lamentations on Alcoholism

There was a tacit understanding between them that 'liquor helped'; growing more miserable with every glass one hoped for the moment of relief."

Get to know someone really well, and almost without fail, you will discover a person who routinely struggles to get out of bed in the morning. And not just because they’re tired. They can’t get out of...

Recovery is not a process we can will, but consists of experiencing many small deaths, the passing of significant anniversaries, until our identity is solid and natural in the pronoun “I.”

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

We don’t know what we are doing, and I think this is especially true about the way our society deals with mental health. In just the past fifteen years, I have witnessed a massive shift in how evangel...

How shall my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?

On November 28, 1942, a fire broke out and spread rapidly through an overcrowded Boston nightclub called Cocoanut Grove (the owner’s spelling), whose sole exit became blocked. A total of 492 people di...

In her memoir, Confessions of a Good Christian Girl, Tammy describes the internal turmoil she experienced trying to be a good, rule-following Christian who had unexpectedly built an entire life arou...

Healing begins when, in the face of our own darkness, we recognize our helplessness and surrender our need for control… we face what is, and we ask for mercy.

What’s the bravest thing you ever did? . . . Getting up this morning.

Gracious God, you forgive us whenever we ask, and so we ask you now to forgive all of our sins. We need your grace again, for we often return to the same sins, over and over again. Your Spirit longs t...

Many of life’s annoyances just have to be ignored. That doesn’t mean that we suppress, ignore, or deny every pain. Serious pain has to be confronted. But one mark of resilience is learning to tell whi...

An Irish Catholic priest, returning to his old parish in the warmth of spring, was delighted to spot an elderly man he had long known. “Pat!” he called out cheerfully. “You’re still with us—I’m glad t...

One of the greatest needs of all bereaved people is to have access to someone who will take a risk and be involved—someone who is not afraid of intense feelings, but who will encourage their expressio...

Survival requires more than the basic biological necessities we readily acknowledge—oxygen, food, and water. It also demands something less tangible but equally vital: hope. When hope vanishes, the hu...

I’ve known a lot of people who have lived painful, tragic lives. When I was young, I assumed these people were abnormal. Their suffering was the exception that proved the rule that a well-lived life i...

Loving and gracious God, we know we do not always live the life to which we are called: We turn away from You, and from our true selves. You command us to shine Your light, but we often hide it instea...

Truly, it is allowed to weep. By weeping, we disperse our wrath; and tears go through the heart, even like a stream.

Doubt steals hope. And with no hope, everything that matters doesn’t feel as important anymore.

Gracious God, I am reminded today of the horrible pain that sin causes. How many lives are destroyed by sin? How many families rent apart? How many parents overcome with grief? And this is just the be...

On a daily basis we’re faced with two simple choices. We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging t...

Most holy God, we continuously lose sight of your sovereign rule over our world and in our lives, and our failing vision obscures every aspect of our lives. So we come to you for grace. Forgive us for...

But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin...

When we have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed ere that day is half done, When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, Our Father’s full giving has only begun. His lo...

To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.

Lord, we confess that we do not love you with our whole hearts And we do not love our neighbour as ourselves. We seek the blessing of others Rather than the blessing of your grace We seek comfort in w...

Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart Could have recovered greenness?

In her compelling memoir Still Life , author Gillian Marchenko recounts her struggles with depression: Yes, but what about Jesus?” friends ask later on. It is a valid question. If others look at ...

“No, don’t! Don’t dig up the past! Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye.” But the proverb goes on to say: “forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.”

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...