Somewhere along the many miles of southern California shoreline walked a young, 20-year-old woman with a terminal disease in her body and a revolver in her hand. She had called me late one evening. We talked for a long time.
Read MoreCategory Archives: Encouragement & Healing
Stress Reduction: Spreading Out the Workload
We’ve been talking about the very common and very real problem of stress. Today I’d like to tackle a practical suggestion for stress-reduction: spreading out the workload. There is a side of stress that is easily overlooked, and that is trying to do too much ourselves. All of us have a limit. If those huge freight trucks on the highway have a load limit, you can be sure each one of us does, too.
Read MoreSorrow and Hope
If tears were indelible ink instead of clear fluid, all of us would be stained for life. The heartbreaking circumstances, the painful encounters with calamities, the brutal verbal blows we receive from the surgeon or an angry mate, the sudden loss of someone we simply adored, riding out the consequences of a stupid decision—ah! Such is the groan and grind of life.
Read MoreWriting with Thorns
In pain, grief, affliction, and loss, it often helps to write our feelings . . . not just feel them. Putting words on paper seems to free our feelings from the lonely prison of our souls. It was C. S. Lewis who wrote: Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything . . . . No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid.
Read MoreHealing, Part Two
When it comes to physical healing, often confusion reigns. To combat it, I’d like to point out five “laws” of suffering. These “laws” will do more to help the hurting and erase their confusion than perhaps anything else they could read. Yesterday, we looked at laws one through four. Today we’ll look at number five. Law Five: It is not God’s will that everyone be healed in this life.
Read MoreHealing, Part One
“Have you heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?” That question, found in a small booklet, has been asked and answered thousands—perhaps millions—of times in our generation. These “laws” have been used by God to introduce His plan of love and forgiveness to countless numbers of people who had no idea how to have a meaningful relationship with Him. I have a similar question.
Read MoreContradictory Truths, Part Two
God often delivers His best gifts to us in unexpected ways . . . with surprises inside the wrappings. Through apparent contradictions. Somewhat like the therapy He used when Elijah was so low, so terribly disillusioned. How did the Lord minister to him? By an earthquake? In a whirlwind? Through a scorching fire? You’d expect all the above since Elijah was such a passionate, hard-charging prophet. But no.
Read MoreWhen We’ve Handled Troubles Correctly
James 1:12 offers two specific promises for those who have handled troubles as they should—one for now, the other for when we stand before our Lord to receive our eternal rewards. First, right now, “God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation”. There’s our word again—endure. Not only does God grant us the strength to endure, but He also rewards us for that endurance. What grace!
Read MoreIs Trauma Terminal?
The definition reflects devastation. Trauma: An injury (as a wound) to living tissue caused by an extrinsic agent . . . a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from mental or emotional stress. Like potatoes in a pressure cooker, we twenty-first century creatures understand the meaning of stress. A week doesn’t pass without a few skirmishes with those “extrinsic agents” that beat upon our fragile frames.
Read MoreBalance, Part One
Two extreme tests exist that disturb our balance in life. Each has its own set of problems. On one side is adversity. Solomon realized this when he wrote: If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength! (Proverbs 24:10 NIV) The Message paraphrases that verse: If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place. Adversity is a good test of our resiliency, our ability to cope, to stand back up, and to recover from misfortune. Adversity is a painful pedagogue.
Read More