Hope in the Wilderness
[A Guest Post by Cassandra Shepherd]Guest Post by Cassandra Shepherd It’s not often all of our plans are so thoroughly thwarted, our freedom so collectively restrained, our daily life so completely disrupted on a global scale… We are in a communal time of massive transition because of the pandemic. Nothing in the world is ‘normal’ anymore. People’s daily routines have had to change. There is a level of unprecedented anxiety on a global scale, and so much that seemed predictable is now very uncertain. There is so much that is painful, and there is a profound sense of loss. It has been more than 5 weeks since we last saw my husband Richard:…
Real Rest. Really?
Featured in the Christian Leadership Alliance’s Spring Outcomes magazine! Laughter. The sound emanated from the mobile phone speaker, filling my office. This was the eighth phone conversation and the eighth response of incredulous laughter. Though I hadn’t expected it, I knew I had earned this response to my proposal. I was proposing an organization-wide Rest and Renewal study. I called strategic team-leaders in my organization to pitch the project and to enlist their support. My objective: to complete the required research for my last doctoral course on the assigned topic, “Rest and Renewal,” and, of course, for my team to experience renewal in the process. My colleagues did not mean…
