"It's awkward and uncomfortable - like a three-legged race. I'll have to learn to walk all over again."

I nearly fell out of my chair! Frank managed an uneasy smile. We were drinking coffee with a young friend who, in an unguarded moment, was talking with disturbing pessimism about his impending marriage. Neither Frank nor I thought of marriage as a ...

We may never qualify for the Olympics, but we can all learn a lesson from world-class athletes who clamp headsets over their ears as they wait their turn to compete. Whether they're listening to a favorite motivational speaker or inspirational music isn't important. What matters is that they've identified their personal strategy for pumping themselves up and ...

The vice-presidential nomination of Sarah Palin has led to all kinds of interesting conversations in the media. And while many of those conversations raise plenty of pertinent questions, I've been struck by the underlying assumptions about what makes a person a qualified leader.

Granted, "qualified" takes on a whole new kind of weight when we're talking ...

Earlier this year, I underlined this passage out of Jonalyn Grace Fincher's book, Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home:

"We say we want Christ to come in and make us new all the way to the center of our souls, but we really don't let him change this weight on women. We just settle for the feeling that this is our lot in life, hoping for better, ...

I know about those "work" friendships.

Jan and I started chatting on the phone several years ago when our sons became good friends. Jan is caring and funny, and I enjoy our time together. But she started popping in several times a week. When she came to visit, she clearly expected me to drop everything and play hostess. Even the days she didn't drop by, ...

Not a whole lot of people can say this: Sarah Palin was my mayor. I spent a few years living in Wasilla, Alaska, when Palin was mayor there, before she became governor of the state. My husband worked in a local church, our oldest daughter was born in the community hospital, and our dog regularly barked at the moose that hung out in our front yard.

By Alaskan standards, ...

A new study of self-described "active Christian women" shows more than a quarter personally experienced sexually inappropriate behavior, and one fourth of those that experienced it said it happened in a church or ministry setting. The survey, based on answers given last fall by 779 American women to NationalChristianPoll.com, was designed to capture the range ...

Growing up in what I realize now was a rather conservative culture, windows into female sexuality were pretty limited. I never saw a woman lead worship though I heard plenty of soprano solos, which I assumed was what a woman should sound like. My chocolate contralto felt odd and out of place. I didn't know any women with male friends without brow-furrowed conversations ...

As a little girl I had a Barbie doll. Not one of the many derivatives of Barbie made today, but the very first Barbie. She was made out of hard plastic and had heavily painted eyelids and impossible physical proportions. She had a wardrobe that included a perfectly miniature snap on bra. I loved her. She was perfect.

Like most girls in the 1960s, I played with her for ...