Feb 19
What are your fighting against these days? Cancer? Addiction? Depression? Discouragement? Or what are you fighting for? Your marriage? A wayward loved one? Improved finances? Restored health? Well, as the Brits like to say: Seriously. Keeping calm in the face of impending disaster actually is a recurring message throughout the Bible. As the Israelites …
Feb 05
When I was in the hospital after my cancer surgery, a friend came into my room with a big smile and announced: “God is going to teach you great things through this trial!” I wanted to take the IV out of my arm, stab it in hers, and tell her, “You get in the …
Dec 18
If only I hadn’t missed that one little step on the deck, fallen and broken my wrist fourteen months ago. If only that tumble didn’t cause a nerve injury, greatly impeding my recovery and still needing prescription pain relief. If only all the trauma didn’t bring on tachycardia, requiring a complete cardiac workup and lifestyle …
Nov 13
Illness helps you sort out who your real friends are. Often people you never realized cared for you step up and provide incredible support. And then there are those on whom you counted but they fail to come through for you. My friend Kristie expected to get some words of healing and blessing when she …
Oct 30
I know many of you have suspected this about me for quite some time. Certainly my husband has. But now it’s confirmed in black-and-white. I have a screw loose. In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you that this is not an x-ray of my loose screw. There wasn’t time to get a copy …
Oct 16
So how are you feeling today? Happy? Frustrated? Overwhelmed? Popular psychology tells us that feelings are “neither right nor wrong.” But I want to tell you that feelings do not necessarily mirror the facts. I witnessed this firsthand a few years ago when my husband and I headed out with my boss, Dr. Marc …
Sep 25
Have the trials of life caused you to doubt God? Are you wondering why He hasn’t shown up in answer to your fervent prayers? “Doubt rises up to obscure His presence and disillusionment settles into despair,” writes Dr. James Dobson in When God Doesn’t Make Sense. “The greatest frustration is knowing that (God) created the …
Sep 11
I distinctly remember the last time my family and I went tent camping…and why we never did again after that experience. It was the summer of 1983 and my pastor-husband convinced me that it would be fun for our daughters and me to join him on the youth group camping trip. So I packed up …
Jul 03
Twenty-nine years ago if I had heeded this quote from the creator of Peanuts, I could have saved myself many sleepless nights. I was pretty consumed back then with trying to figure out how a healthy-eating-and-exercising-mom in her thirties could get cancer. Especially colon cancer for crying out loud! Colonoscopies aren’t even recommended for the …
May 22
I’m pretty sure the only thing “small” about Mother Teresa’s life was her stature. Nearly 50 years of sacrificially serving the “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for” hardly seems to qualify as doing “small things.” But there’s certainly no doubt that this diminutive nun, honored in 1979 with the Nobel Peace Prize, was …
