Life & Culture

We all know that women impact the world every single day, but we love the fact that the United States has deemed the month of March Women’s History Month. Here at The Grit and Grace Project, we are eager and thankful for the opportunity to recognize, along with our country, the contributions women have made to culture, history, and society. Throughout the month, we will honor some of our favorite strong women of history by posting articles highlighting them and their achievements. Through The Grit and Grace Project, we’ve had the pleasure of getting to know women who have encountered life’s challenges and walked through them, not around them. Because they’ve chosen this brave path, they’ve done so much more than simply endure difficulty—they’ve transformed it into something

In 2012 I spent almost three months living in Singapore as a part of a training program for a year in the mission field (which is a story for another day). I was 21 years old and had only ever left the country for a five-day trip to Costa Rica, so I was full of anxiety and nervous anticipation. I knew nothing about the tiny city-state at the southernmost tip of Malaysia, other than the jokes I’d heard at some point about gum being illegal (and it is … you can chew it, but they don’t sell it anywhere). After nearly 33 hours of travel, I landed. I felt small, homesick, and overwhelmed by how different everything was from home. As I rode with the people who came

Winter can feel so dead when seeing the trees, gray and bare, seemingly lifeless against the flat whitewashed sky. Within those outstretched branches one can find that last withered leaf still clinging, albeit weakly to its post, determined to defy the season. I cannot help but see a bit of myself in that one leaf. I have come to survive many a winter season, physically and emotionally. But it was in a recent, longer than desired, weathering that I had this epiphany. Winter is not only what it appears to be on the surface: frozen, bitter and bleak, but also what cannot be seen—life teeming underneath. A tree doesn’t cease to live during the winter months, rather it is still very much

I rarely accomplish my new year’s resolutions. There, I said it and the transparency removes a load of burden from my shoulders. Sure, like every year previous, I desire to exercise more regularly, eat healthier, stress less, rest more effectively and all around live more intentionally. However, life can bring the unforeseen, leaving the process of meeting my goals greatly affected, if not altogether thwarted. When making resolutions I recognize the high probability of not seeing them come to fruition within the next year or even two for that matter; however, I am determined not to let that reality stop me from the ambitious attempt. Why? I am wired to need something to strive for in the day-to-day, desired ideals perpetuating a

Every year at this time, I have a few passing thoughts about Dr. King as we celebrate the birthday of a man who changed this nation. Honestly, I am embarrassed to say that I am usually more focused on trivial things such as whether we actually get a day off and making plans for the day. This year, I was asked what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. means to me. I am so thankful that I took the time to reflect …  my answer is hope. The man, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed seven years before I was born. By the time I began to have any understanding of him as a man and the impact he had, the Civil Rights Movement was

If you have not yet seen the film Hidden Figures, I’m telling you that you really should! This story of three brave females who rose to excellence in a world that both their gender and their race told them they didn’t belong. Their very lives were the epitome of redefining a woman’s strength. As I pondered on the amazing courage and resilience these ladies displayed I did a little more reading and discovered another lady of that era who entered the same world they did NACA (a precursor to NASA) whose reflections on the time period offered great insights into what it took to excel when others believed they couldn’t. Annie J. Easley, was the first African American computer scientist in her

Having traveled and lived abroad, I have encountered a wide variety of welcomes, some of which still challenge me in creating a more generous and fuller expression of hospitality in my own home. In North Africa and the Middle East, it was common to be invited spontaneously into the home of complete strangers. The openness to host a foreigner and eagerness to share however much or little they possessed deeply impacted me. Rather than extending invitations only to the closest of friends and relatives, I witnessed a desire to engage and connect to those barely known. This displayed to me hospitality for the sake of creating connection, not only maintaining. Prevalent in North Africa, when entering a home the tradition is to