Category: Women

72616
By micoots
05/09/2016 0

Who’s Afraid of Her Own Authority?

As women, we’re often taught to fear power. Here’s how I’ve overcome that fear.

When I was around five years old on a camping trip, someone accidentally locked the keys inside our camper trailer. We were hot and miserable. My parents and their grown-up friends hatched a plan to have me climb through the narrow luggage compartment, so I shimmied into the dark opening and my dad coached me through the hatch into the trailer. As I grabbed the keys and unlocked the trailer door, my family and camp..

72692
By micoots
02/09/2016 0

Refining Fire

Editor’s Note: Each week, we’re publishing a new collection of devotional readings that will draw you deeper into the life-changing Word of God. This week, Bianca Juarez Olthoff expands upon upon themes from her new book, Play with Fire, inviting you to reflect on five spiritual choices that are crucial to spiritual transformation. (Click here to receive these and future daily devotions emailed directly to your inbox.)

Monday: Cry Out

“I cry out to t..

72707
By micoots
02/09/2016 0

When Expectations Collide

Not long after my husband and I got married, we started having conflicts about what it meant to be home in time for dinner. After negotiating what seemed like a reasonable compromise, we developed a routine: he’d be late, I’d get angry, he’d apologize, and then we would have a déjà vu moment a few weeks later.

This was just one of many areas of conflict. We disagreed on how much food to prepare when we had guests, how quickly bills shoul..

72559
By micoots
29/08/2016 0

Dare to Be Happy

Editor’s Note: At CT, our ministry cause “Beautiful Orthodoxy” centers around the Word of God and the good, true, and beautiful gospel it conveys. We’re thrilled to announce the launch of “Beautiful Word,” a free, daily e-newsletter that will help you dive deeper into the life-changing Word of God through devotional readings from some of today’s leading voices. (Click here to have free Beautiful Word devotions delivered to your inbox Monday through Frida..

72560
By micoots
24/08/2016 0

God, Are You There?

I am the reflection of my people, those émigrés who believed in the intrinsic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My mother’s family moved to the United States from Puerto Rico. An immigrant herself, my mother fell in love with an immigrant from Mexico, and the two stretched into creating a life in the concrete jungle of East Los Angeles.

My father supported our family by working multiple jobs. Whether it was laying tile, cuttin..

72488
By micoots
22/08/2016 0

Fighting in Marriage? That’s Normal.

Fighting in Marriage? That's Normal.

Last year, when we celebrated our 40th anniversary, each of our sons asked to have a few minutes to speak. I envisioned a lovely tribute to our marriage. I should have known better.

They were witnesses to our lives. They were there and saw it all. The good, the bad, the magic, and the tragic.

Cameron, our oldest, stepped up to the microphone: “Twenty years under their roof proved to me that my parents are not normal—at ..

72481
By micoots
22/08/2016 0

Freed from the Life I’ve Always Wanted

From the time I was a little girl, all elbows and ears, I imagined myself living in a two-story house one day, pure white, no shutters, and with a wide porch. I spent hours curving my blunt-tipped scissors around pages of the fat JCPenney catalog, clipping out handsome husbands; wives with thick, beautiful hair; a few sweet-faced children; bathroom towel sets in shades of sea-foam and jade; couches and electronics and cozy ..

72414
By micoots
14/08/2016 0

Losing Myself

When I was in college, I had a lot of friends who told me that what they really wanted to do in life was be a mom. Yes, they were getting degrees and they wanted to work, but really, their highest hope was to become a mother.

I nodded and affirmed them. I hoped that one day I would become a mom, too—but I never really knew how to respond to their longing for children. I’d never felt that; what I did feel was a desire to pursue other things—dreams of wri..

72412
By micoots
14/08/2016 0

Black and Blue Wife

“But Ruthie, you have a PhD!”

This was my older sister’s shocked reaction when I spilled my secret over the phone and told her that, due to many years of domestic violence, I was separating from my husband of nearly two decades.

I faced the same sort of disbelief a few days later when I visited the local Domestic Crisis Center requesting temporary housing for myself and my adolescent son and I was asked to complete an application. Among other things..

72264
By micoots
08/08/2016 0

How to Discipline in Love

Parenting small children can feel like Groundhog Day: correcting the same behaviors over and over again, often with no discernible improvement. When children disobey a clear expectation, parental anger can surge as a response. What should we do with that anger? Is it sinful? Or is there such a thing as righteous anger over the disobedience of a child? And most importantly, how can we keep anger from corrupting an act of discipline (training and c..