Stories & Articles

Hi Reader, Later this week I’m giving an online talk to a group of 25-30 regional mission leaders serving in Asia. The title and topic they gave me to speak about: “The Gift of Listening.” In preparing for my time with these missionaries, I came across a quote that fits in well. Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to...

Our relationship with God impacts all our other relationships. It's the most important relationship of all.

Reader, One of the things I like about the website for our You Were Made for This podcast is the ability people have to comment on a particular episode. For example, three days ago, a listener shared his views about episode 063, Six Reasons Why We’re Not More Curious About People. Here’s what he wrote: I think you left out one reason why people aren’t more curious about other people’s lives: because they genuinely don’t care. This is the position in which I find myself. I try to care. I fake...

Reader, “On September 11, I always take the day off. I want to be in a peaceful, quiet place praying. It is a day I both mourn and celebrate.” - Genelle Guzman-McMillan, 9/11 survivor “It’s the nature of the world that most people have moved on, but the people directly involved with 9/11, for them, twice a day it’s 9/11.” - Robert Reeg, former FDNY firefighter “I still have the shoes I wore to work that day. The soles are melted, and they’re caked in ash. I keep them in a shoebox with the...

Reader, Now that we’re two days past Labor Day and the unofficial end of summer here in the US, I had to share the photo of flip-flops locked together with a padlock. It’s one of my favorites because of what it evokes about summer. Unlike for many of you, saying goodbye to summer has never been a problem for me. While I do like the additional sunlight and going to baseball games, the warmer temperatures of summer drain me. Putting summer in the rearview mirror energizes me for what comes...

Hi Reader, Something goes off inside me about this time every year. My first sighting of a school bus invading our quiet neighborhood does it each time. Kids going back to school and what it does to their parents. It makes me feel a mix of sadness and joy about what happens in our relationships with the children in our lives. Many decades have passed since our own kids went back to school (although one of them is returning to get an additional college degree.) So the invading school buses...

Reader, One of our podcast listeners once told me she especially likes reading listener responses to my weekly emails and podcast episodes. There were more than usual to last week’s email and blog post that I thought might interest you. You might recall that last week I shared something my friend Martin learned about grief in the context of his wife Suzanne’s death four years ago. He quoted a neurobiologist who talked about the neurophysiology of grief. She said that when a loved one dies,...

Reader, In last week’s email, I talked about my friend Martin, whose wife died suddenly four years ago. This past Thursday, on the anniversary of Suzanne’s death, Martin and I talked on the phone. He shared what the past four years have been like for him. Martin also forwarded a text to me that he received from the hospital about Suzanne’s passing. Hi, Hans. Since Suzanne died, your brain has had to reconstruct its map of the world without her in it. Neurobiologist Mary-Frances O'Connor...

Even in death, we can help others live.