What’s the first thing that pops into your mind when someone tells you, “Don’t think about pink elephants!” Right...pink elephants. That’s why, when you try hard to not feel anxious, you enter a vicious cycle. Dealing with anxiety is like dealing with insomnia. You can’t try your way into a good night of sleep—and you can’t try your way out of worry. What you need is a change of focus. According to Dr. Earl Henslin in This is Your Brain on Joy, your brain contains one neural pathway on which the emotions of either joy or anxiety can travel. There’s literally not room enough for Continue Reading
Search Results for: Why Giving Up
To “Boo” or not to “Boo” (What’s a Parent to Do?)
A brief stroll around my neighborhood reveals something ironic: we’ve all just finished sweeping the nasty cobwebs off our shrubs just in time to replace them with much larger, fake ones! Over the years, I’ve been all over the map on Halloween. When our kids were very young, we allowed them to go trick-or-treating. Then, due to information circulating about the pagan roots of Halloween and dark practices associated with it, we opted out and took our boys to church harvest parties, where they could dress up, play games and get a sack full of candy. (Turns out, Halloween is not the Continue Reading
One Fun, Doable Way to Teach Kids Faith and Gratitude
A gentle breeze ruffled the surface of the lake as I wandered along the shore line, eyes to the ground. Oh, there’s a good one! I picked up a smooth, round, grey stone and put it in a container. By the time I was done collecting rocks, I had a small bucketful. I’m not a rock hound, nor did I need more stones for the landscaping in our yard. So why was I collecting rocks on a mountain lake shore during our summer vacation? I wanted to work on developing gratitude in my life—and you can use this same method for your whole family. My “gratitude craft” involved the rocks I’d Continue Reading
How Understanding God’s Justice helps us Forgive, not just Excuse
Months after a hurtful situation, I found myself still struggling to forgive. Time in and of itself wasn't doing the trick. I finally realized that, before I could freely extend mercy, I had to acknowledge just how painful and unjust the offense against me had been. Perhaps you can relate to this dilemma. If you’re a Christian and you’ve been sinned against, I’m guessing the message you’ve heard the loudest is that you should (quickly) forgive the offense and let it go. Although mercy ultimately triumphs over judgment, we ignore a vital part of God’s character when we rush into Continue Reading