What is hope? The world defines hope as wishful thinking, hoping that something will happen, and leads us to believe it is something we can conjure up. But the Bible says hope is "confident expectation" and talks of both an eternal hope and a hope for the "here and now". Hope is...
"Faith is like a fountain. Both rise up from the inside and freely flow out making a pond of blessing around you. Both create far-reaching ripples in your life, in your circumstances, and in the lives of the people around you." (Quoted from Junk or Joy)
We all have faith. The...
There are different kinds of fear such as the adrenaline producing fear warning of danger and causing the fight or flight response, Fear of the Lord, fear from ongoing trauma, and a pervasive, underlying fear that many people live with today. Adrenaline producing fear is for our protection...
Not a pretty picture is it? Yet that is reminds me of worry in my head. "Worry is like eating worms. It wiggles and squirms in your head squishes and squeezes your heart, and coats all your thoughts and actions with fear. Worry recycles "what ifs" like worms recycle...
Our society today wants to blame someone else for bad choices because it is certainly less painful than taking the consequences for them. If we can't find someone convenient to blame, we often blame God because everything that happens is His will. Right? Wrong! It may be a...
In last week's blog we discussed building healthy, picket fence boundaries to help choose and balance relationships. It is a picket fence because the spaces let your heart breathe in the necessary good things and the boards keep out the bad, hurtful things in life. This is a healthy...
In their book titled Boundaries, Cloud and Townsend define a boundary as a fence around your soul. In my book, Offense, Get Off My Fence, I talk about it being a white picket fence around your heart. It is a picket fence because the spaces let your heart breathe in the necessary good...
Communication is to express your view point or give information. Control is to forcing someone else agree with you. Many angry arguments are fueled by the need to control the other person and make them agree. I recently saw a T-shirt that said, "I am not arguing, I am just...
I was raised that children should be seen and not heard! What message does that give a child? My book, Taming Tongues, is about how powerful our words are. 
Prov. 18:21 says “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” and James compares the tongue to a rudder on a...
People are often not who we think they are, so how do you know who you can trust? In the coaching class, Raise Stable Children in an Unstable World, there is a lesson on planning effective boundaries like a picket fence. In the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, Jesus promoted...
Last weeks blog post was on common lies about our identity. Today I want to write about the truth about our identity. It is a form or pride to put yourself down and degrade who you are. It is also pride to “think more highly of yourself than you ought.” Humbleness is...
Childhood experiences sometimes teach us to believe things about ourselves that are false and steal our identity. The longer we operate out of those false beliefs or lies, the more entrenched they become in our thoughts and the more we make decisions out of them. In my experience of...
