One thing that can damage our resilience is the mistaken notion that a good marriage equals a calm and peaceful one. In the ten years Larry and Sara had been married, five jobs, one miscarriage, five harsh financial seasons, four moves, and two adventure-filled boys had taken their toll. Not to mention the fact that they came from two different family styles:Sara's ...

One particularly summery evening last May, I headed to downtown Dallas. For me the road from my sedate suburbia to downtown entailed much more than thirty minutes of my time. It was a trip into another culture where beautiful, successful 20-somethings live, work, and love to party. Even though my well-worn NIV Study Bible sat on the seat next to me, my mind was far from ...

In part I of this conversation, I mentioned Jim Loehr. He was a performance psychologist who evaluated top-ranked tennis players in an effort to determine what made those who held the highest world rankings better than their lower-ranked competitors. What did they do as they played tennis that made them superior players in a highly competitive sport?

Loehr discovered ...

The theme of my life and ministry seems to be MORE! That is, God has more for each of us. I can go way back in my walk with God to see his more.

Since I was eight years old I had wanted to be a writer and then a magazine editor. When I joined Campus Crusade for Christ staff, I gave up that dream - wanting God's will more than my dream. Two months later I was asked ...

As I glanced over the last Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) alumni newsletter, my eye caught the announcement that the seminary had reached a significant milestone: 1,500 female alumni on their roster. As one of the first women to set foot on the DTS campus as a student, I admit my heart skipped a beat when I saw that number. The fact that DTS was celebrating this was ...

As we begin a new year, once again we've looked back on the previous year to see which blog articles and downloads you found most intriguing. Thought you might enjoy seeing what was most popular with the Gifted for Leadership crowd in 2008. Check out the great conversations from last year:

Top 10 Most Popular Blog Posts of 2008

10. The Women Out There by Caryn Rivadeneira

9. ...

For the final day of our Devotional Journey, Laurie McIntyre writes that what growing Christians need is not a new idea but a commitment to put into practice what we already know. This commitment, she writes, is similar to trying to lose weight. Laurie says,

"I liken it to the multi-billion dollar dieting industry?Those of us who struggle with unwanted pounds are ...

It's not often that I laugh out loud in the opener of a devotional. But Angie had me laughing. I mean, isn't her image of the "ideal" Christian woman dead on? The coffee. The nook. The light streaming in. It's the way I imagine it should be too.

But like Angie, it's not at all the way my life looks. Frankly, I've found much of my spiritual ...

I can definitely relate to Kirsten's beautiful narrative today. In fact, this story is really just a continuation of what I wrote about on Day 2 of our Journey. If you'll remember, I confessed to you that I was a perfectionist and ball of nerves when it came to academic achievement. I'm not like that anymore, and here's the brief story of how that came about: ...