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Showing posts from May, 2026

Boundaries

Boundaries. It's one of the most recent pop-culture therapy buzzwords. Everywhere I turn, I see people setting "boundaries" on their relationships and friendships, but more often than not, these boundaries aren't boundaries—they are veiled attempts at control. Boundaries define what you are going to do in a relationship. A boundary says, "This is the line where my responsibility stops and yours begins." For example, if a friend keeps snapping me with a rubber band, a boundary says, "If you snap me with a rubber band, then I will leave the room and no longer sit next to you." Notice how the language is about what I am going to do—not what the other person needs to do. "You're not allowed to have friends who are girls," I've heard a girl say to her boyfriend. "That's just a boundary I have." Except that's not a boundary, that's control. Here are some more examples:  Control: “You cannot go out wi...
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Negotiation isn't Submission

I had to confiscate a phone today. In Texas, there is a new law that says students are not allowed to have their phones at all during the school day. If they are, we as teachers are required to take the phone and turn it in to the office. A girl in my 5th period was on her phone, so I had to take it. After class, she begged me not to turn it in. She knows the rules; she knows what I'm required to do, and she knows I’m not going to change my mind. But she kept asking—over and over again—for me not to turn it in. After telling her repeatedly that my hands were tied, I finally had to tell her to stop asking—I wasn't going to break the law for her. I was initially upset with the expectation of mercy —the idea that she thought she shouldn’t have to suffer any consequences for breaking a law, and she wanted me to be the one who gave her that mercy. Then I started thinking about how so many of my students beg for mercy—for their grades, for me to not take late points off, to...
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Taking Accountability

“You didn’t write this—you copied this from another student,” I told one of my 10th grade English students. He emphatically denied it. I showed him the other student’s paper. I read them both, side by side. He still denied it. The truth  was sitting right in front of his face, and he still held on to the idea that he didn’t cheat. Unfortunately, I’ve had this same type of conversation with numerous students. Now that AI has made it so easy for students to cheat, these conversations happen more and more often. What baffles me is not just the lack of academic integrity, but the lying in the aftermath of getting caught. These students hold on to their lie, and they refuse to take accountability. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized that this isn’t just a student problem—it’s a human problem. Identity Sometimes, refusal to take accountability in the face of truth has to do with our skewed view of ourselves. If your identity is rooted in something othe...
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Popular Posts

Jesus Would Advocate for Civil Disobedience

In March, executive orders from governors across the country forced us to stay home, to close schools and churches and to shut down private businesses. Businesses were classified as either "essential" or "non-essential." All businesses deemed "non-essential" were forced to close. This included markets, clothing stores, boutiques, dine-in restaurants, and beauty salons. State parks, city parks, beaches, walking trails, lakes, and other wide open spaces were closed as well. Many people feel that the "social distancing," as it has come to be known, and stay at home executive orders violate their constitutional rights, such as our First Amendment right to freely exercise our religion, our right to peaceably assemble, and that we shall not be deprived of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Some of the people who feel their rights have been violated have decided to exercise their First Amendment right to protest. Some have even chosen...
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Covert Red Flags: The Real Things You Should Be Looking Out For in Relationships

Your relationship with your spouse should be the closest human relationship you ever have. As we are dating, we are assessing whether or not that person could potentially fit into our inner circle. This causes us to be on high alert for red flags. Most red flags are obvious--lack of communication, anger issues, irresponsibility, controlling behavior, abuse, etc. A quick Google search will bring up list upon list of red flags we should look out for. Being rude to waitstaff, not making your relationship public, not caring about XYZ, stone walling, gaslighting, and more can all be found on most lists. But what about the covert red flags? Those things that are less obvious. My first marriage taught me to look out for the overt red flags like the ones found in every advice column. My second marriage taught me to look out for covert red flags, ones that I never even realized were red flags until I could look back. The entire time we dated, I kept looking for the overt red fla...
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The Church

My pastor fell. He fell hard.  He fell in the most public way possible, and what makes it worse is that he actually committed the crimes he's accused of. My heart has been broken for months about it, and it's taken me that amount of time to write this whole article.  He was indicted last week, and he turned himself in to Oklahoma authorities today. I’ve already seen at least 7 articles about the story posted just today.  I started attending Gateway Church in 2007. From the moment I stepped foot on their Southlake Campus, it was home. The worship was moving, and every sermon--whether it was Senior Pastor Robert Morris, Preston Morrison, Tim Ross, Tom Lane, or any guest speaker--spoke directly to my heart. I took voracious notes each week. I have volumes of sermon notes on my bookcase in my bedroom. Soon after joining the church, Gateway started expanding to satellite campuses. The NRH Campus opened, which was much closer to our home, so we started attending this campu...
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