As friends and I met for dinner to enjoy pictures of mutual friends' wedding, their four-year-old joined in the fun. At one stage I asked this child which picture was her favorite, and she quickly pointed to one saying "This one!" When I asked why, she pointed again and said the name of her best friend. Her parents and I strained our eyes to have another look. ...

"How long will it be before I am better?" I asked a trusted mentor and advisor. He thought for a moment and replied, "If you are really careful, I expect you'll be somewhat recovered and almost back to normal in about eight months." I blinked in disbelief. Eight months? It was not the answer I wanted or expected. A week, a month, at most, but eight ...

We've all encountered those moments in ministry and life when we feel spent, empty, with nothing else to give. Maybe lived on exhaust one gasp too long. Maybe burning the candle on both ends and in the middle wasn't such a great idea. Maybe a series of sleepless nights got the best of us. Whatever the cause, we have nothing left to give and for just a few more hours ...

Lately I've been walking a 5-km route through a residential area where I pass lots of houses. I take a good look at the gardens, see who is on the porch, and what I can see through the window. It occurred to me the other day that each family in each house has a story to tell. How long have they lived there? Why would they pick that house of all of them on the street? ...

Image: Dong Wenjie/Getty

I have a hard time "unplugging." My morning starts with a sleepy-eyed click on email, and most nights I turn in only after checking Facebook. Yet recently it seems God is calling me to spend time plugged in to him - only him.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, throws down this challenge: "In our crazy world, silence and stillness are two of the true ...

In his book, Oh, the Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss writes about something he calls "a most useless place:" The Waiting Place. It is "for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come, or a plane to go

or the mail to come, or the rain to go

or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

or waiting around for a Yes or No

or waiting for their hair ...

Three months ago, I learned a new word. I think. Honestly, the meaning is still vague, but when a conference speaker sketched a simple box with four quadrants that she called a rubric, it struck a nerve. It's an assessment that shows how well we meet our standards. If your dot is plotted in the upper right box (the higher the better) your assessment matches the standard; ...

My laptop crashes to the tile, a work-at-home mother's nightmare scenario. I turn from my cutting board to see the recipe-bearing screen lying face-down on the floor. The cord, left within my 15-month old daughter's reach, had proved too enticing.

I had to replace the trashed hard drive and rebuild the laptop (serious feat for tech-rookie me). Two days, four hundred ...

It seems like it's pretty hard to go anywhere lately without hearing talk of the current economic downturn. Even though part of my New Year's resolution was to reduce my daily intake of news, people are talking about it at church, at work, even at the little deli I shop at every morning. Christian universities have tightened budgets and implemented temporary hiring ...

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 ...