Sourdough is beneficial in many ways: I haven’t seen a packet of yeast in a grocery store for the past several months, but aside from that, it has some great health benefits. It’s full of good bacteria and enzymes due to the fermenting process, and much of the gluten is processed out while it proofs, so its easier to digest—often even for those with a gluten sensitivity.

Evidence surfaces as I observe the discourse surrounding monuments coming down and flags being changed. Four years ago, the arguments I made, the feelings I had were so different, so predictable. But my feelings and thoughts are changing quickly and drastically; it’s all been strangely unsettling. But…

I’ve been more immersed in Scripture than ever and I’m being changed by words—His Word—the way only a book that is alive can do. Almost every line on every page has been filled with reassurances that He’s doing a work in me. He’s re-centering me and my identity.

These final lines in Paul’s letter to his beloved believers have been resonating in me since our Dive group met last week. His words call to those of us in the midst of the cultural and political turmoil, because it’s an offering of peace.

You’ve Saved All That Sourdough Discard, Let’s Make Some Waffles!

After almost a week of growing our own starters, we’ve got lots of sourdough discard sitting in the fridge ready to be used. This is an easy recipe for your weekend breakfast. I’ve also included two recipes quantities, depending on how much discard you have and how much breakfast you need. The instructions are the same for each. The 3 cup recipe made about 10 large round waffles. You can also freeze these and reheat them in the toaster on busy mornings. Enjoy!

We wrap up our first Dive Studies tomorrow and I’ll be completely honest, it was far more wonderful than I could have ever hoped or imagined.

To learn beside so many incredible people, to be challenged to see the words in a different way, to see lightbulbs go off and eyes light up as the Holy Spirit blew His breath and ignited new flames holds meaning and joy which words will forever fail to convey. I sit at my kitchen table replaying some of my favorite memories and one stands out because it occurred on the very first day as we opened our Bibles and began chapter one.

Not long into our first meeting, shortly after reading through chapter one aloud, one of our members, Michelle, said, “Just taking a step back and looking at the big picture of this chapter, I can easily see why you chose this book to start studying as Dive Collective.” And she was right. We chose Galatians with great purpose. God showed her from the beginning of the book that the most important message, the undergirding of every reading we will ever do and the lens through which we will read the entire text is the grace of the Gospel.

I can’t help but shake my head and laugh at myself as I declare that God is so gracious, merciful, and faithful even in these seemingly insignificant things. It just seems so silly to use all of those words for Him in the context of something like coffee. But it wasn’t really about coffee at all. There was a deeper lesson to be learned about the character of God.

I started college as a political science major eager to make an impact on the world through politics or law. However, that quickly changed during my first literature course thanks to a passionate professor who taught me that books are more than simply words on a page. Great literature does not merely entertain, it can change hearts, develop imaginative empathy in readers, and give a much needed voice to the marginalized and oppressed. After the heartbreaking events of the past two weeks, I struggle to find the correct way to create and hold space for hurting black communities across our nation. This is not my story to narrate and control, yet how do I show love and support and DO BETTER? The following books have helped to better educate both my mind and my heart and inform my subsequent actions.

In light of what’s been happening around our country in the past days and weeks, we felt the need to spend time in prayer and ask God to work in specific ways. As a Collective, we focused each day last week praying for our hearts and for people. We wanted to compile these passages and prayers into one space and invite you to continue with us in prayer—God’s Word is packed full of both examples of how to pray and testimonies of God’s faithfulness to answer the requests of His people, over and over again. And so, we’re choosing to end this series focused on that faithfulness:

“For the word of the Lord is right, and all His work is trustworthy. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the Lord’s unfailing love. We wait for the Lord; He is our help and shield. For our hearts rejoice in Him because we trust in His holy name. May Your faithful love rest on us, Lord, for we put our hope in You.” Psalms 33:4-5, 20-22

Father, we rest in You. We praise You for Your unfailing love. Thank you that You are trustworthy. Our hearts rejoice in You; our hope is in You and only You.

What is a story? We’re all capable of defining story, but just so we’re all on the same page here, a story, specifically a narrative, is a spoken or written account of connected events. We’ve all heard stories—in books, in movies, or told to us at the end of a school day in excessive, overlapping detail by nine-year-old little girls. But what defines a good story—what elements are necessary to make it interesting, readable, relatable? Well, it needs to consist of a few things: good characters—strong protagonists, complex antagonists, major characters, minor characters. They need to be connected to one another, or at least the story, in some way. There needs to be an overarching theme, a goal, a message that’s being conveyed. And absolutely, there must be a good Storyteller.

There is one Story that outshines all others. It’s actually the Story in which every other story finds its base, its root. It is the Story that defines all stories, because it’s written by the Creator of the universe, and all the other stories are able to be because of this one Story. This Story is made up of more characters than we could count, connected over thousands of years. It contains main plots and subplots. It includes histories of nations, one nation in particular. It’s full of heroic adventures and legendary figures. This Story, an Epic, starts out, “In the beginning, God created…”

I’ll never forget the morning I first discovered them. I was looking down, concentrating on a project I was working on. When I looked up and saw the spectacle, I wondered how on earth I hadn’t seen them before. I looked back and there wasn’t a single glowing flower to be found. I turned ahead again and saw them everywhere. I inspected the flowers closely and realized that the mountain behind me was covered in the same exact flowers, but I was standing between them and the light. Suddenly a Scripture I had been pondering came together like magnetized puzzle pieces and I understood:

This is the passage that tells me “healthy boundaries” are not exactly the standard I hope to reach. And yet I do see evidence of boundaries in Scripture, the most poignant and clear being that the Father owns the rights to the Kingdom—a very real, yet unseen boundary exists between His holiness and our unholiness; one that, apart from the work of Christ, we could not cross. And so I wonder…

Peter, the first to declare Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, begins to see Jesus draw crowds by the thousands. At some point in the three years of following Jesus, Peter becomes aware that he is one of the twelve closest friends of the King of the Jews, the Man who has come to set all things straight, the One who will not just set up a kingdom here on earth, but will bring peace to all nations and will rule the entire world in peace and righteousness. Peter lives and works alongside Jesus for three years. He doesn’t just have a good thing going—it seems he has reached the pinnacle of his ministry. Imagine Peter’s horror watching Jesus hang on a cross and breathe his last breath.

When I was twenty-four years old and knee-deep in my doctoral degree in nineteenth-century literature, I thought that the desire of my heart was accomplishing my Ten Year Plan. Academics had been my comfort zone and, up until that point, I had successfully hit all the professional wickets with scholarships and fellowships paving the way. However, in the middle of completing my doctoral coursework, I felt utterly unmoored, unsatisfied and disillusioned by the cut-throat academic environment and struggling with the darkest depression of my life. I kept wondering why God wasn’t strengthening me to withstand this environment. I was supposed to be the light-bearer in this relatively godless world of academia—why was I failing?

What if it's our failures and our sinking in the midst of the miracle that provides the greatest opportunity for Jesus' deity to shine? What if, when our circumstances get super dark and terrifying, we ask Jesus to identify Himself by calling us out into it. Then, at his beckoning, we run to Him, out onto the raging waters so that He can bring us back to safety. Sure, we may end up wet, and cold, and even a little silly looking; but we’d also end up surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, worshiping the God Man who saved us and lifted us out of the water, shouting "Hosanna in the Highest”—I think it would all be worth it.

One of my favorite moments in Peter’s story occurs right after Peter and his eleven friends hand out food to five thousand of their closest friends because Jesus took what they had and blessed it. After doing this tremendous miracle, Jesus tells the disciples to go on without Him while He stays back and spends time with His Father in prayer. Peter and the others are crossing the Sea of Galilee when a great storm arises. It’s early in the morning and still dark; the waves begin pushing them back so that they’re not going anywhere. The more they push forward, the more they stay put. I imagine them working so hard to paddle, getting soaking wet and more anxious as the waves continue to crash around them. Then suddenly in the darkness, a man strolls toward them on the beating, crashing, treacherous waves. They’re terrified and cry out, “Ghost!” Immediately after they cry out, Jesus responds, “Take courage, it is I. Don’t be afraid.” This is the moment in the story I want to freeze and study.

Tracy’s experience gave her a heart for other families aching over the loss of a child, and God has taken those gifts He created in her—the drive of her competitive spirit—and has multiplied them, using her to provide comfort and hope all over the world. Emma’s has become a community of dedicated volunteer parents, family members, and friends who have experienced a pregnancy or infant loss—each one of whom has healed from the trauma of loss better and faster thanks to the support of a friend, caregiver, or mentor who has “been there.”

As I laid my beaten head down on my pillow, I groaned, “I feel incapable.” As soon as the word incapable came out of my mouth, I knew I was right where God wants me to be, and I slipped into sweet sleep. It was no mistake that Romans 4 had been in my Bible study twice that week: “If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust Him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-Him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.” (Romans 4:4-5 MSG)

We are brave when we take risks and trust our Master… when we take a tiny little talent that we’ve not been given but rather entrusted with, and we bravely offer it to the world, unsure of whether it will bring anything of value to anyone at all, but sure that God can and will. It’s that first offering of the smallest gift God has deposited in us, hoping that God’s faithfulness to take our offerings and bless and multiply them is actually true. It’s the moment when we choose to put it out there, knowing that people could laugh at us… but then wonder, what if they don’t? Or when we take that first step, knowing we just might fall, but act on the vision of what happens if we actually fly.

It’s clear now that my thoughts were providentially interrupted. I pushed back against the wall of the plane and watched this woman strategize what to do next. In the meantime, I was performing my own mental calculations—a cost/benefit analysis. Hoping that the staff of the plane had some miracle solution for vomit everywhere, I told myself over and over that I was not going to participate in clean-up but the deep down parts of me revolted. I knew what was coming; I had just spent the last few hours considering Christ… who He is and what He’s done; how to live faithful in times when all is out of my control. And the Holy Spirit whispered, “This is how you’ll keep your eyes unwaveringly fixed on Me. Serve.”

I grew up eating my Mom’s version of spaghetti often. I remember being told by someone who does have an Italian background that it’s not the correct way to do spaghetti, but I truly do not care. It’s the way I learned to eat spaghetti, and now my kids eat it the same way. We have several different pasta and sauce combinations that we eat and enjoy, but this is for sure the favorite.

This chicken and this salad became a regular favorite; even my kids requested it. And now that the weather here in Virginia is finally beginning to warm up, it’s time for this salad to come back out to play. The chicken is a recipe that a friend of mine makes; she’s fed us often over the years, and this is a delicious way to grill it up. The secret is in the sauce.