by erika haveman

I am a bit of a movie nerd. I love Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, X-Men… If you’ve ever seen the old Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and the new Star Trek: Into Darkness you’ll know all of the similarities, and you’ll have known that at the end of Into Darkness (spoiler alert!) nobody actually dies. In the more recent Star Trek the warp core on the Enterprise gets misaligned. Without the warp core on line, the Enterprise begins to fail and plummet towards the earth, which would result in the death of the ship, its crew, and likely excess civillian casualties. Captain Kirk, risking his life due to extreme amounts of radiation exposure within the warp core unit, attempts and succeeds to get the warp core realigned. In doing so his body is overwhelmed by radiation poisoning, and of course the inevitable of such a situation is death.  However, in The Wrath of Khan a similar situation unfolds, only with Spock playing the sacrificial one.  As any Trek nerd knows, the old 3rd Star Trek’s entire plot line revolves around bringing Spock back to life – an impossible feat the viewer sees done.  Knowing that, there was of course no question that J.J. Abrams & co. would find a way to ensure Kirk doesn’t die.  However that specific story line isn’t what I want you to think about, exactly.  Consider with me what Spock and Kirk, respectively, had to do in order to save lives of hundreds of people.  The Enterprise’s warp core is the most important piece of equipment built into the ship. It is not just crucial, but integral to ensuring the ship exists to transport people anywhere, anytime. Without the warp core, there is no ship; without the warp core, the Enterprise is a useless collection of metal.  When the warp core is aligned, the ship will function perfectly. When it’s misaligned, someone needs to do something desperate to realign it.

I feel like our hearts work the same way.

Continue reading “of being saved”

by erika haveman

Do you ever get overwhelmed by choices? People say that millenials have more choice than any other generation, and often they let those choices paralyze them. You see so many adults in their early 20s and 30s taking a long time to settle down. I’m probably a poster child for this, my reality regularly being a slew of choices yet it takes me a while to make any decision.

Continue reading “of blazing trails”

I read an article last week that had some quotes that reminded me of something I wrote a couple of years ago when my journey into understanding modesty, purity, lust and ultimately understanding life as, in part, a sexual being began. Little did I know that writing that piece, which was in response to a popular video at the time, would skyrocket me into conversations and research about this topic that I, at first, had assumed was fairly straight forward. Here I am two years later, not only still pursuing the topic, but now also pursuing writing a book about it. The thing that really threw me for a good loop in the article was a quote by a young girl (12 years old) who said, “You’re supposed to be proud of your body, not have to cover it up…” This was in response to having to wear a t-shirt over a bikini. My gut reaction wasn’t “well of course you need to wear a t-shirt!” No. Far from it. Rather it was the underlying, unfortunately broken, message this girl had come to understand, which made me beg the question: Why does being confident of one’s body equate to keeping it uncovered?

Continue reading “of what to wear”

My life is so busy.  Like probably out of anybody I know, mine is the busiest.  Even compared to that mom with those 4 absolutely insane children and husband who works all the time – busier than hers.  I wish she would understand how I am busier than her so her judgemental stares wouldn’t cut me down so much.  It’s actually so unfair that my life is busy, and I just wish it wasn’t.  Oh how I wish it wasn’t!  I wish it would just slow down.  My life is super busy – so much so that I never have time to do things I love, like go out for coffee with a friend or get 8 hours of sleep.  Busy rules my life – I am busier than anyone, and people need to understand this.

Continue reading “of busy”

What kind of feelings brought you to come and read this blog post?  I know I used to see things about “being alone” and my eyes would widen, body would tense, I’d leap dramatically back, hands pushing away an imaginary monster that was terrifyingly gigantic and clearly going to swallow me whole, making sounds similar to the ones Will Ferrell does in Elf after he sprays perfume into his mouth.  It’s not quite like that anymore, and I hope it wasn’t the scary monster of loneliness that brought you here, but a simple curiosity.  Continue reading “of being alone”

I remember in the late 90s and early 2000s whilst I was in the throes of my adolescent years when Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera first hit the scene.  They were scandalous and unconventional, and all of us teenaged girls were condemned from wearing belly tops out of the house (though clearly that was what was best in our teenaged minds).  That seems tame now compared to what I see celebrities wear (and do) and how girls mimick them.  And I’m guilty of moments – as a young, single woman – when I wish I could get away wearing the “right” thing and saying the “right” thing that would make me attractive for the “right” man.  But that’s all part of a woman that God is trying to rip out of me (thankfully).  It’s one messed up world we’re living in, and how are we fighting to clean it up?  All I know is that recently the biggest mess seems to be sex related, and there’s always another something about sex showing up on my FB home feed, so I figured I’d join the rampage.

Continue reading “of what we’re fighting for”

Continue reading “of waiting [pt.2: the answer]”

Continue reading “of waiting [pt.1: the question]”

as much as i learned over this past year that i work best in the mornings, late nights will forever be the zone that inspires the most creative flow in my brain.  or it’s the fact that i decided to listen to the new steffany gretzinger album (“the undoing”) as i fell asleep.  it’s a brilliant sound – although it won’t put you to sleep, by far.  and that’s okay.  everything about this album makes me want to move into a lonely, back country cabin on a lake and write and play that old piano of mine and read the bible and get even more deep and write and write and write til my fingers all fall off.

Continue reading “of the reality of scripture.”

last summer I was driving through the main intersection in the city closest to me, and I saw a man begging for money.  This isn’t something I regularly see coming from a small town, and I don’t think I’d ever seen anybody standing on that little piece of cement to separate the lanes at this intersection before in this particular nearby city before.  I was immediately reminded of a very dear friend of mine who had once told me that she often gives money to homeless people as she knows how desperate many of them are just for a simple coffee or small meal, regardless of shelters or other places that offer to supply basic needs.  Her brothers had been an addicts, living on the streets, for years, and she was able to testify by their lives of the needs homeless people have that do go deeper than just finding the next fix such as the need to be loved, valued, honoured – the same things that all of us need.  More often than not when we see homeless people begging for money we assume the worst: “They’ll probably spend it on drugs and alcohol!”  As I drove away from that man, without rolling down my window and avoiding eye contact, I was struck with the conviction that I should have just given him some money. Continue reading “of loving like Jesus.”