Your favorite nonprofits need you right now.

My fellow nonprofit Executive Director friends are checking on each other these days. 2021 provided an unprecedented year of giving for many organizations. Then 2022 came in like a wrecking ball

Both of my parents were on the other end of the phone to tell me the devastating news that my mom was going to be put into hospice care. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Thursday — one of those steamy, June afternoons. I sat in my blue Mazda hatchback in the parking lot of Bonefish Grill. I turned off the wipers so I could hang on their every word.

Do you remember a game show called, “Press Your Luck?” Children of the 80’s spent many snow days watching game show marathons— the binge before binging was cool. Contestants on Press Your Luck were given a chance to collect money by pressing a button. There were all sorts of denominations of money and prizes on the screen. But there were also whammies.

God has exceeded every expectation I had for starting a nonprofit organization in 2011. This was certainly not my plan in life. The last 10 years have been full of the hardest and simultaneously most rewarding adventures that God has ever invited me to join.

If I were to greet you tomorrow with, “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” would you think I was a day late and a dollar short? The baskets, fake grass, perfectly proportioned Reese’s peanut butter eggs and bunny wreaths probably departed your home days ago…

Many American churches have taught their young people a harmful ideology that Jackie Hill Perry calls the “heterosexual gospel.” I resonate with Perry’s message, as I was misguided by this teaching in my teenage years.

While I am certainly pro-life in the traditional sense, the pro-life cause encompasses more than opposition to abortion. The pro-life cause is also expanding to include the sanctity of life for the whole life.

We often recite Christmas lyrics from memory without meditating on the words. Recently, though, I was listening to the classic Christmas hymn “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” by Charles Wesley. I was in my car mindlessly singing, “Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all He brings, Risen with healing in His wings.”

You might be tempted to glance over this book if you are not female or someone who struggles with same-sex attraction (SSA). However, may I strongly recommend this book for all believers? Let me explain.

The story that I am living is very different than the one I would have penned. I can honestly say that the story God wanted to write for me has exceeded every expectation I could have for my life. However, living as a “prolonged single adult” in a Christian world that often idolizes marriage and family can sometimes be a lonely place.

When I placed the silver “True Love Waits” ring on my fifteen-year-old finger, I never dreamed that I would still be single into my 40s. Growing up in the South, expectations included getting married in your early 20s so you can begin adulting and start your own family. In retrospect, I didn’t even have a category for people like me. Today, most churches still don’t have a category for people like me.

When I hear these words at the beginning of the trip, I breathe a sigh of relief. Prior to departure, the tireless work of recruiting, training volunteers and preparing for the project fills every waking moment. Once the cabin door closes, I can do nothing else to ensure the trip’s success.

I remember every detail like it was yesterday. Three lanes merged into two, and we hit gravel going about sixty miles an hour. I didn’t have my seatbelt on. I braced and then bounced around inside the car until I was eventually ejected out the hatchback. The car finally stopped after at least three flips and one end-over-end rotation.