Smartphones, power, and belonging

Recently, my family and I went to a showing of a documentary called Screenagers at a local church. It was a good documentary that followed a couple who was trying to decide whether or not to get a smartphone for their 12 year-old daughter. It featured interviews with scientists and psychologists and facts from studies to demonstrate the bad effects our phones are having on our brains,

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I Need New Eyes!

Last week I had a session with my counselor (yes, counselors sometimes go to counseling) and then I headed toward home. I had a little time before I needed to pick my daughter up from school (an early release day) and I needed to get gas in the van and a prescription from CVS.

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Only Love Has the Power to Keep Us From Idols and Addictions

I was thinking recently about how it is only an understanding of God’s immense love for us that will keep us from the idols and addictions that trouble us. Think about it on a human level. The threat of getting caught may keep someone from cheating on their wife yet others know they might get caught.

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Find Healing From Sex Addiction!

Review-Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle; Michael John Cusick

I wrote this review nearly seven years ago. I like this book every bit as much as I did then. If you’re struggling with sex addiction it’s a great place to start in order to find healing.

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I Love To Tell the Story

Reposting something I wrote over 6 years ago . . .

        I never really thought I’d get to be a father.

        I wanted desperately to be a father, but after 17 years of marriage it just didn’t seem like it was going to happen.

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A Christmas Reflection

It is an often painful fact that our lives seldom go the way we planned. How many of us have the life we pictured at age 20? A well-known quote attributed to Woody Allen says, “if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” Most of us aren’t quite that cynical yet it is true that things often don’t turn out the way we’d planned.

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I Don’t Know!

Subtitle: “The reality of the counseling process: do counselors have all the answers?”
by Dianne L. Taylor, MA, LPC

In a recent church service I heard three of the most reassuring and discomforting words in the English language. The pastor had started his sermon on prayer in a difficult Gospel passage and then moved to an even more difficult passage.

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A Summer’s Journey—Good for Life!

Subtitle: “How Long Might I Be In Counseling?”
by Dianne L. Taylor, MA, LPC

“Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

My sisters and I sat stuffed into the back seat of our green Ford Fairlane 500 with coolers and picnic baskets smashed tightly against our legs taking our annual trip from New Jersey to our lake house in Maine.

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