Learning to Grieve Your Losses in Spiritual Formation
What have you lost? Have you learned to grieve your losses? We might not like to think about that. We…
loss
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 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…
When You Become Your Spouse’s Caregiver
If your marriage has had a reasonable degree of closeness and love, when one spouse becomes ill it affects the…
10 Scriptures for the Journey Through Grief
Death hurts. A lot! The testimony of Scripture and of Christians during the last 2000+ years is that believing in…
How I Push Through the Holiday Blues
Holidays are supposed to be “happy and bright,” right? But every year I hear from people for whom the holiday…
Finding Purpose To Your Pain: How to Overcome Emotional Trauma Biblically
How do you walk towards healing after loss, abuse or some other traumatic situation? In this fascinating discussion with author…
How Your Troubles Lead to Transformation
Think back to the times you’ve made some significant step forward – overcoming a bad habit, developing a new skill,…
How to Receive Healing from God
We all need to receive healing from God. (And if you believe you’re the exception, you need an extra special…
A Widow’s First Year Alone
In some sense “widow’s first year alone” is deeply false. I’m not really alone. I never have been, and I…
What to do with Pain as a Widow: 2 Critical Keys
There’s no way to make death and grief OK. Death is an aberration in God’s universe, and every time we…
12 Things to do if you’re Lonely at Christmas
The Christmas holiday season is promoted as a time of togetherness. Families sometimes travel long distances to be with loved…
What is Victory in Spiritual Warfare?
If you don’t know what victory looks like, how will you know when you get there? In recent decades our…
How to Know God as your Husband
There’s that Scripture you know should mean more to you: “Your Maker is your husband.” (Isaiah 54:5) But you’re just…
When You Can’t Let Go after Your Spouse Leaves
Marriage is supposed to be forever! When you said “I do” you looked forward to joining your lives, building your…
How Getting Fired Can Become Priceless
I’ve only been fired once. It happened in one of the worst possible ways. The email arrived on a Sunday…
The Ministry of Presence: Being There
Sometimes you can tell somebody what they need to know. That feels good. Sometimes you can fix things for them.…
This Is NOT God’s Will
Bad things are happening – to people you know, to Christians here and in other places, and perhaps to you…
Do’s and Don’ts For When Your Spouse Is Depressed
God’s plan for marriage is that husband and wife be a support to each other in good times and in bad. When your spouse is struggling with depression you will likely need to draw on the full range of physical, emotional, and spiritual coping strategies in order to do so.
A few things to do and not to do that will help you remain sane, strong, and supportive:
How to Find the Freedom of Forgiveness
You’ve been wronged. Badly.
There comes a time after every such horrible wrong where you must make a decision. And it’s yours alone to make. You have only two choices. Do you remain hurt and miserable, or do the hard work of forgiveness.
Forgiveness sets you free. It does much more for the one doing the forgiving than the one needing to be forgiven.
Forgiveness is also one of the hardest things for most people to do. There’s a sweet misery in nursing your wounds. Having been hurt is a wonderful excuse for all kinds of bad behavior.
How A Christian Faces Trouble and Tragedy
We live in a world where there is no shortage of trouble. And that trouble often presents a great challenge to our faith.
Perhaps it’s a natural disaster. Then there is the almost unspeakable violence both near and far. Or perhaps it is your own private trauma. When trouble happens, it’s normal to ask questions: Why me?
In the face of unexpected tragedy, the challenge to faith is real. When trouble comes, here are three things to do:
When Broken Vows Break the Heart
Forsaking all others, keep yourself only for him (or her).” You said that, or something similar, in your marriage vows, didn’t…
Pain at Christmas
Christmas is a time for joy. Christmas is a time for joy.
May I remind you of something we often forget: The very first Christmas was one of great pain.
Married – and Lonely
My heart has been breaking. I’m sure it’s nothing new, but I’m hearing it a lot lately. Middle-aged and older women who are married – and desperately lonely.
As a gynecologist I’ve heard these sad comments from women I’ve seen just in the past couple weeks.
Don’t let that happen to you! Here are a few suggestions:
