Five years ago I went to counseling. I had been thinking about it, yet found myself reluctant to do so. Then my wife started seeing a counselor and I decided to follow her lead. Yes, counselors also need counseling and sometimes need a little nudge in that direction.

I was immediately glad I went.

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Last summer our two year-old clothes washer quit working. The repairman said it would cost several hundred dollars more to fix it than what we paid for it less than two years earlier. We had not purchased the extended warranty because we’d previously had such a good experience with this brand.

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Recently, I read James 1:19- 20 where he says to be slow to anger and that the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. I recalled Dallas Willard saying that whatever can be done in anger can be done better without it. I get his point—at least maybe it’s partially his point—that anger is not a good motivator.

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Kids and parents anticipate the end of the school year with excitement about all the summer will hold. Ball games, trips to the water park, fireworks, cookouts. Then summer arrives and the kids complain of boredom. The car trip turns into seemingly endless arguments about who has encroached whose space.

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Good communication depends on keeping our emotional reactivity in check. It’s so easy to get off track at the very beginning of a disagreement. Here’s something to practice that will help you with this. (By the way, if you’re running into a lot of trouble with communication this book is full of practical help).

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John 9 tells the wonderful story of Jesus giving a man his sight. It wasn’t restored because the man had been blind from birth. He was given sight for the first time. That’s cause for celebration! Yet that is not what happened. And it becomes the backdrop to a larger conversation about seeing.

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(Written Wednesday, August 25, 2021) . . . Monday, while waiting to take Linnea to school, I read a tweet from Father Thomas McKenzie saying it was his first day of sabbatical and the first order of business was taking his daughter to school in New Mexico. He said they were hoping to make it to Shamrock,

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Is there another holiday that carries such a mix of happiness and joy and sorrow and sadness? I am grateful for the mother God gave me. She was a godly woman who, when her health no longer allowed her to actively serve in the church—she had taught Sunday school of all ages,

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I’m old enough to remember when the coronavirus started. 

COVID-19 really is stretching on, isn’t it? When it first began I felt the same anxiety many others were feeling, but the shelter-in-place didn’t seem difficult to me. I’m very much an introvert. I am a professional counselor and I love meeting with people,

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One thing I often say to marriage clients in their first session is that it can help us in our relationships if we are willing to be surprised by what we see in ourselves, what we learn about ourselves during or outside of a session. I sometimes use the example of myself during a couple of encounters with Susanne years ago.

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