• conflict
    Communication,  Conflict,  reconcile,  relationship

    Conflict: Four Common Misconceptions

    I remember attending a seminar about conflict about a dozen years ago. The speaker made the point that conflict in and of itself isn’t good or bad. It is merely an event that must be dealt with. I don’t know if I fully agree with that. Conflict feels pretty awful much of the time, at least to an empathetic person like me who wants everyone to hold hands and sing Kum bah Yah. Another speaker on the same topic held up a dollar bill in the middle of the room. He made the point that each side of the room saw a totally different side of the same thing. Neither…

  • eternal
    Abundant Life,  Holy Spirit,  soul,  Spirit

    Start Living Your Eternal Life

    The Lord recently gave me a picture of the eternal in a prayer time. I like to picture myself standing with Him in a shallow river. I gradually give Him my burdens which I carry in baskets on my back and He, in turn, sends them down the river. But this time, the river looked very different. The water was deeper, darker and flowed much faster. While I could see to the other shore, it lay much further away than my little prayer river. Jesus was larger, too.  He sat in the river and though His legs were bent, they reached clear over to the other side. He beckoned, so…

  • objectification
    Abundant Life,  Faith,  Relationship with God

    Objectification: 5 Kinds that Harm our Faith

    Objectification, for most of my life, meant little more to me than car ads with beautiful women and calling pretty girls hot tamales. I knew it was bad in a vague sort of way without connecting it to myself. It wasn’t until I saw a therapist years after my divorce from a narcopath that I began to see that I had turned myself into an object. A good object, but still an object. My therapist looked at me dead on and said one of the most significant things anyone has ever said to me. Alice, you are not a tool. It dawned on me then as it still occasionally dawns…