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When I Need to Shut my Mouth
Derailing and Avoiding Gossip in our Friendships People often say, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. The trouble with this phrase is that sooner or later, people almost always find out. And then it does hurt. As a follower of Christ, avoiding gossip seems like it needs to be a priority, but this doesn’t…
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When I’m Hurt
I’ve written quite a lot about handling hurt in friendship here on the blog for two reasons. 1. It has been a fresh topic in my own life the past few years that I’m working and learning through. 2. I’m convinced that Satan is counting on us not knowing how to handle hurt well in…
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When We Disagree
As the weeks tick off the calendar, it’s just a matter of time before news drops of another public figure being “cancelled.” I read a study from the Pew Research Center about “cancel culture” recently, and the study reported that many are divided on whether the idea of cancel culture holds people accountable or unfairly…
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When We Believe Differently
If you ask a typical family from the Bible Belt (Southern & Midwestern United States) which two subjects are off limits at family dinners, they’ll probably answer: politics and religion. I grew up in a family that didn’t generally talk about the topics we disagreed on, but I have friends whose childhoods were the opposite.…
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When I Feel Offended
We live in an age where offense means the end of a friendship, but this doesn’t seem to be the way of Jesus. As followers of Christ we strive to “live unoffendable,” as Jennie Allen puts it. Jesus teaches this ethic when he tells us to turn the other cheek and put others’ needs before…
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When I Have Something to Say
Have you ever had that “I just opened a can of worms” feeling? You’re in the middle of a conversation and that question that’s been bouncing around in your head just bursts out onto center stage without warning, either from your mouth or someone else’s. You weren’t ready, they probably aren’t ready, but there it…
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A Wild Way to Welcome
I believe that the single greatest deception of my adolescence was being made to believe that acne is something that only plagues teenagers. Listen friends, it just ain’t true. It’s going to be a thing your whole life. Maybe not in the volume experienced during those teen years, but it’s not going anywhere. Let’s normalize…
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A Wild Way to Walk
If you’ve had the privilege of visiting Denali National Park up here in the heart of Alaska, you might recognize these photos. Sweeping views of the winding park road pop up at every turn, and while the mountains are beautiful, and the braided rivers mesmerizing, I find that when I have visited, my eye is…
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A Wild Way with Words
A favorite game my friends and I like to play when we gather is called Fish Bowl. Players write a word or phrase on slips of paper that their team then has to guess based on some kind of clue. There are three rounds, which increase in difficulty each time, and the team with the…
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The Wild Way of Friendship
I’ve heard the sentiment commonly expressed that making friends as an adult is SO hard. And it’s true, making friends as an adult seems way more complicated than it did to find a buddy in second grade, high school, or college. I think this probably has to do with the isolation and busyness of most…