The Banner Magazine

A year ago, Elizabeth Bol was surviving. She was navigating a difficult divorce while recovering from addiction and alcoholism. Though she had a job, it just covered the bills. “I was just working to survive,” recalled Bol. “I felt stuck.” One day, sitting outside Safe Haven Ministries—where she was receiving support for domestic abuse—Bol reached a breaking point. “I was crying out to God, asking him to literally show me the way,” said Bol.

Author Frank G. Honeycutt’s fascinating exploration of the connection between genealogy and theology takes readers into the lives of two of his ancestors and how their circumstances and actions influenced the person he became. In 1908, Honeycutt’s great-grandfather Sheriff Frank Honeycutt of Concord, N.C., reluctantly supervised the public execution of a Black man charged with raping a white girl, unsure of the man’s guilt.

As I Was Saying is a forum for a variety of perspectives to foster faith-related conversations among our readers with the goal of mutual learning, even in disagreement. Apart from articles written by editorial staff, these perspectives do not necessarily reflect the views of The Banner. As an Indigenous person, I’m familiar with the history of what Indigenous people have gone through since the early 1800s.

We trust that God’s purposes would be worked out in our lives, and we ask for the strength to release our own desires and be fully committed to the larger project of God’s kingdom. Editor’s note: This essay came in first place by blind judging for the 2026 Young Adults Writing Contest on the topic of “Sustaining Faith.” In the summer of 2024, I interned as a grant writer at Kingdom Causes Bellflower, a community development nonprofit in Bellflower, Calif.

We cannot survive without God’s own sustaining breath in our lungs. When I was young, I had asthma. During an asthma attack, my lungs got tight and heavy, and my throat felt like it was closing in on itself. You don’t realize how much you love breathing until you become conscious of the effort a single inhale can take. Though I was filled with panic as my lungs burned with every gasp of air, I was desperately grateful for each breath that followed.

We cannot survive without God’s own sustaining breath in our lungs. When I was young, I had asthma. During an asthma attack, my lungs got tight and heavy, and my throat felt like it was closing in on itself. You don’t realize how much you love breathing until you become conscious of the effort a single inhale can take. Though I was filled with panic as my lungs burned with every gasp of air, I was desperately grateful for each breath that followed.

In her captivating memoir, author Rachel Weaver describes what it’s like to live in “landlocked seasickness” as she did for most of her young-adult life. One part of her tried to maintain a relatively normal life; the other part of her was “crippled by fear in a world I couldn’t control.” Her brain seemed filled with thick fog, and her world felt like a continuous hurricane. Many different treatments were tried so the earth would stop tilting, but nothing worked.

Madison Street Worship, the musical arm of Gateway Church in Shelbyville, Tenn., offers a stirring nine-song live set titled, Who Is Like the Lord. “Our prayer is that this project would be an invitation for people to experience the presence of God and respond to him in worship,” said Harley Rowell in a press release. “That it would unite Jesus with his bride, the Church, and that it would be a sweet sound in his ear.” The album offers a balance of solid pop and ballads.

As Christian Reformed churches focus on multiplication through discipleship in conjunction with the denomination’s 10-year commitment, more are turning to one-on-one mentoring to prepare young people for profession of faith rather than relying primarily on a classroom-setting approach. Rick Zomer, a faith formation consultant with Thrive, the CRC's equipping ministry for congregations, said, “The classroom approach can make profession of faith feel formal and impersonal for a younger person.

For almost a decade as a youth pastor, one of my favorite games was six-way tug-of-war. Instead of one rope, you use three. The result is chaos. Everyone pulls as hard as they can, convinced they're moving in the right direction, but the whole group usually ends up spinning in circles. As I listened to conversations after Synod 2026—and later read The Banner’s discussion about who is now "in the driver's seat" of the CRC—I couldn’t stop thinking about that game.