Category: Heartache

I’m a mess. That is what he said, a 13-year-old boy. He followed that with a list of the assignments he had not completed that morning. He continued with a list of actions he “should” be better at achieving on a daily basis. Ephesians 5:14 reads, Awake, O sleeper, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper,
  and arise from the dead…” In essence, it’s cool, because the boy is awake, but heartbreakingly, how tragic for any child to ever think of himself as less than wonderfully made. So we had a little Mom-son version of...

I was chatting with a friend the other day about where relationships sometimes go sideways. The conversation wasn’t really about relationships, per se, but expectations in relationships. William Shakespeare said, “the root of all heartache is expectations.”    I don’t think the Bard is too far off.  Yet, choosing to live assuming nothing good will ever come?  I’d guess a walk like that would require one to lock the heart up tight and close it off to the possibility of joy.  I’d rather walk into the pain that life and love inevitably bring, by making an attempt to focus on...

Have you ever heard the expression, “everything happens for a reason?”  How about, “God is in control?”  Maybe the proponents of maxims such as these have good intent.  In fact, maybe that is why they are spread so far and wide without a resounding outcry.  Dollars to doughnuts, if you are a person in pain for any reason, your heart will at first balk and then swallow this bitter pill.  I say you will “swallow it” because (especially if you have caused your own pain, as we all do, many times!) this formula will make shame arise like a Phoenix....