Accepting the Good: Gratitude in the Midst of Deep Uncertainty

January 25, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

I’ll be the first one to admit that I think platitudes about gratitude are lame. Gratitude can’t be the solution to everything. Some problems need to be wallowed in and solved that way. Right?

When It Costs Everything You Have: Faith, Sacrifice, and New Beginnings

September 29, 2019.Reading time 10 minutes.

Tonight is the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Tomorrow also happens to be the day I start seminary. It’s a new season for me, a very significant one. And tonight, I realized this season needs to start with surrender. Everything is shifting around me. I just moved across the country to a […]

Weightlessness & Restoration: The Risk, Hope, and Loss of Big Life Transitions

August 28, 2019.Reading time 5 minutes.

At the beginning of the year, I left the home I had built in Korea. I left my closest friends, my job, my routines, and all the futures I had envisioned for myself on that peninsula, and I returned to the States. I was excited, but I was also heartbroken. In one hand, I held hopeful excitement about my new beginning; but in the other, my whole world seemed to be slipping away like sand through my fingers […]

2019: Moving Back to the US

January 1, 2019.Reading time 3 minutes.

I have now been living in South Korea for over SEVEN years. That seems crazy-long, but also far shorter than I expected. Part of me thought I would stay here forever. But for now, I’m departing. In a few short weeks, I will be moving back to the States! Despite the fact that I grew […]

Learning to Be Weak

August 20, 2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

I have been learning the same lesson over and over the past several months, actually more like the past two years. The lesson is this: I am weak. At times I’ve felt intensely frustrated, stuck, even hopeless, wondering if this season will ever end. But what can I say? God is a thorough teacher. Not Okay […]

Remembering the Dark Times

April 26, 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

I used to see the dark times as something to forget. I wanted to pretend they had never happened. My struggles and failures, the moments of intense loneliness, fear, and confusion––I just wanted to put all that behind me. The point was to overcome. The point was to move forward. But in the midst of recent […]

Teacher Life: Conflict Between Close Friends

March 29, 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

Yesterday between classes, I looked up from my Kindle to see one of my students repeatedly hitting another boy on the back of the head. He was clearly angry and exclaiming something in Korean I couldn’t understand. I immediately sat up and started yelling. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” The hitting stopped. “BOTH OF YOU OUTSIDE […]

Handling Conflict: Some Tips for the Conflict-Averse

February 14, 2018.Reading time 9 minutes.

I am naturally conflict-averse. I always have been, and I still am. But over the years I’ve learned how to better manage my sensitivity to tension, how to better communicate with those I disagree with, and how to stay true to myself while still being considerate of others. I’m still a work in progress, but […]