Posts by Kyla Free
Thin Yellow Lines
Do you remember the first time you saw The Wizard of Oz? The moment Dorothy opened the door to the brilliant Technicolor of a new and foreign land? The strangeness of the houses and the munchkins’ clothing and speech–and the “Lollipop Guild”? “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” I had an out-of-Kansas experience in my early twenties when I moved across the ocean to teach in a foreign land: China. There everything seemed unfamiliar. I looked…
Unloved
Have you ever been in a Bible class when the teacher asked you to name a Bible character you admire? Maybe you wanted to be strong like Samson or a skilled warrior like Joshua. Maybe you wanted faith like Abraham or Mary or passion like Peter, even in his missteps. I’ll bet that you never thought, “I want to be like Leah.” A few years ago, someone sympathetically told me that’s who I reminded him of. Leah. Yep, the ugly…
“Roads in the Desert”
I don’t like asking for help. I have a couple of theories on this. The first is easier to digest: we Southerners are raised in such politeness that we are always willing to offer help and generally reluctant to accept it. There’s a charm, an old-fashioned chivalry in that belief. My second theory, though, is strikingly less noble: I am either too proud to ask for help or too fearful that I will ask too much–or worse, that I will…
I Don’t Know How You Do It
Encouragement for Single Parents Guest Contributor: Kyla Free “I don’t know how you do it.” If you’re a single parent, you’ve probably heard these words once, twice, or a hundred times. It’s probably not a phrase that triggers a strong emotional response like some do. It’s more likely to elicit a smiling shrug, the vague but polite response that someone wants to hear to their well intentioned comment. You probably didn’t choose single parenting–or if you did, it was likely…