Mary curled her baby sister into her chest as she turned her into the well wall, sheltering them from the stones being hurled at them from outside. She had just watched her parents brutally killed with machetes. “I will never forget the fear I felt as one of my captors slid down a rope into the well with us. It was then that reality was…
As I packed up my home of 17 to years to relocate, I realized just how much stuff I had accumulated over the years. I knew I had some clutter, but I wasn’t a pack rat — was I? In psychology, we talk about the Johari Window. The window allows us to recognize that we all have blindspots. Sometimes others see what we fail to…
Three days ago, I sat with my grandmother who was struggling to find peace. She wanted to talk but couldn’t. I tried singing with her, and she’d say, “Let me sing. Let me sing.” She then quickly got frustrated because her mouth would not cooperate. She was getting restless when I said, “Grandma, this Sunday is Easter. Let’s read the Easter story.” I then picked…
While millions of people suffer with bipolar disorder, there are even more struggling because they want to help, but don’t know how. I wish had a simple formula, a list of do’s and don’t’s to give you, but sadly there is not an easy answer. Several years ago, I wrote When Someone You Love is Manic to offer some suggestions for people who want to help…
Have you ever played Jenga? The object of the game is to pull out block after block from a stack seeing how long the structure can stand before tumbling down. No matter how often I play, I still jump when the tower falls. Too often this is what I see in modern relationships. Boy meets girl. They date. They “fall in love.” They talk about…
I am challenged yearly to choose one verse to pray over my family for the year. Last year I prayed Isaiah 26:3 which says, “The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in You.” Little did I know that we would start the year with hardship and loss. In January, Jeff fell and tore his patella tendon and had major surgery…