As a pastor’s daughter, I spent most of my childhood in compliant obedience, participating in all the church activities. When I was in high school, my Dad planted a Vietnamese church in Alameda. On the weekends, we would go to downtown Oakland and do outreach events and pass out...
I’ve never considered myself a meditative person. I’ve always been a fast-paced person, trying to get the most efficiency and productivity out of my day. Image credit: Geza Molnar / Pexels In the last few years, I have made a concerted effort to develop a morning...
Lord, why do I forget? Like all human beings, I am susceptible to aging and the loss of mental capacity, but I’m referring to forgetting God’s work in my life while remembering the lyrics to “Billy Jean” and a million other meaningless pieces of...
You know you’re burned out when you can’t even publicly acknowledge for a year that you’re burned out. This November marks one year since I stepped down from my role as worship coordinator at The River, bringing my three-and-a-half-year stint on staff to a...
It's hard being a parent, a spouse, a child, and a principal. I feel equipped and capable of assuming all of these roles individually. Just not all at the same time. Being an elementary school principal isn't the most technically demanding job in the world, but the social demands can...
Cheerleader. Fun. Engineer. Although seemingly contradictory, these are some of the labels I was known by during my younger years. Each label has positive associations for me — and also negative. When I found Christ in 2000, I felt like I needed to strip myself of those labels...
Can a career failure return more value than any success? My question was not a philosophical one following an annual review that left me completely humbled. Like many Silicon Valley firms, my company had just initiated 360 reviews. In this process, all direct reports and three peers...
When I arrived at the River back in 2013, God had a plan when I entered my small group —my wife’s small group— assigned based on marriage, not by choice. This belief kept me “one foot out” of the group, finding it very easy to skip the rhythm of our...
I found out this week that Jesús’ grandmother is visiting in Chicago from México and my heart jumped with excitement. I wanted to see her right away. After a quick mental calendar check, I realized with marked disappointment that we would not be able to travel to see...
This summer, my family had the enormous privilege of traveling to Iceland for a ten-day vacation. My husband, Mark, likes leading our family to explore less traveled corners of the world, and Iceland has fascinated him for years. We loved our time there. The Icelanders we met were...