“We need to talk.” Four little words that induce fear, anxiety, and dread in all who hear them. When we hear them, we wonder if we’re going to get dumped or fired. We think we’re going to get in a fight or get in trouble. The Enemy starts filling our heads with...
We were a family of five, and then, on February 27, we entered the world of twins. Our new babies, Liam and Bennett, have completely transformed our lives, and we are all adjusting to this huge change. In my last post, I shared my struggles after discovering we were expecting. Image...
A few weeks ago, on a Sunday evening, our family drove through an unexpected snowstorm in the Tahoe mountains. We had just finished a great weekend skiing and snowboarding with our small group, and were trying to make our way back home before the sun disappeared below the horizon. But...
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7, NIV) There’s been a nonstop stream of superhero movies over the last decade, including eighteen movies from the Marvel...
In July of last year, I experienced heart failure. Takatsubo cardiomyopathy, to be exact. A more informal name for it is broken-heart syndrome. It is usually triggered by emotional stress and anxiety. This, indeed, is what I had been experiencing prior to the attack. Copyright: irstone...
In Luke 22:42, Jesus says, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" (NIV). At the same time, in Matthew 7:7, he tells us, “Ask and it will be given to you…” Until recently, I assumed that these two verses clashed. I was...
As I approached my thirtieth birthday in December, I was anxious a big existential crisis might hit. I kept thinking, “Well, I didn’t really have a quarter-life crisis at twenty-five like a lot of my friends did, so I’m probably overdue…” But the...
As a human being in the globalized culture of the twenty-first century, I am very aware of my implicit biases. I have two black sons and two wonderful black grandsons. To my sorrow I still show bias against black men on the Harvard University implicit bias test. But while I grieve the...
When my husband and I moved to San Jose in 2015, I wasn’t prepared for life in a busier area. We’re on the corner of three very different neighborhoods, have wonderful neighbors, and can get to pretty much anywhere in San Jose quickly. For a sense of peaceful connection with...
“We discover the art of packaging our self. What begins a role we play becomes an identity. Our masks have become our reality; and we have become our lives.” – psychologist David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery As we explore the...