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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Lisa and I enjoyed a respite from Houston’s heat and humidity in mid-August after I taped a couple shows for Focus on the Family (on the upcoming When to Walk Away: Finding Freedom from Toxic People) and we drove out to Glenwood Springs, Colorado for a few extra days. Lisa’s ideal vacation means five or […]
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Emily and William were deeply in love fifteen years and three children ago, but time and responsibility have taken their toll. “In the end, we’re different people who want different things. I’m just not sure we can make it work anymore,” Emily said, and William nodded in agreement. The cynical side of me wanted to […]
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When a couple you love is going through a marital crisis, both spouses giving you two entirely different accounts of what is happening and begging you for your insight… When a child has prayed and prayed and God hasn’t seemed to answer that prayer and they ask you what to do… When your spouse needs […]
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It’s been exactly a year since Lisa went into surgery to have her tumor removed. That morning, she told me she wanted two things. First, she wanted me holding her hand and praying for her as she was taken away, and second, she wanted to wake up from sedation without the breathing tube still in […]
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To understand how difficult it is to be married to a certain kind of person, you need to know that the Bible was written in a desert. The Promised Land is described as a place of “milk and honey” but even the most generous of geographers would call it “arid.” Average temperatures run in the […]
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A friend of mine is a medical doctor who has held the beating heart of a living person in his hands. That blows me away. I can’t even imagine that kind of responsibility. But here’s the thing: every husband has his wife’s “spiritual heart” beating in his hands every day. Our wives make themselves just […]
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She looked like a new woman. My coworkers marveled when they finally realized that this was the same woman who had come to see me some weeks ago. The difference was that stark. The first time we had met she felt beaten down. She could hardly speak three sentences without reaching for another Kleenex. But […]
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