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Dear victims,

Dear victims, You need to understand something about the pain you are feeling. Someone has hurt you, misused you, or abused you. You are right to feel wounded, and I'm sincerely grieved for what has happened to you. However, there is great danger in those wounds you're nursing right now. Sometimes the pity and sympathy…

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Broken or Bitter

One day recently, I was in my office at church when a ministry friend stopped by at the door to chat. As we talked through the joys and pains of ministry, she reminisced about a particularly tough time in her husband's pastorate. After decades of faithful service to a congregation, some power brokers within their…

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Dear Control Freak…

…just stop it already. Right now. Seriously. You know who you are. You’re the ones “setting people straight” on social media and correcting their opinions. You were the ones in the pandemic who pointed out when people stood 5 feet away from someone instead of 6. You scolded us every time we touched our…

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Divine mistakes

     We pray for our lives to go smoothly. We beg God to stay with our plan and keep to our schedule. But sometimes God wants our plans to fall apart so His plan can go into action.      When I lead a worship service, I plan every detail out specifically. I respect people’s time, so I…

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A dusty old book

     I’ve noticed that my friends from outside the church usually only bring up God with me in times of crisis. They look at me oddly when I talk about death as a positive thing, and about actually yearning for heaven.       From their curious stares, you’d think I’d just said I believed in Middle Earth and would…

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Stubborn love

     My mom has always been a source of gentle humor in our family. Whenever she got amazed or exasperated by something, Mom would try to say, “Well …” — probably meaning to eventually say “well, I never.”      Instead, all that came out was a “wuh” noise. Then she would say it repeatedly, in a sort…

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