He Doesn’t Need Us
I think praying is so hard.
Oftentimes my scattered brain can’t focus long enough to connect one mental sentence with the next and any visit to the chapel usually turns into a staring contest with the leaves on the trees outside. My greatest challenge is to fill my mind with quiet.
That’s why I write.
Mama’s Boy
I’ve never been good at planning surprises for people. However, my mom was in for quite the surprise on Christmas Day in the year 2000. She excitedly opened up the box I had my dad help me wrap for her the night before. I was pretty thrilled to give her this gift. I was only seven-years-old, but we had a “Secret Santa” shop at school where we could buy gifts for our loved ones.
Mom opened the box and there it was. I had given my Lutheran mother a beautiful little image of Mary.
She was perplexed, thankful, and happy. Neither of us knew that this was the beginning of a journey that would lead to both of us converting to the Church and falling deeply in love with the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Grace: It Taught me to love myself through the cross
In 2006 my mother took me to the neurologist after a series of profoundly aligned events that led her to believe I may have had a tic disorder known as Tourette syndrome.
At age 13, I finally received the answer to a riddle that plagued my life for many years. The doctor confirmed it, I had Tourette syndrome. This brought about a multitude of feelings. Relief, fear, and joy to name a few.
Beyond the limit
“10 seconds!”
I heard our coach yell those dreaded words as my teammates and I approached the line yet again. Running suicides in the Florida summer heat should be a scene from Dante’s Inferno.
I tried to catch my breath as I stepped up to the line, but couldn’t—It felt like I was breathing through a thin paper straw.
When You’ve Already Had a Conversion, and you make mistakes
When I was a freshman in college, I was realizing how close God actually was to me, and that He actually wanted to move in my life. I had come off of a summer working on mission at a summer camp, and I was READY for revival.
And, it got kind of unhealthy.
If not me, then who?
I want to be one of the men who runs into the chaos. I want to be a man of valor.
I want to be a hero.
Who’s your hero?
Who is your hero?
Growing up, I heard this question every now and again at school assemblies, from coaches, my church group, my own parents. When asked, “Who is your hero?” my younger self never quite knew how to respond.
“Who is my hero? There’s got to be someone, Lucas.”
Mic’d Up, Part 2
Last week, I shared a story about talking out loud to myself, and realizing I was still wearing a clip-on microphone. I reflected on our inclination, as Christians and as people, to hide our internal dialogue and remain anonymous.