How many of us know this story as the story of the immoral woman? I did too for many years, and there is some reasoning for that, but as I have studied it afresh, I really think we have flattened out the woman and inserted her into our context and largely ignored her own. We paint her as a flirtatious, immoral woman who refuses to settle down. She has chewed through five marriages and is now shacking up with her new boyfriend. That is how many have portrayed her, but I don’t think it is possible.

I am an introvert with a call on my life to surround myself with people. Here are some things I have learned about how to do that well.

We are ghosts or we are ancestors in the lives of our children. We either haunt, inhibit and limit from our murky pasts, or we stand as cheerleaders who push them forward beyond the limitations and failings of our own lives.

It is very difficult for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom. Very. But, it is possible with God.

We need good shepherds to do the hard and slow work of pressing some camels toward some very small openings, and we need to trust God to make them fit. That’s our only hope.