the sliding door is a sink full of dishes from two meals and a laundry basket overflowing with clean clothes needing to be folded. There are…
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What the Grieving Heart Needs
by Vanessa Rasanen Life is not easy. The vast majority of us here have it pretty good, and most of our “trials” could likely be chalked up to your average #firstworldproblems, a basic annoyance or irritation, frustration or hurdle. Most of us don’t know and cannot fathom a life spent in constant fear, facing real persecution, or feeling true hunger. Yet, we are not immune to pain and tribulation, and we get no pass from sin, death, suffering and loss. Satan attacks all, from the poorest beggar to the wealthiest of kings. He shows no discrimination or favoritism based on where we live or who we were born to. Our civil, financial…
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Celebrating the Many Members of the One Body
by Vanessa Rasanen We bloggers know the value of being real and transparent in our writing. Our readers want to connect, to read the words and to know the person behind them is just like them — flaws, struggles, warts and all. Okay, maybe not warts. But blemishes, for sure. We cringe when someone portrays themselves or their life as too perfect and pristine. We balk at Instagram feeds and Facebook timelines that appear spotless. No woman could possibly keep her house looking like that, or cook a meal like that, or dress like that every day. Obviously she’s not showing us the real her, the her who goes unshowered on Saturdays,…
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Why My Writing May Not Include Scripture
My writing may seem oddly devoid of direct quotes from scripture given that I am a Christian blogger. While this may be puzzling or frustrating — or even downright infuriating — I mean, how dare I ignore God’s Word?!? — there is a reason behind the perceived slight. Several reasons, actually, with some being legitimate and others a constant and difficult struggle. As I value transparency and honesty as a writer — and since this has actually been nagging at me for over a year — I’m finally sitting down to hash all of this out. Christian Blogs Are… Blogs… While I would certainly agree we bloggers of the Christian faith and theology…
