Over the past two weeks, Rebecca has written the client’s name on three separate sticky notes. Call Mr. Holden. Each note ended up under a pile of papers, then under a coffee mug, then finally in the trash with the…
Learning to exercise faith when your motivation is gone can seem almost impossible when your spirit is simply drained. You may still believe, but prayer no longer comes easily and the Scriptures seem flat. If that’s where you’re at, you’re…
Difficult people don’t just drain your patience—they can also affect your health. A new study on “the naysayers” shows just how persistent negative social stress can wear us down over time. The people around us are not just background characters…
Last month, over coffee, a mate of mine said something I couldn’t deny. His daughter is 26 and lives out of town and still calls him most Sunday evenings. Don’t ask for anything. Just to talk about her week. He…
A few years ago, a friend of mine got a promotion he had been longing for. Big jump, better money, a lot. He told me over dinner and I said all the right things, then the whole way home I…
“I’m only telling you this because I care about you.” Most of us have heard this line at some point, and most of us have felt a strange drop in our stomachs after it. Because you know what’s coming next,…
There’s a special silence that happens about ten minutes before a grown child tells you something real. You don’t usually run into each other. Often you both do something with your hands. And then comes a sentence that has nothing…
I used to write emails that were four times longer than they needed to be. Someone would invite me to something I couldn’t do, and instead of saying no, I’d send a paragraph. The time, the workload, the other thing…
My grandfather took up swimming at the age of 74. That’s right, I mean, in a squad, with a coach and a board and about twenty other pensioners. All his life he was afraid to put his face in the…
I was at a restaurant a while back when a waiter dropped a full tray about a meter away from a table for four. There is glass everywhere, wine on someone’s shoes, the whole room is silent, just like the…
