Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Some of our favorite articles are in this category, and they’re here because they didn’t fit into one of our main blog categories.

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Interview with Jonalyn Fincher About Her New Book, “Invitation to Tears”

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Estimated reading time: 8 minutes.

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Jonalyn and Aubrie Hills just released their new book, Invitation to Tears, a fantastic little book on how to grieve properly.This post includes a brief review as well as an interview with the author on how this book can help pro-life advocates in particular.

Followers of my work will recognize Jonalyn Fincher’s name. Dale and Jonalyn launched an organization called Soulation that I’ve greatly benefited from. Jonalyn interviewed me for her blog last year and we followed it up with a mock debate. Jonalyn is a dear friend and she’s doing fantastic work.

Jonalyn once showed a family member a ring she had designed. It had taken upwards of a year and a bit of savings. As she held it out, the sapphire sparkling, this white gold begging for adoration, this family member was unimpressed. So she quickly slipped the ring on her finger and tried to change the subject.

Grief is like that precious, time-costly ring, an expensive undertaking that few will thoroughly appreciate. Grieving well is costly. Energy you could have spent on friends or family must be spared. You have hard work ahead to learn a new language…It’s no wonder Americans don’t have time for it. Grief is neither dependable nor efficient, but it will make us more human.

~ Excerpt from Invitation to Tears

I was fascinated by the section where Jonalyn and Aubrie describes some of there different ways people handle grief, the “Displacer,” the “Replacer,” the “Minimizer.” I’m what they call the “Postponer.”

The Postponer keeps grief at arm’s length, hoping to avoid the pain until it fades away. Grief is an unwelcome visitor, never invited past the front step. Postponers may be perceived as doing better than expected or quickly recovering from a loss.

~ Excerpt from Invitation to Tears

You didn’t think I had it all together, did you? No, this book was illuminating to my own soul as I explored how I handle loss. It’s a book I plan to re-read the next time I experience a loss, so that I can apply these principles to my own life.

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What I’ve Been Up To

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Not writing this blog obviously.

It’s been a whirlwind lately. Everybody says that there are a lot of administrative tasks involved in launching a non-profit, and they’re right. Thanks for being so gracious during this short season where I’m posting less frequently while I work to get our organization off the ground.

I know so many of you are praying for me during this transition, so I wanted to give you a quick update on what’s been going on lately.

Processing Speaking Requests

I’m excited to say that since launching Equal Rights Institute, I’ve been booked to speak in Arizona twice, Washington D.C. twice, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Virginia, Iowa, San Francisco and Canada! This is fantastic because we will quickly be getting our message out to thousands of pro-life advocates within the first few months of existing as an organization. We’re also pursuing several college campus training events at Biola and Notre Dame!

Right now I’m processing these requests myself and it’s pretty time-consuming with that number of events. I’m currently optimizing a repeatable system for this so that I can delegate most of that process to an assistant.

Non-Profit Management

I won’t bore you with all the details, but I put together our board and we’ve had two meetings already. I’ve rented an office, bought minimal supplies, and created our website. I’m networking with other ministry leaders in the area and I just finished reviewing a new pro-life book a friend of mine just finished.

Fundraising

I’m also raising personal support, like an overseas missionary does. It’s been such a blessing to meet with people and see how excited they get when I talk about our vision to use speaking, writing and campus outreach to bring practical dialogue tips, rigorous philosophy and relational apologetics to the pro-life movement!

Would you consider supporting my vision financially if you haven’t already? If every person that reads this blog regularly gave just $20 a month, we would be able to fund my salary as well as sponsor trainings for pro-life campus clubs that can’t fly us out to train them. We would also be able to hire more staff to get most of the administrative tasks off of my plate, allowing me to spend my time doing the things where I bring the most value.

If you want to support me, you can give by credit card using this secure donation page. If you prefer to give with a check or automatic bank withdrawals, you can download this form and mail it to me.

Thanks so much! I have a blog post going up next week on the topic of grief and how pro-life advocates can respond appropriately to friends who have lost a child, either naturally or through abortion.