• Relationships & Peacemaking

    Wisdom re: Confrontation from Pastor Jack Miller

    I’m really enjoying The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller. Consider just a brief excerpt from a letter encouraging an elder who was needing to confront a member of the church regarding a sensitive topic: ‘In circumstances of high emotional intensity, I assume almost automatically that there have been some miscommunications and misapprehensions which need to be taken seriously. So I pray for wisdom to see what things may be heating up the situation unnecessarily and confusing communication.   One of the things that almost always turns up is a feeling of rejection in the person being counseled in a conflict situation. The presence of this feeling…

  • Eulogy for a Bad Mother,  How to Love a Mentally Ill Addict,  Redemptive Relationships,  Surviving a Childhood of Neglect and Abuse

    Back When I Really Didn’t Care if My Mother Went to Hell

    I usually share bits and pieces of my testimony whenever I speak at women’s retreats and conferences. (If you’re curious, you can hear my testimony, a Christmas keynote on “Peace at the Holidays,” and a bunch of other teachings for free on this “FREE AUDIO DOWNLOADS” page of my website.) And afterwards, I am almost always asked the same question: How did you ever START to build a real relationship with your (mentally ill, addict/drunk) mother who (sometimes intentionally but more often than not inadvertently) treated you so neglectfully / abusively / just downright terribly for so many years?  I have thought and prayed for YEARS about a blog series on this…

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  • Trauma Recovery

    #MeToo Recent Survivors of Assault? It Gets Better.

    Even on a normal day, I am not very active on social media, so “viral” things usually pass right by me, unnoticed. On Mondays, however? I am even LESS likely to notice something “out there” in the land of memes and hashtags, etc. because my Mondays are spent with a classroom full of teenagers discussing the topics that I assume you all know are easily the most favorites for teens: Philosophy of Theology, Epistemology, Worldview, and Apologetics. (If you think I’m kidding about how much teenagers love these topics, you are mistaken. Teenagers are natural philosophers! But back to my goal with this article …) Today I could not help but notice all of the…

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