- Hope in Suffering, How to Love a Mentally Ill Addict, Redeeming Church Conflicts, Redemptive Relationships, Relationships & Peacemaking, Surviving a Childhood of Neglect and Abuse
Sticking with People is Frustrating … You Will Suffer Pain if You are Committed to People
What a contrast in articles! The first is what I would charitably characterize as a, well, not very gracious, thoughtful, or helpful article on why every woman should “ditch the guilt” dropping her little baby off with the “professionals” because staying home with young children can “drive you bonkers,” “give you a back problem and a brain ache,” and women “just need more.” (If you’re really interested, you can read it here, but I think there are far better articles “out there” that graciously and intelligently address this important wisdom issue. And I do think it is a wisdom issue—so discernment, humility, and love are required when we talk about…
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Don’t Kid Yourself — Parents Die
(A repost from 2013.) Thanks to my astoundingly generous sister, I have had an iPhone for one year now. She bought it for me mostly because it was the same cost as renting a GPS for me for one of my events that required me to drive—and she knows that I am the MOST spatially-confused human on the planet. I get lost in my own neighborhood, more or less navigating in a new, large city. Sixteen lanes of 75 mph traffic doesn’t bother me—I am a confident and competent driver—but trying to be “in my map” and figure out whether I’m supposed to turn left or right? Well. It’s…
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Church Youth Group: The second most likely place for childhood abuse (!!)
Well. It’s the time again. Let’s talk about where your children are most likely to be sexually abused. Today I read an article from a pediatrician citing church youth group as the second most common place that her patients are sexually abused. (And she sees 1-2 children per week who have been sexually abused!!) This makes me sick. This makes me angry. And this make me long to try to encourage you all, once again, to (please oh please!) stop pretending that children are not at risk in your church. I have been writing on this topic for years. I have been encouraging you, pleading with you, to become better informed by reading excellent, excellent resources…
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Friend – Prayer Group FOLLOW-UP
Nancy asked some great questions in a comment: “Where do you meet with this group? Just curious…homes? restaurants? and how long do the meetings last? Who takes care of the kids?” I wish I had thought to answer them in the first post! 🙂 Here are my responses: – We meet in a home—often the home of the mother with a newborn/young kids, but not always. The very, very first time my very, very first friend-prayer group met (ten years ago!), we met in a restaurant ONCE and then in a private home from then on: – We usually meet for around 90 minutes, but sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. Depends…
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How to Be a Difference Maker In Your Church
I have a friend who is, well, just a solid gold gift of wonderfulness. She is! Even Fred said to me last night, “People have no idea what a gift our church has in (well, let’s call her) Mary.” (“Mary” would be quite embarrassed if she read her own name in this blog.) Mary is one of those wise, gentle, funny, insightful, smart, godly, Christ-centered, careful-thinkers and careful-speakers that MAN! We really need in our churches. Mary is also very quiet, single, works an incredibly important and intense job, and doesn’t get too involved in “stuff” at the church. (Even though she is devoted to the church and serves and…
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99.9999999999% Sure Our Friends Won’t Sexually Abuse You
[From the archives …] I had to go back to Sophia this week to apologize and clarify something … In our “Safe Side Super Chick” and “Right Touch” discussions, we have often talked about why, as a general family rule, we don’t “do” sleepovers. It is a high-risk situation for children and if we don’t know, really know, and trust, really trust, the family, then we just don’t do it. It doesn’t matter that they are members of our church with whom we have only ever had positive interactions. It doesn’t matter if we think they’re wonderful, kind, fabulous people who by all appearances seem to be the sort of people who…
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The Most Scared I Have Ever Been in my Entire Life
On the drive home from church today, my ten year-old daughter asked me when I was the most scared in my entire life. I thought for a moment and then I replied that the saddest I had ever been was when our second child died on that fateful Easter afternoon in 2007 and then when my best friend, my mother, passed away in 2012. But the most scared? Hmmmm. For that I had to dig back to two childhood memories. The first was when the MCHS (Morris Community High School) principal sent a runner to pull me out of my junior-level physics class because my sister was calling from the University of Chicago, frantic, because…
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The Post-It Notes I Scribbled the Day Before My Mother Died
[From the archives. A few weeks after my mother died in December of 2012.] I finally dragged myself out of bed yesterday to tackle some of the dust bunnies (really Golden Retriever bunnies) that have accumulated in our bedroom and when I was swiffering out under our bed, the following note scritched its way off of our hardwood floor: “More out of it. Wheezing. Declined a LOT today. On morphine and ativan for comfort. Flailing arms–a sign of breathing problems. Death is imminent. Deep, deep decline. Inserted a foley catheter because she can’t get out of bed any more. Can you come right away?” Yes. It was the scrap of…
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All the Graces of Christianity Connected
I first heard the terms “charitable presumption” and “charitable judgment” from Ken Sande, founder of RelationalWisdom360. But I first experienced repeated charitable presumptions and judgments in my relationship with my husband, Fred. Fred is a man who embodies 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. In his excellent (must read!) article, Charitable Judgments: An Antidote to Judging Others, Ken Sande teaches…
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Vandalizing Shalom
From one of my favorite books … C. Plantinga’s, Not The Way It’s Supposed to Be–A Breviary of Sin: “None of our lives is an accident. We have been called into existence, expected, awaited, equipped, and assigned. We have been called to undertake the stewardship of a good creation, to create sturdy and buoyant families that pulse with the glad give-and-take of the generations. By the sins of attack, we vandalize shalom. By the sins of flight we abandon it. We ‘hate the light and do not come to the light’ (John 3:20). [BUT!] Don’t forget the resolve of God. God wants shalom and will pay any price to get it…
