Choices
Which brother are we like?
Cain, who proudly thought he was good enough to approach God on his own merits or,
Abel, who realized his great need and humbly brought the sacrifice that God required.
Category: Anger
Forest-Eating Tractors in God’s Woods
They’re tearing up the woods behind my house. My family moved into this house over 20 years ago, partly because of the thick, 50-acre woods behind it. It was a beautiful, lush patch of forest in the middle of the city, and we absolutely loved it. Now, they’re building a park there. Actually, there was already a park there, behind our stretch of woods, but it was quite neglected and had become a hangout for drug dealers and other “ne’er do wells”, as my grandmother would have called them. At first, when I heard they were going to expand the park, I was happy to hear that the neglected area would be revitalized, and a new park for families would take its place. At the inception of the project, the city assured the neighbors that there would be a generous stretch of the woods left so that our houses would still back up to the woods, and we would continue to enjoy the privacy to which we’d become accustomed.
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Do You Know How to Change a Life?
I once heard this testimony from a counselee who came to see me because of depression:
“My mother suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness for most of my childhood. She would be in bed for months at a time, and then I would come home from school one day and she would be gone, in the hospital. After a few weeks, she would come back home, usually drugged or just flat. She’d be ok for a while, but then the depression would come back, and it would start all over. Finally, when I was in high school, she got the diagnosis: Major Depressive Disorder.[i][ii] She was put on medications, and pretty much stayed stable until the end of her life, when the drugs finally destroyed her kidneys and she passed away. I am terrified that this is my future. My doctor thinks I have it, too.”
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A Small Book About a Big Problem
Every day of our lives we are surrounded by anger. From impatient drivers to impatient people in a line, to conflict in personal relationships, anger is everywhere. In the counseling work that I do, I see the damage that anger does in the lives of countless people. Thankfully, many excellent books have been written about this subject that have been of invaluable help in counseling
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A Reminder of My Sinfulness and His Grace
Thing’s have been stressful in my world for the past couple of months. It seems that everything has been what I would call out of control since my dad died in late September.
As I was sitting on an airplane very early this morning, I was thinking and praying about yesterday. Actually, I was confessing. You see, things have been a little rough lately, very busy, and very stressful. Lots of traveling, a new laptop that arrived broken yesterday, some health issues for my husband, and on the home front, my house has been a mess for the past 7 months as we try to finish some remodeling projects.
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We are not a licensed counseling agency, nor are we psychologically or medically trained therapists. We offer ‘pastoral’ counseling intended to bring life change through heart change.