colleen ma

Choosing joy, serving the ones I love. Enjoying the noise that surrounds me.

[Brad Stulberg @BStulberg]

Norway consistently wins the most medals at the Winter Olympic Games, with a population of just 5.6 million people.

A big part of their success is how they treat youth sports—and it’s the opposite of what we do in the US. Here’s what we can learn from Norway:

1. Scorekeeping:

In the US: Youth sports tend to be hyper competitive even at early ages. Leagues almost always keep score.

In Norway: Scorekeeping isn’t even allowed until age 13.

Removing winners and losers keeps the focus on the process not outcomes. It keeps kids engaged longer because it minimizes pressure (and tears) and maximizes fun, learning, and growth. The goal isn’t to win a third grade championship. It’s to love sport and keep playing.

2. Trophies:

In the US: If you give everyone a trophy, you’re creating snowflakes who will never gain a competitive edge.

In Norway: Whenever trophies are awarded, they are handed out to everyone.

If getting a trophy makes young kids feel good, we should give them trophies. Maybe they’ll come back and play again next year!!

As for the creation of snowflakes with no competitive edge—Norway’s athletes are tough as nails and all they do is win.

3. Prioritizing Fun:

In the US: Far too often, the goal is to win.

In Norway: The national philosophy is “joy of sport.”

Youth sports in the US are driven by adults, ego, and money. Youth sports in Norway are driven by fun.

Only half of kids in the US participate in sports. The number one reason they drop out: because they aren’t having fun anymore. In Norway, 93% of kids participate in youth sports. Fun is the foremost goal.

4. Playing Multiple Sports:

In the US: There’s pressure to specialize early and play your best sport year round.

In Norway: Try as many sports as you can before specializing as late as college.

Norway encourages kids to try all types of sport. This reduces injury and burnout and increases all-around athleticism. It also helps promotes match quality, or finding the sport you are best suited for as your body develops, which is impossible if you commit to a single sport too early.

5. Affordability

In the US: There is increasingly a pay-to-play model with high fees for leagues, equipment, and travel. This excludes many kids from playing.

In Norway: It’s a national priority to keep youth sports affordable and therefore accessible for all.

Kids aren’t priced out, which creates opportunities for everyone to participate (and develop into athletes), regardless of their parents’ income level.

We could learn a lot from Norway:

In the US, 70% of kids drop out of youth sports by age 13. This not only diminishes an elite-athlete pipeline, but it also destroys an opportunity for healthy habits and all the character lessons kids can learn from sport.

In Norway, lifelong participation in sport is the norm. The goal isn’t to have the best 9U team. It’s to develop the best athletes. Those are two very different things. And Norway has the gold medals to prove it.

[AJ Inapi (Allan) @aj_inapi]

When I see Team USA freestyle skiers saying ICE does not represent them, my mind goes back to 2012.

Seventy-six of us - Papua New Guinean students - arrived in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Thousands of miles from home. Different weather, different culture, different everything.
That first night, during dinner, one of our own stood up and sang our national anthem.

Grown men and women cried.
Not because life was easy - but because we knew what it meant to represent your country far from home.

We were carrying our people, our families, our land with us - quietly, respectfully, proudly.

That’s why this hurts to watch.

These athletes live in the most developed country on Earth. They train in world-class facilities. They enjoy freedoms and protections most humans will never experience.
Yet when they step onto the global stage, they find it easy - almost fashionable - to trash the country that gave them everything.

Every nation has flaws. Every government has problems.
But the global stage is not the place to air domestic political grievances.

I remember @GavinNewsom at Davos. Same issue.
What happens at home should stay at home.
Abroad, the American brand should be unified - not fractured for applause.

Then there’s Billie Eilish - living in a mansion, private security, completely insulated from everyday reality - proudly chanting “ICE out.”

Let me offer perspective.

In America, you dial 911. Police, fire, ambulance show up - minutes, maybe hours.

In Papua New Guinea?
There is no 911.
In rural areas, there is often zero police presence.
Murderers, rapists, violent criminals live in the same communities as their victims.
If something happens, you either find a police station - or defend yourself. Sometimes you just say goodbye to your loved ones.

That’s not theory. That’s life for millions.

In America, you don’t even have to leave your house.
Food shows up. Packages show up. Transportation shows up.
You drive or walk to a polling booth. Ballot boxes arrive easily. Voter registration is accessible.

In PNG - a country that’s 80% rural - people carry ballot boxes on foot, climbing mountains, crossing rivers, just to vote.
Services don’t reach the people - but the ballot boxes do.

And still, people complain.

As much as Americans may struggle - your reality is the lifelong dream of millions who will never experience it. Not once. Not ever. Not even for a generation.

When you stand on the world stage, fly your flag with humility and pride.
Critique your country at home if you must - but don’t forget how rare, how privileged, how blessed your position truly is.

Some of us know what it means to represent a nation - because we come from places where survival isn’t guaranteed, and opportunity isn’t assumed.

And we still sing our anthem with tears in our eyes.

To conclude, as mentioned above, in PNG services rarely or if not ever reaches the rural populace but they consider it their civic duty to vote when the ballot boxes reaches them. Knowing full well that one day, their vote will help secure their children and grandchildren's futures.

What excuse do you have for sitting out the primaries and the midterms?

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

@itsrosesm Hazel for one, Estelle for the other. Both such lovely names

[Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives @dom_lucre]

🔥🚨BREAKING: Chevrolet is getting a lot of positivity online after releasing a powerful Christmas ad about the Nuclear American Family dynamic which is a strong change from Woke culture that Americans have become accustomed to.

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

Sorry Canada #WorldSeries #Anthem

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

Ate Chicago deep dish pizza at Navy Pier, Lake Michigan. #ItIsAGoodDay

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

Ate a Chicago hot dog at The Bean. #ItIsAGoodDay

[New York Yankees @Yankees]

Thank you to 2x World Series Champion and 1978 World Series MVP Bucky Dent for throwing out tonight's ceremonial 1st pitch! 🙌

[Pastor Rich Bitterman @w_bitterman]

The Cross Still Offends

The bullet tore the air in half.

A folding chair rattled. A Bible dropped. A young man slumped sideways beneath a white event tent, eyes wide with the weight of eternity.

It was supposed to be a conversation. A “prove me wrong” segment. But this time, rebuttal came not with words, but with a rifle.

Charlie Kirk didn’t get to finish his sentence.

I got the news just before prayer meeting. I contemplated this death as I prepared to lead the saints in prayer. But I didn’t feel like praying. Not tonight. My hands were still. My mouth was ready. But my soul was pacing. Angry. Grieving. Tempted.

Tempted to grow quiet.
Tempted to sit this one out.
Tempted to wonder if any of this, faith, boldness, public gospel witness, is still worth it.

Because hatred in this country isn’t simmering anymore. It is boiling.

Europe is trembling. Israel is burning. Rockets lit the sky over Gaza again. And now, here on American soil, the blood of a Christian apologist paints the pavement of a university quad.

What do you do with that?

What do you say when courage gets gunned down in daylight?

Charlie Kirk was no perfect man. None of us are.

But he had backbone where most of us don’t anymore. He was a believer. Unashamed. Unafraid. He understood that real conversations only happen when truth is welcome at the table. And the truth he carried most was Christ.

He brought the gospel into public space on purpose. Because the gospel isn’t supposed to stay in church basements and private Bible studies. It is meant to confront. It is supposed to offend. It was not made for safety.

The Word became flesh and they nailed Him to a tree.

So of course they came for Charlie.

Of course they reached for a gun.

This is what evil does when it runs out of arguments. It doesn’t reason. It kills.

That’s the part that catches in my throat. Not just the sadness, but the strategy of hell behind it.

The Enemy wants us afraid.

He wants us to see what happened to Charlie and backpedal.

He wants the rest of us to whisper, to soften the message, to believe the lie that faith should stay private.

But Christ never whispered.

He preached in temples, on hillsides, in courtrooms, at dinner tables.

And when they told Him to be quiet, He picked up His cross.

Not a symbolic one.
A real one.
Heavy. Bloody. Splintered.

When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” He didn’t hand out maps. He handed out crosses.

That’s what I remembered tonight.

I sat in our prayer space, surrounded by saints who had brought prayer lists and worn Bibles. And I realized I didn’t want to lead them in mourning. I didn’t want to lead them in mourning. I wanted to lead them into battle. Not with banners or fists, but with open Bibles and tear-stained prayers.

The kind of war that kneels in gravel beside the wounded, hands them living water, and refuses to leave. The kind that speaks both mercy and judgment without flinching. The kind Charlie died for.

This world is not a friend to grace. But grace isn’t fragile.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

Paul didn’t leave that question unanswered.

“Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”
—Romans 8:35

He piles up every fear you and I carry and then sets them on fire.

“No. In all these things we are more than conquerors.”

That means bullets don’t win. Slander doesn’t win. Prison bars don’t win. Death doesn’t win.

You can lose everything in this world and still walk into glory with your head lifted high. Because the love of God in Christ Jesus isn’t suspended by headlines or gunfire.

There are two worlds unfolding right now.

The one you see.
And the one you don’t.
One is filled with chaos. The other is filled with crowns.

I believe that when Charlie Kirk’s body slumped to the concrete, his soul stood upright in heaven. Not limping. Not silenced. Not stunned. But crowned.
He didn’t fall.
He crossed.

The great cloud of witnesses gained another voice.
And I wonder if Stephen met him there.

The first martyr.

The man who got stoned for preaching what the crowd didn’t want to hear.

The man who, in his final breath, saw the heavens open.
The only time in all of Scripture we see Jesus standing at the right hand of God, rising to receive one of His own.

I like to believe He stood again.

Are you afraid?

Do you feel the tremble in your spirit?

Do you wonder if it’s still worth it to speak boldly, to carry your Bible, to preach the gospel in a world that doesn’t just disagree but wants you gone?

You’re not alone.
You’re not weak for feeling that.
But you are called to something stronger than silence.

Don’t let fear become your theology.

The cost is high. But the reward?

The reward is Christ. And He’s not a concept. He’s a King.
Heaven is not empty.

It is filled with scarred saints who refused to bow to fear.
Men who were stoned.
Women who were burned.
Children who sang while the flames climbed.

And every last one of them arrived.

There is no difficulty that can cancel the promise of God.

There is no persecution that can derail your destination.
There is no sniper’s bullet that can separate a soul from Christ.

Your life is not measured by how long you live on earth, but by how much of it was spent pointing to heaven.

Paul said, “I have fought the good fight… I have kept the faith.”

Then he looked toward the reward.
Not a monument. Not a mention in history books.
But a crown.
Handed to him by the One with nail marks still in His hands.

So let me say this clearly.
We do not mourn like the world mourns.
We do not write eulogies dripping with sentiment.
We sing songs of resurrection.
We carry the banner of a Kingdom that does not tremble.

Charlie Kirk did not die for nothing.

He died carrying the same message you and I must now carry forward.

The cross stands tall.
The tomb is still empty.
And the gospel has not lost one ounce of power.

So pick up your cross.
Wipe your eyes.
And keep going.

The crown is worth it.
The King is coming.
And there’s still time to speak.

Even if they shoot.

Lord, give us courage.
And if not safety, give us joy.
For we carry not just the message, but the marks.
And You are worth every bruise.

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

@seanfeucht So much swearing; thankfully, not by Superman, but I thought that puts it out of reach for tweens.

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

The international terminal at the airport is the best - reunions are so beautiful! #HappyToDoAirportRuns

[Christine Caine @ChristineCaine]

You’re doing better than you think. You’ve come further than you thought. You can carry more than you imagined. You are healing faster than you’d expected. Your future is brighter than you hoped. Your mistakes are not fatal. Your purpose is not thwarted. Your gifts are not useless Your past is not your future. Their opinion of you does not define you. Their words over you don’t have to shape you. They might have missed you but Jesus sees and knows you. Hs plans for you are greater than you expected. His love for you is beyond your comprehension. His grace is sufficient for you.

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

@redrobinburgers it seems like we broke the internet today. Tried to get a burger pass. #ItWouldHaveBeenYummy

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

@BirrelleBee @EM_RESUS Wow! That is much faster than I realized it should be. I need to take a new class! Thanks

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

My gift this morning. #Thankful

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

@garonnevik 34 years here - thanks for sharing.

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

This is beautiful and true. #MarriedForMoreThanHalfMyLife

[Gretchen Ronnevik @garonnevik]

Soybean harvest should finish this week. Then it's onto the corn. They're working at an intense speed--I can't remember a harvest that has gone so hard and fast. I miss him so much it hurts. I've been writing a bunch about my husband lately, and he jokes that he hopes to live up to the man I present him to be on here. I don't say anything untrue, but I do only share the good stuff.

And I was thinking yesterday, after a conversation with one of my young single friends, that an occasional disclaimer is warranted--that things are not always as they seem. We have gone through some hard times in our marriage. Years of hard times. The farm is far from idyllic. There are times when I have cried that I hate it, I want to leave it. It's become a couple times of year, actually.

And it's not the farm of your great grandparents during the depression, and I cry over a failed crop. It's not that at all. It's the relentlessness of it. It's the way it sucks my husband in, and keeps him far from me. It's like if my husband had to watch me give birth each year, walk through a pregnancy each year, and the toll that would take on a marriage over 20 years. That's what it's like to be married to a farmer. Think back to the Garden of Eden, and the promises made to male and female after the fall. I have my battles. He has his.

It's the complexity of what a family farm does to the extended family relationships, and the toll that takes on every holiday, on church on Sunday, and the weight of the history of those relationships.

Mothers post the happy baby pictures, but not the sleepless nights. I post our happy pictures, and our beautiful highlights, because as I'm scrolling or looking back, that's what I want to hang onto.

Because the truth is, I've almost left my husband more than once. We've had our hard times. We married young, and we've had years of immaturity, that grew into dysfunctional habits, and recovering childhood hurts, and seasons of counseling, and we did it together and it was wonderful and awful.

And I don't have any trick, or advice, and we didn't just get lucky. What happened was God was faithful to me, and God was faithful to him, and as a couple we've embraced the painful theology of the cross together and now we are in currently a season of laughter.

We are in a season of laughter because we have been through it and have seen the faithfulness of God firsthand. We have seen that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Every attempt of Satan feels funny now. I cannot imagine a scenario where he would abandon us.

We are giddy with grace, cracking jokes, appropriate and inappropriate. Becoming theologians of the cross and embracing the reality of suffering, and learning to call things what they are has made us lavish with grace for each other.

I just wanted to say that. I didn't just get lucky. We aren't that great. God has just been faithful to us.

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

@PandaExpress and @Dodgers thank you for a yummy season! #Dodgerswin for a good deal.

[colleen ma @mrsma1990]

What a night! @Dodgers