Shannon Popkin

Years ago, my husband got a new job, and we moved to a new town. As we joined a new church, I thought, I’ll never get to serve God again. These people don’t even know me. They especially don’t know what I’m good at. In my previous church, I had led the children’s choir—a role

Control girls often don’t realize that they’re control girls. I sure didn’t. I spent the first 35 years of my life completely oblivious to my control issues. I knew I was arguing with my husband. I knew there was tension with coworkers. I knew I was frustrated with friends and family members. I just didn’t

Christmas often brings out the worst in me. Every year, when I flip the calendar to December, I get caught up in making Christmas turn out “right.” It’s supposed to be the “most wonderful time of the year,” but knowing this only causes me to have heightened expectations about how everything should look and taste

There was only one time my mother-in-law and I “had words.” During my second year of marriage, in the middle of discussing an unrelated misunderstanding, my mother-in-law brought up the topic of my wedding. She didn’t have kind things to say. As she spoke, I felt a spike of self-righteous indignation. How dare she say

One night I opened an email from a woman I didn’t know who thanked me for a blog post I had written. She mentioned that a certain ministry—one I had never heard of—had shared my work. I wonder if others have shared this post too, I thought, and I immediately searched online for the article’s

As the neighbor boys on my front porch turned to go, I slammed the door and marched to the kitchen to find the phone. “Mike?” I said into the phone two seconds later. “Your boys just left, but I want you to know they did notapologize. They claim they did not shoot at my son!”

I walked into the building, my heels clicking on the church sidewalk and my arm loaded with my Bible and a stack of handouts. As a mom of three little ones, it was no small task to arrive on time, with my heart and message ready to go. But ready I was! When I got

“Sit down so I can comb your hair.” “Don’t touch the pretties.” “Stay in your bed till Mommy comes to get you.” These are things I said repeatedly to my children when they were little. But now that my kids are all taller than me, it would be strange to still insist on doing their