Six Ways to Defeat Loneliness at Christmas
Three weeks before Christmas, Wolfgang Dircks died while watching television. His body wasn’t discovered until five years later. None of the neighbors in his apartment complex noticed the absence of the 43-year-old. His rent continued to be paid automatically out of his bank account. When the money finally ran out five years later, the landlord […]
The Compassionate Boxer
Would you like to grow in relational wisdom? If so, please take a few minutes to watch a brief clip from the movie, Cinderella Man, which is packed with some of the best examples of relational wisdom I’ve ever seen. Russell Crowe plays the part of a real life hero named James J. Braddock. Once […]
Spanglish – The Secret of Being Influential
Today’s post features a 3-minute video clip that illustrates amazing relational wisdom, including empathy, self-control and the brilliant use of a single perceptive question that penetrates a teenage girl’s heart and changes the course of her life. These are the kinds of relational skills that can impact your friendships, improve your parenting, deepen your marriage […]
Five Ways to Bless Your Mother This Sunday
This Sunday is Mother’s Day. If you’re tired of doing the same “card and gift” routine, allow me to suggest something that will blow your mother (or your wife) away … something she will remember with glad tears for the rest of her life. Since she devoted much of her life to serving you and […]
I Was an Embarrassment to My Friends
C.S. Lewis and I have something in common: there was a time when each of us became an embarrassment to our friends. Lewis endured this uncomfortable experience after his wife, Joy, died. Here is what he wrote in A Grief Observed: “An odd by-product of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment […]
Six Ways to Defeat Loneliness at Christmas
Three weeks before Christmas, Wolfgang Dircks died while watching television. His body wasn’t discovered until five years later. None of the neighbors in his apartment complex noticed the absence of the 43-year-old. His rent continued to be paid automatically out of his bank account. When the money finally ran out five years later, the landlord […]
Round Four with Cancer … and It’s Still All About Relationship
The last thing you want to hear from your doctor after three battles with cancer is, “I’ve got some bad news for you.” But if those words arrive just two days before Christmas, as they did for me in 2020, it’s actually a lot easier to put them in an eternal context. The Savior we […]
Can You Read Faces?
Many years ago a trial attorney read a distressed look in my eyes and responded in a way that changed the course of my life. The ability to read the emotions in others’ faces and eyes is incredibly valuable in every part of daily life. If you keep reading, you’ll learn how you can access […]
What You Can Do About Racial Tensions
As I watched the George Floyd memorial service this afternoon, I was grieved more than ever by his tragic death, the loss that his family is feeling, and by the fact that thousands of people continue to feel deep pain and fear because of the ongoing racial, social and cultural tensions in our land. These […]
Papa, Clean Me!
When he was two-and-half-years-old, my grandson, Andrew, came across a fresh pile of dog poo in the yard. Having been told repeatedly to stay away from dog piles, he of course felt an irresistible desire to step on it and squish it around. Not liking the odor, he walked across the lawn trying to scrape […]