The holidays are here! Are you thinking “Ho! Ho! Ho!” or “No! No! No!” Do you want to deck the next person who sings “Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly?” Is your “fight or flight” response on high alert? I know the feeling. Take a deep breath…you can do this. The key is strategy. … Read more
Winning the War In Your Mind by Craig Groeschel is spot-on with its subtitle: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life. If you’ve never heard of him, Groeschel is the founding and senior pastor of Life.Church, one of the largest churches in the world with multiple campuses. He’s a handsome, charismatic speaker and a best-selling author with … Read more
Three men are having a discussion. “I’m a pessimist,” says one. “I’m an optimist,” says the second. Both men turn to the third. “Which are you?” “Neither,” the third man replies. “I’m a peptimist.” The first man snorts. “A peptimist? What’s that?” “Well,” the third man explains, “A pessimist is someone who says ‘It can’t … Read more
Or, How to Transform a Poor Self-Image Becoming a Christian was the best decision I ever made, but it didn’t immediately remove all my problems. I was only 18 when I got saved, but I was already loaded with “habits, hurts and hangups,” to quote Celebrate Recovery. In just a few days I will be … Read more
Okay, first you need to understand I’m not dissing my mother. I love Mom and miss her dearly (she’s in heaven now). And I know she loved me. She was a first-rate Mom who did her very best to raise her kids right. But she lied to me. It wasn’t intentional. She was trying … Read more
Did you know that May is Mental Health Awareness Month? (It’s also the month I was born, but that’s not the topic of this post, so we’ll let that go.) According to the latest statistics from the World Health Organization, depression affected 264 million people worldwide in 2020. Most of them would have struggled even … Read more
So, how are you feeling? Fine? No, I mean really. How are you really? It’s okay if the honest answer is a reluctantly uttered “Depressed.” You’re not alone. Feeling Depressed? According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, 20.6% of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2019. That’s 51.5 million people, or 1 in … Read more
I’ve been a Christian for a long time…and for a long time I struggled with lots of issues. I read my Bible, went to church three times a week, crossed my t’s and dotted my i’s. I was doing everything I was supposed to…and yet something was missing. If you had told me “It’s all … Read more
When someone is recovering from a life-dominating issue, no matter what the problem may be, I believe they need to have what I call a Recovery Toolbox. In that Toolbox are all the resources they are using. What’s In Your Recovery Toolbox? The first item in your Toolbox needs to be a personal relationship with … Read more
I’ve always been a bookworm, so in my search for wholeness it was only natural that I would seek out books on the subject. I’ve found many that were helpful, and one of them is Healed Without Scars by David G. Evans. Evans, a Baptist pastor, knows firsthand about emotional wounding. When he was a child, … Read more