Last week I was talking with my dear friend, Debbie, and she asked me to write about unconditional love and good shame messages. Debbie wanted to hear more about how these two principles are not in conflict, although we often walk them out as if they are. The “I have to be nice” lie It’s […]
Musings with Jesus On Credibility
A while back I wanted to explain something to someone important to me and they refused to listen. I honored their refusal, though it hurt me. Later I realized that the message I “heard” was, “I don’t want you to explain, because you don’t have any credibility with me.” While writing in my journal the […]
Greg’s Story–Sequel to "Learning Authentic Love"
As I promised, here are Greg’s own words about his short adventure with incarceration. Written in 2006 for my parenting book, Handbook to Joy-Filled Parenting, Greg’s courage to make his story public has already helped parents rearing teens. I hope it will continue to help many–as we all grow in our journey of learning unconditional love. […]
Learning Authentic/Unconditional Love
I love Jesus. I love to read. Also, I love chocolate. And I love my family and friends. Jesus, my family and my friends love me. People loving each other is supposed to be more like God’s kind of love, very different from loving to read and loving chocolate. I wanted to love people the […]
Faith: When the Invisible Becomes Visible-Part Two
In Part One, we looked at how uncertain life can be when we have feelings that go all over the place and we don’t have a solid foundation to live by. We looked at how faith is the foundation we need and what God has to say about faith. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that, though […]
Faith: When the Invisible Becomes Visible – Part One
In our world, we catch our breaths at a glimpse of something beautiful one second and the next moment we find our hearts racing with anticipation and impending horror as the unthinkable unfolds before our eyes. With one breath, we provide hope and encouragement in someone’s struggle to make a good choice, and with our […]