Just a little more beauty, Lord. That’s what I’m asking from you. I’m not begging for a model’s thighs or to wear a slim size two. Smooth out these rolls, this dimply skin, lift up some sag, if you will. Wipe out each stretch mark too please, Lord. I know you have the skill. Just…
When I was thirty-two, there was only one thing missing from my life, but that one thing seemed so important that the lack of it darkened all the other good. I was in a great career—I was teaching theology and Bible to college students and taking them on international trips during breaks. I loved my…
Five years ago, my estranged mother passed away, leaving me to navigate the grief of our lost and unhealed relationship with little assistance. In order to make peace with a broken past and learn to forgive, I collected a list of unanswered questions that went to the grave with her. If I knew the answers…
I was nine years old when it happened, peering out the window of our second-story apartment in Monrovia, Liberia. The multiplex we lived in was in a good area, popular with internationals; the families on the top story were from India, the Peace Corps volunteers across the hall were American like us, and Mrs. Richards, the…
It was one of those mornings that I awoke to my own second guessing. I was not sure why I agreed to take a three-hour round trip to a church in a small town on the New Hampshire border, population of about 12,000, with only 4.39 percent people of color. A friend called me brave….
It was a cold and rainy night in early February. I stood in the dark, on the property of Mr. Jacob Burkle, whose home was a depot on the Underground Railroad. I shivered from the cold but also from a fear that had suddenly come over me from out of nowhere. Was I as safe…