I like giving and receiving gifts. My wife Lisa doesn’t. In my young stupid pride, I used to double down on gift giving opportunities, find something really creative to give to Lisa, perhaps a bit too expensive for our current budget and Lisa would be touched and moved but feel guilty that I was (in […]
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A recent news article caught my eye: a would-be bride caught her soon-to-be husband sexually assaulting an inebriated bridesmaid the day before the wedding. What astonished me even more was the last sentence of the article: friends of the couple “confirmed” that the ceremony went on as planned… My heart rejoices at the healing and […]
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We all have limited energy and our family deserves the best “us” we can offer in the midst of work and life in general. Part of protecting your marriage and your peace of mind so that you can devote yourself to loving your family involves learning how to protect yourself from the toxic people who […]
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If you adopt a wolverine and pour all your love into that animal; if you treat it like a puppy, hugging it and feeding it and playing with it; if you give it the very best care anyone has ever given to a wolverine, the day will still come when that wolverine will attack you, […]
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The point of walking away from toxic people is to walk toward reliable people, hopefully those whom God has supernaturally appointed to be touched in a special and powerful way, and who will be faithful to, in turn, reach others. It can sound arrogant to think that our time is so important or that we […]
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If you want freedom from toxic people, you have to learn how to be okay with others not being okay with you. Historically, I’ve been rather weak in this regard. I hate it when people aren’t okay with me. Even toxic people. That weakness gives them a power they don’t deserve and potential control that […]
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I want to make your life much easier, more joyful, less stressful, more productive, healthier, and richer relationally and spiritually. You up for that? I grew up in Washington State, famous for its rain in the West and its apples in the East (Washington produces about 2/3 of our nation’s apples grown for immediate consumption). […]
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After I had been hitting my head against a wall dealing with a toxic individual, asking myself “Why?” and “How do I fix this/handle this/deal with this?” a wise friend, Dr. Steve Wilke, dispensed some life-changing advice. He urged me not to deal with it but to simply walk away. “I want you to go […]
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I’ve been in several marathon training groups that begin meeting months before a marathon. It’s astonishing to see how a little bit of daily training takes very ordinary, often very unathletic people, and gently but steadily leads us to a place where we can start running twenty-six miles around breakfast time and finish sometime before […]
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An excerpt from Thirsting for God: Spiritual Refreshment for the Sacred Journey by Gary Thomas (Harvest House Publishers, 2011) Living in a Dying World: The Remembrance of Death When sportscaster Glenn Brenner died at the age of 44 in Wash- ington DC, the city was in shock for several days. Why? After all, the city […]
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