And it's Friday again! I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to see this week end. I'll save the stories of car breakdowns and fingertip slicing for another day...

Here's what I'm loving this week:

1) The Irish Sea (and these photos)

We spent the morning of our anniversary on a beach in South Dublin. These days are few and far between, so when the sun is shining and there's reason to celebrate, we must take advantage of it. And we did. Iced coffee and pastries and Asher finding rocks and the beautiful sea. Thank you Ireland. You made our anniversary spectacular. You can also look at our wedding pictures here if you are so inclined.

Keep in mind we were married before Pinterest. If our wedding were to happen today, I can only assume there would be a distinct increase in the number of homemade feather boutonnieres.

2) I love gay people and I love Christians. I choose all. | Momastery

I'm not gonna get nitpicky about the whos, whats or whys of gay marriage (yes, this is a cop-out). But I will say this. I struggle, I pray, I'm trying to get to the heart of Jesus, and I want to be so filled with His love that it spills out, a wellspring of Life. I want to live this:

The point is – if you’re hungry – you are all welcome at my table. None of you is less welcome than the other. This place is a banquet table for gays and straights and prudes and hoochies and cheerleaders and tuba players and pharisees and alpha moms and slacker moms and tax collectors and fishermen and choir girls and heathens. It’s a banquet table where people who are different can come together and share a meal and maybe not change each other’s minds, but possibly soften each other’s hearts.

3) Finding a Feminine Theology in C.S. Lewis's Narnia | Her.meneutics

I love the Her.meneutics page and the variety of issues they tackle, from abortion to stay at home (or breadwinning) moms to missional theology to literature. And I really love it when they talk Lewis. But this guest post was a little wanting, trying to paint Lewis in a corner on feminity and theology using just a part of his work and not the whole. I would love to have seen a broader and more intimate analysis of his feminine theology within the entirety of his work, particularly Till We Have Faces (which I am admittedly prejudiced towards). You just can't say, "we're confronted with an aspect of his writing that can make some evangelicals uncomfortable: his portrayal of women," and not touch upon Faces, his final novel. What do you think?

4) Picmonkey

I'm a graphic designer who knows next to nothing about photoshop or some such tomfoolery. So I post-edit almost all of my blog photos with Picmonkey. This is an absolutely free service allowing you to crop, customize, retouch, frame and lay graphics and type on your photos. There are upgraded features for a yearly fee, but I'm not ready to make a long-term commitment (as of yet).

Finally...

5) The beach waves hairstyle

I see this all over Pinterest, I've seen tutorials and graphics, I've seen things done with a flat iron and sea salt that should not have to happen in order to achieve a "natural" look. But I'm gonna confess to you. I love this trend. Here's my own, easy, exclusive how-to:

Step 1: Roll out of bed.

The end.

As always, you can jump into the chaos on Facebook or Twitter. I hope to see you there!

I have an amazing mother, who raised me and my sister on her own, working hard and relying on the family of church and neighbours when her own lived wide across the state. It's a testimony to faith, really, that when she was alone in a big city with two little girls, men of God came alongside her. Women of God looked after her. And we were not alone, raised by our mother, and the Church.

The Church, she is not perfect. There was a time or two when she was found terribly wanting and absent, when we were in crisis and the hand of help was withdrawn. My mother was not a widow, you see, and we were not orphans. Not in the technical sense, anyway. And though she grieved and cried, wounded, my mother held on to faith. To God. She forgave, and waited for the Church to come around.

Blog