Author: Joyce

I just got home from my first ALLTEE (Alliance Theological Education by Extension) class, and it was just amazing.  I’d mentioned taking pastoral studies before, but during time I wasn’t really enrolled in a formal curriculum; it was just a take-home self-study thing with the standard books.  Ever since our pastor became too preoccupied with […]

Sure, Mom was there to carry us around for nine months and bring us out into the world, but does she really have to be there all the time?  Does she have to stick around for the next couple of decades while we go about living life as teens, as adults?  Here’s a comprehensive guide […]

We often may not realize it but sometimes one of the best things about life is that we don’t know what lies ahead.  It’s the whole mystery of it that keeps us moving forward, anxious to know what is going to happen next.  Sure, there are those tough turns down the highway when we’d much […]

You’ll know things are all messed up when the very thing you hate becomes the only thing you want but can never have.  You think you’ve made up your mind about something and then something else comes along that completely embodies everything you swore you’d stay away from and then all of a sudden the […]

Okay, I’m gonna take a break and write this article for about five minutes simply because I feel like writing right now and I just have to get it out of my system. The problem is, at the end of the day, when I usually feel like pouring out my thoughts, I always still have […]

Dear Ma, I wake up in the morning and have to stop myself from calling out your name as I instinctively do when you’re not still asleep beside me.  And then I remember that you’re no longer here, that you’re miles away, and that we might never get to see each other for at least […]

So where have I been these past few days?  I’ve been learning to drive. I’ve had my driver’s license for quite a while now, but just never really had the time or the money (for gas) to practice.  But now that everyone’s moving out it’s become imperative for me to take a crash course on […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4uNWd7_P84] “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8) Lately I’ve been struggling with the fact that in about two weeks I’ll be left behind to fend for myself while my family heads off to a different continent.  Part of me understands that this is […]

Sometimes being Christian means moving from a place of boiling-hot enthusiasm for sharing the Good News to ice-cold apathy.  I just thought I’d share this poem which I think really hits home. My friend, I stand in judgment now And feel that you’re to blame somehow While on this earth I walked with you day […]

… you write instead of doodle when given a blank piece of paper. … you’re interested in words, not only their meaning but what they imply, not only how they sound but how they are used. … you can’t seem to have peace of mind unless you finish that sentence with the exact word you’ve […]