I went to the dentist expecting a bridge and left with a life lesson instead.

There was pain. There was a power outage. There was a dentist attempting to power sophisticated machinery with his car battery. And somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, I was reminded of an uncomfortable truth: much of life is wildly out of our control.

Who knew a dental chair could be so enlightening?

"Follow your heart" sounds like wonderful advice.

Unfortunately, my heart has convinced me to buy things I didn't need, eat things I shouldn't have, and avoid things I absolutely needed to do.

Maybe the self isn't always the trustworthy guide we think it is.

In this reflection inspired by St. Teresa of Avila, I explore why chasing our own desires often leaves us restless and why the path to peace may begin somewhere entirely different.

As kids, many of us spent countless hours playing Hide and Seek. We found the perfect hiding spot, held our breath, and waited to see if anyone could find us. It was all in good fun.

But what if, somewhere along the way, we never stopped hiding?

In this month's Ashes & Ink article, I explore the critical difference between guilt and shame and why that distinction matters so much. Guilt tends to move us toward God, toward healing, and toward relationship. Shame pushes us into hiding. It tells us we're too broken, too damaged, or too far gone.

Perhaps the biggest question isn't whether you've failed. We all have. The real question is whether you'll choose to hide...or seek.

Because when it comes to the soul, it's often not "Hide and Seek."

It's "Hide OR Seek."

A sick dog. The loss of a father. Conversations beside hospital beds. Some lessons can only be learned when we come face to face with the reality that this life will not last forever. In this deeply personal Ashes & Ink reflection, I wrestle with grief, hope, faith, and the strange gift that comes from remembering how precious each moment truly is.

At some point in life, many of us stop truly living and start simply “getting through the day.” We caffeinate ourselves awake, scroll ourselves numb, distract ourselves exhausted, and call it normal. This week’s Ashes & Ink reflection explores the strange reality that modern people have more comfort, convenience, and entertainment than ever before…and yet many still feel profoundly empty. Also, apparently staying up past 10pm now qualifies as a near-death experience.

I thought I had done a reasonably decent job raising my daughter. I taught her kindness, honesty, compassion, responsibility…and a healthy love for books. But recently I discovered a reading habit of hers that has caused me to seriously question where I went wrong as a parent.

Apparently, whenever she starts reading a novel, she Googles the ending.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

Somewhere, somehow, I have apparently raised a literary psychopath.

And yet, the more I thought about it, the more I realized most of us would probably love to do the exact same thing with our lives if we could.

Okay, I’m about to confess one of my more embarrassing lifelong misunderstandings. You know those moments where you suddenly realize you’ve been completely wrong about something for decades and immediately hope nobody notices? Yeah…this is one of those.

Apparently, seminary degrees do not automatically protect a person from confidently misunderstanding very famous things. Especially when song lyrics and scripture passages are involved.

I’m not saying I’ve had a spiritual breakthrough at the kitchen sink.

But I’m also not NOT saying that.

Somewhere between scrubbing pots and reaching for the dish soap, I’ve been reminded of something I missed for years. God doesn’t wait for the perfect moment to meet with us.

He shows up right in the middle of the ordinary.

We all grew up hearing stories about Lassie and the loyal dog who saves the day. As it turns out, those stories are not as far-fetched as they sound.

I’ve seen it myself. Not just in dramatic moments, but in the quiet, everyday kind of way a dog shows up, stays close, and refuses to stop loving you no matter what kind of day you’ve had.

And somewhere in that steady, undeserved affection, there’s something deeper being offered. Something most of us aren’t very good at receiving.

It started as something small. A quick jolt of pain that came and went. Easy to ignore. Easy to explain away. But over time, it became something I couldn’t avoid anymore. And as I sat there, dealing with the consequences of waiting too long, I couldn’t help but wonder how often we do the same thing with the deeper parts of our lives.

What does God actually want from me? It’s a question most of us have wrestled with more than once, especially when life puts a decision in front of us that feels too big to get wrong. We look for clarity, for peace, for something that tells us we’re not about to step outside of His will. But what if God isn’t hiding the answer as much as we think He is? What if He’s already given us a way to begin discerning it, even if it’s not as simple as we would like?

Have you ever noticed how much of your life is spent trying to manage what other people think of you? A look, a comment, a reaction can linger longer than we want it to. We replay conversations, second guess ourselves, and quietly adjust in hopes of being accepted or at least not rejected. But the more we chase approval, the more exhausting the whole thing becomes. In this reflection, I wrestle with a surprising piece of ancient wisdom that challenges that entire way of living and offers a different path.

Most of us think the hardest moment in life is the moment we finally leave what was hurting us. But often the harder place comes afterward. It is the quiet stretch between what we left behind and what we are hoping to become. In that space, the road feels longer than we expected. Doubt creeps in. The past begins to look strangely familiar, even when we know it was not good for us. It is a place where courage is tested and hope can feel fragile.

I call it the messy middle.

In this reflection I explore why that difficult stretch of the journey is so frightening and why it may also be the place where the most important work in us begins.

We all have our ways of escaping. Some of them are subtle. Some of them are loud. But beneath the surface, many of us are simply running from the weight of what hurts. We tell ourselves we just need distraction, a break, a little relief. Yet the things we avoid have a way of waiting for us. In this reflection, I wrestle with the illusion of escape and the quiet courage it takes to stop, turn around, and face the fire that may not be there to destroy us, but to refine us.

Some men explode.

Others insist they are “fine.”

But pressure does not disappear simply because we ignore it. It settles. It builds. It waits.

In my work, I have seen what happens when emotions are buried long enough. The eruption is rarely random. It is accumulated.

What if anger is not the enemy? What if it is simply heat that was never given a safe place to go?

This week on Ashes & Ink, I write about the Volcano archetype and why learning to release pressure in small, healthy ways may be the difference between steady strength and sudden destruction.

We argue with ourselves more than we realize. About whether we matter. About whether we’re enough. About whether we’ve already fallen too far behind to be worth much at all. But what if the voice you’ve trusted most about your value is the one that’s been wrong?

I’ve never been accused of being high-maintenance. I don’t care how the dishwasher gets loaded, my shoes aren’t arranged by color, and my toothbrush doesn’t need to be facing north on the counter. I’m usually pretty laid back about things. But every once in a while something catches my attention and won’t let go. A simple question about prayer did that to me, and it forced me to rethink what prayer was ever meant to be in the first place.

I have a small problem.

Actually, it’s not small. It’s just very well disguised as “being helpful.”

You know that feeling when someone shares a struggle and before they finish the sentence, your brain has already built a three step improvement plan, a backup strategy, and a color coded chart?

Yes. That.

Turns out constantly trying to fix everything might not be the same thing as loving well. I’ve been learning that the hard way.

If you’ve ever felt responsible for everyone’s problems, this one might feel uncomfortably familiar.

Full reflection over on Ashes & Ink.

The forge is rarely gentle, and almost never convenient. Yet Scripture speaks of fire not as destruction, but as refinement. This piece reflects on what rises in the heat, why it rises when it does, and what courage looks like when we stop running from the fire.

Grief does not always arrive with death. Sometimes it comes through quieter losses that never receive a name or a moment of honor. This reflection explores grief as sacred ground, not something to escape, but something that reveals what mattered and invites us to walk more deeply into life.