“Well, you have just ruined the way I do my life!“ was my tearful response to what my mentor had just said to me. “You can certainly choose not to plan your life, but if you don’t, we call that ‘drifting’! And always remember that ‘drifting’ will take you to a destination that you would…
“Please! Me! Please, please, please!” The village children, with an eagerness bordering on desperation, pleaded for the gifts I had for them. You see, I had just come down from summiting Mount Kilimanjaro. But these children were not new to me. I had met them the day that we had signed in at the gate…
“I don’t know how to reach you,“ I whispered in tears. The person on the screen in front of me said, “I have no idea what you mean!“ It was an excruciatingly painful moment. I was in the midst of wrestling with something deep within. And I knew at that moment I was alone. Very…
“I don’t even really want to be alive! I’ve lost everything that really matters to me, and I cannot imagine things getting worse!“ When I said that to my mentor and coach, wasn’t she supposed to say, “Oh my goodness, I am so sorry this is happening to you?“ Instead, she looked at me with…
“Why don’t you stay here and enjoy the fire and let someone else do this?“ Little did he know that the fire that was driving me was not the fire in the fireplace. It was the fire in my belly and the fire on my back side. It was Christmas morning, very early, still dark…
“Please pull the car over immediately,” I said with some urgency. I was frantically searching my purse. The driver pulled into a parking lot. I hopped out and ran 2 1/2 blocks back to the woman standing on the sidewalk. She had a sign that said, “Please help with formula and diapers!” A baby in…
“I’ve always had that deep longing and yearning you’ve been writing about. I love reading it, and I wish I could be that. But it’s too late for me! Too much sewage under my proverbial bridge!” That is just one of the hundreds of cries for help that have landed in my email box over…
I was leaning on the counter, watching the seconds tick off of the clock at the end of the workday. There was something in me that wanted to grab my head and scream out: “No! NO! NOOOOO! There has to be more than this. I want my life to count for something!” I could not…
“He drinks too much, he is financially irresponsible, and his apartment is gross. But I love him! My parents sent me to see you because they believe I’m making a big mistake!” I wish that were an uncommon thing to hear. But in my office, as well as many of the premarital classes I teach,…
“I was packing jars of jam, and I was going to write ‘FRAGILE’ on the box. But instead, I felt compelled to write the words ‘VERY FRAGILE.’ At that moment it felt like God was telling me that the condition of my life was also fragile … but that He was with me.” She explained…