If your heart is broken….if you feel like you can’t breathe….if you wake up in the middle of the night and your heart is pounding…. Take a deep breath, dear one. You’re going to be okay. If you worry about the future….if you can’t see past your past….if tomorrow feels more like a threat than a promise….. Lay that burden down. You’re going to be okay. If you have more month than money…..if the math does not add up…..if you’ve exhausted all... Read more
I was 27 years old when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I’m 37 now. In some ways, it seems impossible that a decade has passed. It seems like it was yesterday that I was sitting on an exam table in a gown in a chilly exam room in my surgeon’s office hearing the words “You have cancer,” words that sounded more like a death sentence than a diagnosis. And in other ways, it seems that in the past decade,... Read more
Yesterday I flew to Portland, Oregon, where I’ll be officiating a friend’s wedding on Saturday. I was in flight during the Presidential debate last night, but it was available to stream on the airplane’s in-flight entertainment system, so I forced myself to watch it because I’m a U.S. citizen and this is my country, for better or for worse. After I landed, I got in my rental car and drove to my AirBnB rental — a small room in a... Read more
I found out on Tuesday that my grandma had cancer. Five days later, she died. Five days. I was visiting my parents in Illinois over the weekend. On Saturday morning, I rode to a restaurant with my dad, where we planned to meet up with my mom for brunch. When my mom walked into the restaurant, there were tears in her eyes. She didn’t have to say anything. “Grandma’s gone,” I said. My mom nodded. We hugged for a long time.... Read more
It’s 5 a.m. and I’m up, at SFO, checked in for a flight that gets me to Grand Rapids, MI, for an event I’m speaking at tomorrow. Yesterday I went to church, an Episcopal parish I joined recently, when I relocated to San Francisco. After church, the minister asked me what my week was going to be like. Thinking of my 3:30 a.m. Monday wake-up time, I laughed. “Tomorrow I have to be up earlier than God,” I said. Only... Read more
This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at a church in Ohio about one of my favorite stories. It comes out of Genesis 16, and it’s about Hagar, a pregnant, run-away Egyptian slave girl who is trying to cross the Wilderness of Shur, a 700-square-mile desert that even armies of grown men found impassable. When she’s lost in this wilderness, desperate to get back to Egypt to escape the abuses of her mistress, God appears to her as... Read more
This week I re-posted an interview that Philip Yancey did that garnered national attention, in which he said, “I am staggered that so many conservative or evangelical Christians would see a man who is a bully, who made his money by casinos, who has had several wives and several affairs, that they would somehow paint him as a hero, as someone that we could stand behind…” Inevitably, my post earned me a lot of comments — some supportive, and lots... Read more
I was as surprised as anyone that I woke up to the world going nuts about Skittles this morning. Yes, Skittles, the rainbow-colored,chewy, delicious candy. In case you missed it, Donald Trump Jr. sent out a tweet yesterday comparing refugees to poisoned Skittles. (more…) Read more
Yesterday my Facebook page blew up with hundreds of tributes and remembrances for the 15th anniversary of 9/11. This morning, I woke up at 4 a.m. and, as I write this, I’m sitting in the terminal at San Francisco International Airport, waiting to board a flight to Indiana, where I’m speaking tomorrow. Before I went through security, I had to empty my glass bottle (which was filled with rose tea — not exactly explosive), show my ID, take off my... Read more
“As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.” – Albert Schweitzer Last week I wrote about how a server giving me a free bowl of oatmeal, and a fellow passenger lifting my suitcase for me, inspired me to look around for ways in which I can practice random acts of kindness….and I challenged you all to do the same, to use Labor Day weekend as an opportunity to practice small, random labors of love.... Read more
Sarah Thebarge
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