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The Waffle House was buzzing. The grill was sizzling. The coffee was brewing. Cars were coming and going. Waitresses were turning tables as fast as people could eat. It was the haze and daze of a busy dawn of Friday. Waffle House seemed to mirror and mimic the pace of our non-stop culture. Two good friends were meeting me for breakfast. We each confessed the many things going on in our lives as we choked down scrambled eggs and mediocre…
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Sometimes it feels like my life is made up of a bunch of spinning wheels. The more hurried I am, the more the wheels seem to spin. Blood, Sweat, and Tears once sang about spinning wheels. “What goes up must come down. Spinnin’ wheel got to go ’round. Talkin’ ’bout your troubles, it’s a cryin’ sin. Ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin.” Does your life ever feel like an exhausted ride on a merry-go-round where the spinnin’…
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Remember Sunday night church? Once the Sunday night sermon kicked in, it was time for me to check out. I would weirdly do a butt-scoot slide down the pew away from my father’s firm grip. And once I slid down the pew a bit, I could lie down. If I couldn’t catch some Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday night TV, I was going to catch a snooze. At this point, I could also call the old Sunday night option…
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Love is a term that gets used in so many different ways in our culture. If we’re honest, we hear it much more than we see it. I love football! I love pizza! I love my family! It seems odd that those very different things should land in the same category of affection, but perhaps it gives some indication of our greatest challenge. That even though we deeply desire love, we have little understanding of what it really means. For…
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How do you do with the subtleties of life? Can you take a hint? Do you infer accurately the undertones of conversation? I personally am not really good at taking a hint. The more direct the information, the better capacity I have to understand. My wife can attest to this. If it weren’t for her persistence we would not be together today. My own insecurities tend to interpret information in a very negative light. I thought, “There is no way…
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Valentine’s Day has come and gone. As quickly as the idea began to appear one day after Christmas, we are now headed into a season of pastel, eggs, and chocolate bunnies. The retail gods give us no time to rest our weary heads and empty wallets. How did your Valentine’s Day go? For some, the dreaded day brings lonely darkness accompanied by a movie and a tub of popcorn. Others scramble to meet annual expectations created superficially by those same…
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Alex Thompson, our Counseling Director, just popped into my office. She’s back from adoption leave. She and her husband, Ben, have a new baby, James. I saw several pictures and two videos of the very blessed little James. Amazingly, the cozy-cuddly James resembles his parents. In fact, the adoption agency remarked how much James looks like Alex and Ben. In adoption after adoption, I’ve seen these same God-ordained resemblances. They are definitive God-things. It’s so very cool. What about your…
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We are a distracted bunch, aren’t we? Neil Postman wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death. In it, Postman argues that the difficulty of life causes many to turn to amusing medication like social media and cat videos. The more entertained we are, the less we are able to understand and respond to the complex challenges of our day like abortion, “the wall”, and opioid drugs. Did you know the average American watches five hours of TV a day…
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I have no dog in the hunt. I really couldn’t care less. I’m oblivious of my surroundings. Of course, I’m referring to the Super Bowl’s invasion of Atlanta. Once my dearly beloved Colts lost to Kansas City, I put away childish things and my Andrew Luck jersey – to try and move on with my life. So on Sunday, I’m wearing flannel. It’s the color of no NFL football team. I’m declaring my independence. I’m pre-determining my reduced pulse rate…
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When I was kid, sometimes my sister and I would go to a daycare. My great-grandmother usually kept us, but when she had a knee replacement, we needed someone to look after us for a few days. I remember it vividly. The food at that place wasn’t as good as my granny’s. There was no comfy couch and no TV. I even found myself missing her soap operas. But there was one tremendously huge perk that almost evened the scales:…
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