5 Ways to Befriend Your Feelings as a Follower of Jesus
Feelings are fickle. They’re real, but they’re unreliable. Emotions can be affected by everything happening both inside you and around…
Overcoming Hardship
From Hurt to Whole: The Power of Making the Choice to Heal
Time alone does not heal all wounds. Healing does not simply happen to you. God rarely “rains” healing down on…
From Temptation to Triumph: Designing Your Personal Escape Plan
Whatever your personal brand of “stuff,” especially sexual “stuff,” you can be sure you will be tempted again. The process…
How Your Sexual Story Affects Your Mental Health
We live in an epidemic of mental/emotional health issues. There are many factors involved, and it’s impossible to completely differentiate…
Three Steps to Becoming Whole After Being Sexually Harmed
Nobody wakes up one day and says, “Today I want to mess up.” You have a story. You came to…
What’s Your Story – Your Sexual Story?
Yes, you have a sexual story. Some of that story may be good, even very good. But if “good” described…
What to Do About the Three Kinds of Suffering
You are suffering. Surprise! Welcome to the human race. And of course that’s not at all reassuring. Our culture trains…
The Practice of Being Grateful For in a Difficult Season in 2023
The fourth Thursday of November is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. And that’s today! As good-for-the-soul as food, family,…
Five Key Elements in the Process of Becoming Sexually Whole
Many of the people I talk with wish God would just “zap” them from their current state of misery and…
An Apology from the One Who Hurt You as a Man or a Woman
Who do you need an apology from? Who has wounded you? Our deepest hurts often come from those we “should”…
How You – and God – can Deal With Painful Regrets
Do you know anyone over 30 who has absolutely no regrets? I don’t. There’s stuff you experienced that you wish…
Boundaries and Freedom: Embracing What You Can and Can’t Do
You are not God. You are not all-powerful. Sometimes that’s a revelation; you are not the center of the universe.…
Three Characteristics of Toxic Religion
Do you ever get a queasy feeling when thinking about your church or ministry experiences? OK, you’re “supposed” to connect…
When God Feels Distant: Nurturing Faith in the Absence of Answers
This world is messy and often confusing. How do you handle things when life is difficult? Sometimes you’re not seeing…
How’s Your Soul Doing, Really?
At breakfast with a friend recently I asked her, “How’s your soul doing?” That led to conversation about some really…
The 3 “C’s” of Growing in Sexual Wholeness
Time for a reality check. If you haven’t sensed it already you soon will; your growing in sexual wholeness (or…
What to Do When God’s “Truth” and Your Experience Collide
You “know” what’s right. Or you’re pretty sure you do. Then why does it feel so – wrong? Your head,…
How Sex Has Lost its Glory: Intimacy Gone Wrong
God created you for something good, a level of goodness we can only begin to imagine now. He built into…
Beyond Bad Behavior: Get From Sobriety to Recovery to Redemption
Every addiction is a whole-person “disease.” The “thing” might be alcohol, pornography, sex, gambling, video games, or a multitude of…
When You’re Not Sure You Want to be (Sexually) Whole
Jesus asked a question we may sometimes think strange. He asked the man who had been lame for 38 years,…
Three Things to Do With Your Messy Sexual Story
Every single day, no exceptions, I hear from people struggling. Men and women, married and unmarried, young and old, from…
What Were You Even Created For?
If you woke up this morning feeling that everything in your world is better-than-good and you’re fully satisfied, this article…
Looking at Your Story Around Sex and Intimacy with Honesty and Compassion
Whenever I begin a relationship with a new coaching client I ask, “How did we get here? What’s your story?”…
When Nothing You’re Doing Makes You Satisfied
I would add something to one of the lists in Proverbs: “Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough”:…
How to Celebrate Christmas When Life is Hard – Anyway
You have problems, and it might seem impossible to truly celebrate Christmas when things are this hard. But I’m quite…
How to Plan Your Way Through the Holiday Blues
I love the Christmas season, but it hasn’t always been that way. Some Christmases have been really really hard. I…
How to Experience Getting Your Validation From God
From very soon after you were born you have been looking for validation. Do you see me? Am I OK?…
How to Experience God in Your Tomorrow: a Theology of Hope
Consider what you’re anxious about. Your logical left brain may say, “I’m not anxious! I just want to be prudent.”…
How to Experience God’s Presence in Your Past Trauma
We’ve all experienced “stuff.” No one comes through life unscathed. What’s in your bucket of stuff is different from what’s…
How Past Intimacy Gone Wrong may Harm Your Marriage Now
Your marriage didn’t start with a blank slate when it comes to intimacy. You may think your spouse is the…
Five Warning Signs Your Marriage is Headed for an Affair
Breaking your marriage vows, especially for a follower of Jesus, doesn’t begin by waking up one morning and deciding to…
Fully Alive Marriage: It’s Not What You Think
If you’re single, perhaps you imagine a Fully Alive marriage as one where your spouse anticipates your needs and fulfills…
Your Life Through the Lens of the Need for Intimacy
God created you with the need, desire, and capacity for intimacy. What have you done with that need for intimacy?…
The Most Overlooked Obstacle to Maturity and Wholeness
We are an impatient people. Our contemporary culture has fueled our natural human tendency to go for instant gratification. We…
What It Looks Like to be FOR Your Relationship
Deeper than any specific words or actions is the position from which both you and your spouse come to your…
The Primary Purpose for which God Created Marriage
This is not what you signed up for. The things you expected marriage to be turned out to be wrong,…
10 Scriptures for Overcoming Fear and Anxiety
You know the Bible says “Don’t be afraid.” But sometimes anxious thoughts and feelings seem to overtake your heart and…
God Has an Answer for Your Fear and Anxiety
You’ve prayed. Maybe you’ve fasted, and cried, and asked others to pray for you. But the swirling thoughts and anxious…
To the Husband Blindsided by Your Wife
You’d have given your marriage a 7 or 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. You might prefer more…
Your Brain CAN Change
When I went through medical school back in the “dark ages” we were told that 50% of what we learned…
How to Build a Life of Resilience Against Stress
Resilience allows a tree to bend in the wind instead of breaking. It’s what an athlete cultivates in order to…
Stressed or Anxious About Your Marriage?
“Well, YES!” That’s kind of a given, right? Marriage hooks you to another sinner physically, emotionally, financially, even spiritually. Your…
What do Unafraid, Worry-Free People Know that You Don’t?
You don’t want a completely stress-free life. Not really. But don’t some people seem to handle it better than others?…
How to Celebrate Easter in a Time of Turmoil
This weekend is what many Christians consider the holiest time of the year. We remember and celebrate the event on…
What Trusting God IS and What it ISN’T
Your head probably says that trusting God is a good idea. But trust is not only a decision, though it…
How Can You Trust God When His People Let You Down
On a good day the best part of your intellect may agree that God can be trusted. But consider your…
Is Marriage Worth the Struggle?
Yesterday I had a long talk with a couple whose marriage almost ended. After some serious bad behavior they separated…
Good and Not so Good Reasons to Leave Your Church
Over the last few weeks I’ve heard from many of you who have experienced church hurt. Such wounds usually come…
Three Things You Need to Recover from Church Hurt
“Raise your hand if you have not been hurt in church.” Just this week I heard a friend of mine…
To Those Who Have Been Hurt in Church
Church hurt is real. There’s no use pretending it’s an anomaly or that true followers of Jesus should simply forgive,…
