Some stories begin with a quiet ache. Mine began with a slam, the sound of dishes, doors, and dignity hitting hard surfaces. For most of my life, anger was the air I breathed. A turbulent relationship with my mother and severe childhood trauma hardened into an...
Have you ever felt you weren’t enough? Enough for your parents, enough for your spouse, enough for your friends, even enough for God or yourself? The longing to be enough can often lead us to search for our worth and value in achievements or in relationships. The...
…but no one could heal her.” ( Luke 8:43) NIV Have you ever been in a place of painful uncertainty, desperate for answers? I have. And I have desperately wanted to be in a much different place. Uncertainty can be such a lonely place, but isn’t it a space...
Dysfunctions tumble down through the generations, “piggybacking” on each other. Some of us have been victims of multigenerational tidal waves of dysfunction. To whatever degree you’ve been negatively affected by family dysfunction, I want you to know: It didn’t start...
The previous conversation left us wanting, for its definition of hope turned out to be mere wishful thinking. It offered no surety, no rescue from despair. So, is there more? Yes, there is more. We have another definition of hope. Used in a spiritual context,...
What is hope? What have you heard about it? What do you think it is? Sometimes it seems hope is offered as a vague antidote to suffering, leading to more questions than answers. “Just have hope!” people say. Is it a magic medicine that cures all ills? Or,...
It was May 13, 1999. I hung up the phone with my dad, sobbing in confusion and shock over the news he had just given me. My brother was gone. He had taken his life after a long battle with depression. I couldn’t fully process the reality of his death and I didn’t have...
"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is...
We’ve all heard of “blind trust,” of stepping forward in faith, believing what lies ahead is better than what we’re leaving behind. Faith is easy to define, but never easy to live out. I think of the Israelites being led out of Egypt and into the desert. Surely...