Two days ago, my daughter and I stood in line at IKEA. Halfway through loading our "small stuff" onto the conveyor belt and repositioning the "big stuff" (I'd tell you what it all was but it would ruin some Christmas surprises!) in the cart, the woman at the register held up her hand, stop-style.

The credit card for the people ahead of us wasn't ...

As I write, I'm delightfully basted in the scent of lemon grass oil; I just got a massage. I've only ever had one other massage in my life, so this is a fairly memorable occasion. I'm thankful for the kind woman who spent an hour of her time trying to talk some relaxation into these stubborn, over-tightened muscles of mine.

Actually, I'm a little more ...

Solve some problem right in front of you. Often vision is born by passing through the narrow and dark birth canal of problems. You see the problem, and you start to work on it. You don't necessarily feel inspired or see lights. All you are doing is trying to solve some problem right in front of you. But later, everyone else says, "What a great vision!"

The ...

My friend and I sat on my patio, drinking tea and catching up with life. She had just moved to a new situation, away from familiar work, beautiful spaces and valued friends, and she was experiencing the exhausting emptiness of a job that was too full, a context where she felt undervalued and a place where friends were not naturally found. The tears filled her eyes as she ...

Christmas is coming! The presents wrapped in fun and funky paper. The family. The homemade sugar cookies and sledding in three-feet snow. The break from school and pop quizzes! Sounds nice, doesn't it? But did you know that the holidays are a difficult time for lots of teens? Dr. David Lowenstein, a psychologist, says that as many as one person in four battles the holiday ...

Cultivating the right to share your faith means building respect. Sometimes this seed is sown for years, but many times it's overnight. Pray where God would like you to embark, and then ask questions. "How can I pray for you?" might help console a depressed friend.

Several months ago, a friend and I started praying God would bring Christians into our neighborhood. ...

I used to equate "women's ministry" with things like secret pals and salad suppers. Problem is I'm a horrible secret pal because I tend to forget birthdays and anniversaries. And I'm sorry, but I like warm food.

At one particularly memorable Christmas tea, which featured a desert reception, I nervously stuffed an entire chocolate-covered strawberry ...

Confrontation - always difficult, often necessary. And something that many of us do badly or not at all. We tend to default toward one of two paths; either we run from it or we find ourselves continually confronting everything: fight or flight. It doesn't take too long to realize that both of these methods are more often than not ineffective.

FLIGHT: Are you one of ...

Humility is essential for mixed gender teams because pride is so destructive. Pride leads us to presume and prejudge one another. This in turn leads to issues of stereotyping, transference, and entitlement.

How many men and women feel offended by one another based on an unfair presumption? A man presumes, for instance, that a woman is against him - when really she is ...