Archive: January, 2011

Jan
26
2011

Of course, there are many rea­sons why peo­ple have affairs. By look­ing at some of the moti­va­tions of hav­ing an affair, some cou­ples might be able to see the tell-tale signs and there­fore, be able to get help before it is too late.

First, some­times in the con­ver­sa­tions that cou­ples have with one another, you can hear the hints of some­one who is think­ing of “some­one else.” Often the words such as these below are hints that some­thing might not be right:

  • Please, will you go to coun­sel­ing with me.
  • Some­thing needs to change with our sex life.
  • I really enjoy hang­ing out with Kathryn.
  • You never talk to me anymore.
  • I don’t love you any­more.
  • I am not happy at all with my life.

Usu­ally men and women have affairs for very dif­fer­ent rea­sons. Women seek an affair most often for friend­ship and to feel emo­tion­ally needed. For men, it is fairly sim­plis­tic in that they are look­ing for some­thing sex­ual and what they think will be a spon­ta­neous and fun relationship.

So when men and women have an affair what do they think they are going to get out of it?

Women desire the feel­ing of being thrilled by their lover’s inter­est in them phys­i­cally, emo­tion­ally, and intel­lec­tu­ally. They are hop­ing for an emo­tional con­nec­tion, and feel­ing loved is a deep moti­va­tion for a woman in hav­ing an affair.

As said before, a man is seek­ing sex­ual vari­ety when he pur­sues some­one. What is it like to be with another woman sexually—this is a core moti­va­tion. How­ever, unlike a woman, typ­i­cally a man tries to con­trol his feel­ings in the rela­tion­ship, and will not try to form a deep emo­tional bond with the other woman.

Here is a major dif­fer­ence in the moti­va­tion of men ver­sus women in seek­ing an affair—when women have affairs, it almost invari­ably means that they are deeply dis­sat­is­fied with their mar­riage. This is not a typ­i­cal moti­va­tion for a man. Nearly 60% of men who have an affair respond that they are happy in their marriages.

How­ever, some­times peo­ple end up in an affair and there is lit­tle moti­va­tion behind it. Some­times peo­ple just fall into an affair because they did not pro­tect their mar­riage and guard their rela­tion­ships. Some years ago, I worked with a doc­tor who had an affair with a co-worker and when she retold the story of how the affair hap­pened, the rela­tion­ship evolved almost like clock­work. I have heard this story count­less times.

  • She began hav­ing per­sonal con­ver­sa­tions with him on the same floor that they worked.
  • The con­ver­sa­tions moved to hav­ing lunch reg­u­larly at the hospital.
  • Even­tu­ally, they began to meet for lunch or cof­fee off-site. More and more, a sex­ual theme cov­ered their conversation.
  • She ulti­mately ended up at his apart­ment con­tin­u­ing these “conversations.”

No mat­ter what moti­vates a per­son to be unfaith­ful, an affair in every case reveals a bro­ken­ness in the unfaith­ful per­son, and a bro­ken­ness in their mar­riage. Some­times affairs are founded on secret moti­va­tions and other times, they seem­ingly occur out of thin air because the unfaith­ful per­son did not pro­tect their mar­riage in con­crete ways.  Moti­vated or not, affairs often have dire con­se­quences. Next time, we will look at the costs of hav­ing an affair.

In: Psychology
Tags: , , , , , , ,
Jan
21
2011

Often in my work here at Ada Bible Chuch, I hear sto­ries of those who have fallen to unfaith­ful­ness. In a four part series, I will be writ­ing about some dif­fer­ent aspects of adul­tery: the sta­tis­tics, the moti­va­tions behind an affair, the con­se­quences of hav­ing an affair, and finally, ways to pro­tect your mar­riage. I would love to hear your sto­ries in how you have helped some­one, how you have pro­tected your mar­riage, or how you have been impacted because of unfaithfulness.

Some of the Statistics

First, in a recent Barna study, 4 out of 10 Amer­i­cans believe that adul­tery is morally accept­able. For Chris­tians, that num­ber was 1 out of 10. Per­haps there is no rea­son to won­der why adul­tery is on the rise?

When read­ing research about those who have affairs, the sta­tis­tics can vary greatly. Most researchers come to this gen­eral conclusion:

That over a third of mar­ried men will cheat on their wives;

That nearly a quar­ter of all mar­ried women will cheat on their husbands;

And that more than 50% of all mar­riages will be impacted by one of the spouses being unfaith­ful. Grim sta­tis­tics if you think about them.

Here are some other inter­est­ing facts that we know:

Back in the 1960’s it was usu­ally the hus­band who was unfaith­ful. Today, researchers are find­ing that women are just as likely as men to have an affair.

As a way of com­par­i­son to how adul­tery has become more preva­lent: a 1983 study found that 29 per­cent of mar­ried peo­ple under twenty-five had had an affair. By com­par­i­son, only 9 per­cent of spouses in the 1950s under the age of 25 had been involved in extra­mar­i­tal sex.

Ten per­cent of extra­mar­i­tal affairs are “one night stands;” ten per­cent last more than one day, but less than a month; half of all affairs last more than a month but less than a year; and 40 per­cent last two or more years (Lampe, 2000).

Per­haps you are think­ing, “This  can’t be a prob­lem in the church. Cer­tainly the moral stan­dards of Chris­tians are higher.” There is grow­ing evi­dence that adul­tery is also a tremen­dous prob­lem in Chris­t­ian cir­cles. One could site many studies—the most recent from Chris­tian­ity Today shows that 45 per­cent of Chris­tians indi­cate hav­ing done some­thing sex­u­ally inap­pro­pri­ate, and 23 per­cent hav­ing extra­mar­i­tal inter­course (Ander­son, 2000). These num­bers pretty much mir­ror the national averages.

There is grow­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal evi­dence that adul­ter­ous behav­ior in par­ents dra­mat­i­cally affects chil­dren when they reach adult­hood. Research also tells us that just as divorce in a fam­ily influ­ences the like­li­hood of the adult chil­dren to con­sider divorce, adul­ter­ous behav­ior by par­ents seems to beget sim­i­lar behav­ior by their children.

Here is maybe the most impor­tant statistic—a recent Uni­ver­sity of Chicago study dis­cov­ered that a third of all mar­riages end in divorce because of an affair.

It is vital that we under­stand how adul­tery hap­pens and effects indi­vid­u­als, mar­riages and fam­i­lies. Count­less times I have sat with cou­ples or indi­vid­u­als who been swayed into being unfaith­ful to their spouse and then have to face the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of those choices. And I am not immune; in my own life, I have seen this same strug­gle and temp­ta­tion. I too am bom­barded by the mes­sage of my cul­ture, “You are your own. You don’t have to answer to any­one. Go ahead…No one will know.” While I have been faith­ful up to this point in my mar­riage, I know that with­out being inten­tional and walk­ing a nar­row path, I too, could just become another statistic.

In: Psychology
Tags: , , , , , ,
Jan
18
2011


In a meet­ing last week, I led a devo­tional on prayer. I am a huge fan of Wal­ter Wan­gerin and used one of his books as a step­ping off point for our dis­cus­sion. If you have never heard of him, you have to go get any of his books, because they are writ­ten with an elo­quence and wis­dom. Wan­gerin is a pro­lific writer on a wide-range of sub­jects; he’s writ­ten a novel that was awarded the National Book Award (essen­tially, the Amer­i­can novel of the year); books on mar­riage, prayer, adop­tion, the res­ur­rec­tion, inner-city min­istry; he’s even got a book of poetry. His lat­est book is about his jour­ney hav­ing cancer.

Any­way, he has this lit­tle unknown book called Whole Prayer, which is sim­ply a book which dis­cusses how to pray. The book has a sim­ple premise which then becomes pro­found. Wan­gerin makes this propo­si­tion about prayer:

First, we speak,

While, sec­ond, God listens.

Third, God speaks,

While, fourth, we listen.

There is obvi­ously a lot there in those four points. How does one speak to God? What is the process in which God lis­tens? Finally, how does God speak to us? And in what ways can we listen?

As I shared this with some of our staff, one con­clu­sion was made in terms of the read­ing: isn’t it amaz­ing that God is always lis­ten­ing for us. Wan­gerin, in the book, makes this beau­ti­ful anal­ogy of a sick child cry­ing out for her mother and right away the mother comes into her room to attend to her. Almost as if even before the child cries out, the mother is there. As he writes, “And imme­di­ately with under­stand­ing came the active response of a mother whose love is nearly omni­scient, whose heart is almost omnipresent.”

This is no dif­fer­ent then how God attends to me. Even before I know what I need, He does—that is his rela­tion­ship to me as a Father—taking care of me. The Lord is mov­ing ahead of me, try­ing to pre­pare the way so that I can pass through unharmed and unhin­dered. As my favorite Psalm declares:

He brought me out into a spa­cious place; he res­cued me because he delighted in me. Your right hand sus­tains me; you stoop down to make me great. You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn. (Psalm 18: 19, 35–36)

In: Spiritual Formation
Tags: , , , ,
Jan
13
2011

I have been read­ing a really good book by Mal­colm Glad­well enti­tled  Out­liers . This book can address so many dif­fer­ent aspects that a per­son is fac­ing: their spir­i­tual lives, their work, their role as a par­ent, just them­selves in gen­eral. You could apply this stuff in so many dif­fer­ent areas of your life. I highly sug­gest you read it.

The book is a fairly sim­ple read, but chock full deep wis­dom. The wis­dom from the book becomes this: how hard do you work at being a husband/wife, a par­ent, a Chris­t­ian, at your job, at being a friend, etc. His premise is this, those who are exceptional—put in a lot of time in being excep­tional. Con­vict­ing, but some­thing to aim for…

Here are some pas­sages to high­light that I found in the book:

Once a musi­cian has enough abil­ity to get into a top music school, the thing that dis­tin­guishes one per­former from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the peo­ple at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than every­one else. They work much, much harder.

It is those who are suc­cess­ful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of spe­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties that lead to fur­ther suc­cess. It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best stu­dents who get the best teach­ing and most atten­tion. And it’s the biggest nine– and ten-year-olds who get the most coach­ing and prac­tice. Suc­cess is the result of what soci­ol­o­gists like to call “accu­mu­la­tive advantage.”

For almost a gen­er­a­tion, psy­chol­o­gists around the world have been engaged in a spir­ited debate over a ques­tion that most of us would con­sider to have been set­tled years ago. The ques­tion is this: is there such a thing as innate tal­ent? The obvi­ous answer is yes. Not every hockey player born in Jan­u­ary ends up play­ing at the pro­fes­sional level. Only some do – the innately tal­ented ones. Achieve­ment is tal­ent plus prepa­ra­tion. The prob­lem with this view is that the closer psy­chol­o­gists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate tal­ent seems to play and the big­ger role prepa­ra­tion seems to play.

In fact, researchers have set­tled on what they believe is the magic num­ber for true exper­tise: ten thou­sand hours.

Prac­tice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing that makes you good.

In: Leadership, What I've Been Reading
Tags: , , , ,
Jan
11
2011

Just in the last three months, I have heard of two indi­vid­u­als who have com­mit­ted sui­cide. In each of these instances, the fam­i­lies and friends of these indi­vid­u­als were shocked that their loved one took their life. Whether it is the econ­omy or because we are deep in the win­ter months, it is impor­tant to have our eyes open to those who are around us who might want to harm them­selves in some way. Per­haps with a lit­tle inter­ven­tion and lis­ten­ing, we can help some­one who is mov­ing toward hope­less­ness and despair. There are many steps we can take to improve how we respond to those who are feel­ing sui­ci­dal and make it eas­ier for them to seek help. Below are some thoughts on how you might be able to help.

First, it can be help­ful to know who is most sus­cep­ti­ble to tak­ing their life. Research has shown that over 2/3rds of those that com­mit sui­cide meet clin­i­cal cri­te­ria for an affec­tive dis­or­der, such as major depres­sion or bipo­lar dis­or­der. Sim­i­larly, sub­stance abuse also increases the like­li­hood of suicide.

With this, you also have to deter­mine the cir­cum­stance of the per­son who you think might be sus­cep­ti­ble to sui­cide. Here are some points to be mind­ful of:

  • Has the per­son attempted sui­cide before? If so, how did they attempt suicide?
  • Is there a means to com­mit suicide?
  • Is there family/relational his­tory in the case of suicide?
  • Has there been a sig­nif­i­cant life change for the per­son? (Death or ter­mi­nal ill­ness of rel­a­tive or friend, divorce or sep­a­ra­tion, a bro­ken rela­tion­ship, sig­nif­i­cant health prob­lem, loss of job)
  • If the per­son is acutely sui­ci­dal, never leave them alone.

In the above ques­tions, if the per­son does have a means to com­mit sui­cide, you or some­one close to the per­son may need to inter­vene in the sit­u­a­tion to remove any means they may have in com­mit­ting sui­cide (e.g., remov­ing firearms from the home or detox­i­fy­ing their home). Like­wise, in the ques­tions you ask of the per­son, if the per­son has a fam­ily his­tory in terms of sui­cide (i.e., a fam­ily mem­ber such as a mother or sib­ling com­mit­ted sui­cide), sta­tis­tics increase dra­mat­i­cally that that per­son could be very sus­cep­ti­ble to tak­ing their own lives. The oper­a­tive words here are to keep your eyes and ears open to those around you, espe­cially for those who have a his­tory with these issues.

If some­one has con­fided in you that they are con­sid­er­ing sui­cide, here are some issues to be mind­ful of as you speak with them. First, offer space to the per­son and give them every oppor­tu­nity to unbur­den their trou­bles and voice their feel­ings. This is not a time to argue with them or attempt to give them advice (e.g., “But you have so much to live for!”). It’s a rar­ity that you can “talk some­one out of” com­mit­ting sui­cide. In these instances, you don’t need to say much. Again, you sim­ply need to lis­ten. Most impor­tantly, let the per­son know that you are glad they turned to you. Attempt to cre­ate trust. If the per­son ever does come to a place where they are about to take their life, they may at the last minute reach out to you, because they trust you.

With this, one of the myths con­cern­ing sui­cide is that if you feel like some­one might be sus­cep­ti­ble, you shouldn’t bring the mat­ter up, because it might put an idea in their head about com­mit­ting sui­cide. If you do have sus­pi­cions, the best thing you can do is bring the topic up. In the end, you are show­ing the per­son that you care about them, even so much that you are will­ing to ask dif­fi­cult ques­tions. When I was a coun­selor, I always wanted to be more safe than sorry, and I have asked many clients and a hand­ful of friends if they were cur­rently think­ing seri­ously about sui­cide. All you have to do is gen­tly ask, “Hey, are you think­ing of harm­ing your­self in any way?” This sim­ple ques­tion can maybe save someone’s life. On one occa­sion some years ago, I was sur­prised by one friend who answered that ques­tion pos­i­tively. By open­ing up to me, it gave him an oppor­tu­nity to tell me what was really going on in his life and this bur­den was lifted from him over time.

These are just some thoughts on the issue of sui­cide. With the cur­rent state of our econ­omy and now the sea­son of win­ter, we may know some­one who is at a point of despair so large that they may think that tak­ing their own life is the only answer. Again, keep your eyes open to those around you and don’t be afraid to ask that dif­fi­cult question.

If you are cur­rently strug­gling with sui­ci­dal thoughts, get help now. Don’t wait.


In: Psychology
Tags: , , , , , , ,
Jan
10
2011


Sim­ply read­ing the Bible, I encoun­tered not a misty vapor, but an actual Per­son. A Per­son as unique and dis­tinc­tive and col­or­ful as any per­son I know…I mar­veled at how much God lets human beings affect him. I was unpre­pared for the joy and anguish—in short—the pas­sion of the God of the universe…I had lost the force of the pas­sion­ate rela­tion­ship God seeks above all else. The peo­ple who related to God best—Abraham, Moses, David, Isa­iah, Jeremiah—treated him with star­tling familiarity…They treated him like a person.

—Phillip Yancey, Dis­ap­point­ment with God

In: What I've Been Reading
Tags: , , , , , ,
Jan
09
2011










For those new to this web­site, here are a hand­ful of facts about yours truly.

  1. While a col­lege stu­dent in Chicago, one day I went to go play ten­nis down­town with a friend. Once we got back, my car, which was a 1977 Chevy Caprice Clas­sic, had been stolen. The police found it 2 weeks later with most every­thing gone: the tires, rims, seats, all of my belong­ings, even most of the engine. I loved that car.
  2. In high school, I was an exchange stu­dent to Ger­many. I was the worst stu­dent when I left and came back the one who spoke Ger­man the best. How? My Ger­man teacher had me live with a fam­ily that spoke no English.
  3. I’ve seen many con­certs in my life­time: my favorites being U2 (Joshua Tree and No Line on the Hori­zon tours), Echo and the Bun­ny­men, Sufan Stevens (three times), Bobby McFer­rin, The Smiths, Gen­eral Public, Bro­ken Social Scene and some unknown  jazz quar­tet at the Green Mill in Chicago when I was in my early twenties.
  4. Eas­ily my worst job was sell­ing vac­u­ums door-to-door. I was 19 years old. The name of the vac­uum was The Pig and my boss was decep­tive, manip­u­la­tive and greedy. Fun times.
  5. I met my wife Julie through a week­end retreat through our church. We were camp­ing in Wis­con­sin and the name of the park where we camped was called Devil’s Lake State Park. Except for meet­ing Julie, it was a mis­er­able week­end, because I had to sleep in a wet sleep­ing bag, because it rained all week­end. I mar­ried her 11 months later. Sec­ond best deci­sion of my life (see below).
  6. Eerie: When I was in col­lege, a friend and I the night before spring break started were talk­ing late into the night. We were dis­cussing the peo­ple, if we lost them, would dev­as­tate our lives. She gave one name: her older brother who was her hero and best friend. He was killed in a bicy­cling acci­dent that week. This taught me for the first time an impor­tant les­son: life is fragile.
  7. Also while I was in col­lege, I worked with kids and adults with severe autism and other dis­abil­i­ties. Peter, a young man who had autism, also had a major metab­o­lism prob­lem and would eat any­thing in his sight and there­fore, all food had to be locked up at home. One day, we went for a walk and two high school girls were com­ing in our direc­tion. One of them was eat­ing a dough­nut. In a flash, Peter snatched it out of her hand and gob­bled it down. Not quite know­ing what to do, we just kept walking.
  8. Some things I love: Smart­wool socks, golf­ing with my sons on a sum­mer evening, sushi and raw oys­ters, World War II movies, my job, Arts & Craft fur­ni­ture, many dif­fer­ent HBO series, art muse­ums, hole-in-the-wall restau­rants, and Illi­nois Fight­ing Illini bas­ket­ball. I do not like roller coast­ers, lima beans, being cold, climb­ing up on a roof (i.e., heights), wear­ing con­tacts, and though this may sound sac­ri­le­gious, putting up Christ­mas stuff (e.g., the tree, orna­ment, lights, etc.).
  9. I love the ocean. I love stand­ing next to it. I love swim­ming in it. I love the sounds it makes. I love the smell. The oceans always reminds me that God exists and that he is good.
  10. I began to fol­low Jesus and became a Chris­t­ian in my sopho­more year of col­lege. I was really into U2 and a friend told me that Bono was a Chris­t­ian and said that my favorite song, “I Will Fol­low” was about fol­low­ing Jesus. At this time, I began to inves­ti­gate my faith from years past (I grew up Catholic) and through the books of C.S. Lewis books (Mere Chris­tian­ity, The Great Divorce, and Screw­tape Let­ters) I decided to begin “fol­low­ing” again. At that point, I had made a pretty big mess of my life, e.g., drink­ing a lot and the other stuff asso­ci­ated with that and was begin­ning to real­ize that there was more to life than how I was liv­ing it. It was the best deci­sion of my life.
In: Christian Faith
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jan
08
2011

The web­site has just been updated and trans­ferred. For all of the pre­vi­ous posts, you can check out The End of All Our Explor­ing.

In: Christian Faith
Tags: , ,
Jan
08
2011

We live in the age of the indi­vid­ual. Let’s face it, in our cul­ture we are encour­aged to be tremen­dously self-centered. With this self-focus comes com­pe­ti­tion. When a cul­ture has its only focus as the indi­vid­ual,  com­mu­nity inevitably becomes very dif­fi­cult to attain. The Amer­i­can church in many ways has bought into this indi­vid­u­al­is­tic notion; the Amer­i­can church has been held cap­tive to this aspect by the cul­ture. One can clearly see this by all of our denom­i­na­tions. Just open a tele­phone book and you will see plainly on those yel­low pages the indi­vid­u­al­ism of the Amer­i­can church: Roman Catholic, Pen­te­costal, Pres­by­ter­ian, Full Gospel, Assem­blies of God, Reformed, Lutheran, South­ern Bap­tist, Epis­co­palian, Wes­leyan, etc. etc etc. The list is nearly endless.

I recall of few years back being at a con­fer­ence in which the speaker was Mike Pilavachi. He pas­tors a church in Eng­land; he is a very engag­ing speaker, very light-hearted and was a joy to lis­ten to dur­ing those days I was in Nashville (if you have heard of Matt Red­man, Mike Pilavachi is the pas­tor of the church he serves). He said hard things at times, but again with a light­ness and humor to them. I had never heard him before and what he said really spoke to me.

When on the final night he came out to speak, his coun­te­nance was dif­fer­ent; he was not smil­ing as usual and his step was not as vig­or­ous. I will never for­get the words he spoke to us that night. He opened by say­ing that he really felt like the Lord wanted him to share some­thing with us. Again, his tone was very seri­ous. He acknowl­edged that he really did not want to give this message—he con­fided, it would be hard to speak.

Essen­tially, he said one thing; he said that God hated the denom­i­na­tion­al­ism in the Amer­i­can church. He spoke pas­sion­ately for a good 10–15 min­utes speak­ing to us on this issue. He was fiery and pas­sion­ate as any hell and brim­stone preacher. As a com­par­i­son, he explained that in Eng­land there are so few Chris­tians that as believ­ers they just don’t have the time to get enraged about doc­tri­nal dis­putes or legal ways of liv­ing that we typ­i­cally do. There, Chris­tians from all dif­fer­ent denom­i­na­tions often work hand-in-hand in pro­claim­ing the gospel through word and deed, because they are so out-numbered. They typ­i­cally don’t get bogged down by issues such as bap­tism, ver­sions of the Bible, sacra­ments, etc.

That was all he had to say; when he left the stage, you could have heard a pin drop. With our jaws dropped open, I don’t think that there was any­one there that did not hear the seri­ous­ness of his words. It was deeply con­vict­ing. Since that time, over nine years ago, I have thought of lot about unity and dis­unity in the church. H. Richard Niebuhr calls the “evil of denom­i­na­tion­al­ism” the true “moral fail­ure of Chris­tian­ity.” In essence, denom­i­na­tion­al­ism, at its heart, is divi­sive­ness. But the church is called toward unity.

Since that talk nearly ten years ago, I don’t think much has changed in the Amer­i­can church with regards to rec­on­cil­ing our dif­fer­ences. The ques­tion then becomes, how can we as the Amer­i­can church be more uni­fied? What are the ways that we need to change?

In: Christian Faith
Tags: , , , ,
Jan
05
2011

I must admit, I don’t think I’ve ever done a New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion. Typ­i­cally, these res­o­lu­tions deal with weight or exer­cise; and to be hon­est, I am not a big fan of my tread­mill so they usu­ally don’t apply to me…

How­ever, this past year I have been read­ing the blog of Alece and recently, she has dis­cussed this idea of com­ing up with One Word for your year, pick­ing a word to focus on and to apply to your life for the year.

I really like that. I really like words and to come up with just one has got me think­ing. If you want to know more, you can read about it on her blog GritAndGlory.com.

So with­out fur­ther ado, my one word for this year is…undaunted.

Undaunted sim­ply means to be “coura­geously res­olute, espe­cially in the face of dan­ger or dif­fi­culty ” or “to not be intim­i­dated or dis­cour­aged by dif­fi­culty, dan­ger, or disappointment.”

I love the words used here in this def­i­n­i­tion, because this is where I want to focus my atten­tion and heart this year (e.g., res­olute, not intim­i­dated or dis­cour­aged, dis­ap­pointed, etc.). Inevitabil­ity, I know I will be fac­ing dif­fer­ent chal­lenges this year, and there­fore, in prepar­ing for that, I want to be “undaunted” in con­fronting those obsta­cles. In par­tic­u­lar, in how I face these dif­fi­cul­ties,  I want to con­tinue to grow in the fruit of the Spirit (Gala­tians 5:22–23)  so that I can react appro­pri­ately to these unavoid­able challenges.

So mov­ing for­ward into 2011, my word is undaunted: being con­fi­dent in who God made me to be, but more impor­tantly, trust­ing the One Word who goes ahead of me in all that I do.


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