All Are Welcome
There are many different varieties of trees on our 120-acre homestead, along with crops and brush, a bit of pasture and a spring-fed creek that flows year round from a pond that never freezes over. And don’t get me talking about the diversity of wildlife that thrives ... Snowboarding on Christmas sounds fabulous until realizing you’re alone—married and alone—family minutes away and alone. Divorce, my divorce, isn’t something I often write about or discuss, but this Christmas season I have encountered many hurting people and am starkly reminded of the raw pain ... What’s in a name? A name helps us be known by others, to connect. When I named my two girls, I chose names that spoke value and caught a glimpse into their character and who they might become. My parents set the stage ... Doll Houses. Ghetto houses. Foster homes. Group homes. Children’s homes. So many houses. So few homes. I stand in front of a dilapidated building in an urban neighborhood. Its porch is sagging to the right, the railing ... I write the word bittersweet on a white napkin, pushing it across the table toward our exchange student. His eyes absorb the word as he rolls it around on his tongue, his French accent ... “What do you think?” Regina asked as I began to chew the small white lump she offered from the plate of cookies she held in front of me. She leaned closer as I caught sight of her son, Patrick, shaking his head. My taste buds registered their complaint at the same ... Prep time: Lifelong He left a cold, wordless goodbye in the garage. We’ve tried making sense of it ever since. Unanswered questions are always one cruel part of suicide’s trauma. The puzzle of intention never entirely fits together; there ... An enabler is a person who encourages or enables self-destructive behavior in another. So often we think of enablers in terms of addicts and alcoholics or the mom who keeps feeding her 700-pound, bedridden son. People who keep hidden what everyone else can already see. ... Five years ago, my estranged mother passed away, leaving me to navigate the grief of our lost and unhealed relationship with little assistance. In order to make peace with a broken past and learn to forgive, I collected a list of unanswered questions that went to ... It was one of those mornings that I awoke to my own second guessing. I was not sure why I agreed to take a three-hour round trip to a church in a small town on the New Hampshire border, population of about 12,000, with only 4.39 percent people of color. A friend called ... I knew that my future husband, Tom, was a different kind of guy when he announced on one of our first dates, “So, I have this lifelong mission statement.” First of all, anyone who knows my husband is not surprised. Tom is nothing if not intentional. ... Are you dealing with someone difficult? Perhaps it is family, a business associate, teacher, manager, or perhaps a ministry leader. Conflict is never comfortable. But it’s important to recognize that often it is due to simple differences in personality, experience, ... My personal library is full of books on how to deal with difficult people. Pages in these books are dog-eared so that I can easily find sections in times of crisis. Sentences are underlined multiple times for emphasis, and exclamation marks and notes fill the margins.
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Forgiveness at Christmas
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He Calls Me Mine
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Houses and Homes
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Bittersweet
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A Recipe for Friendship
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The Family Recipe
Level of difficulty: Challenging
Recipe serves: ...
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The Silence of Suicide
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A Story of an Enabler
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A Questionnaire for an Estranged Mother
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From Burning to Building Bridges
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The Art of Desegregation
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Honor That Quells Conflict
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Am I a Difficult Person? (10 ways to alienate those you love)