Family

When I am Ignored

It is so hard to share with someone seemingly endlessly with no fruit seeming to bear. I have been through this with various people — some regarding faith and others regarding recovery. They do not want to hear about God, the Bible or church. Or they are not interested in getting sober, getting out of that codependent/abusive relationship ior changing their life in any way. I believe it is a problem with their eyes not seeing and their ears not hearing.

It is not a matter of my not saying the right thing. The issue may be that it is not the right time.

I am sowing seeds on dry hard ground. (see: Mark 4:3-9 and Mark 4:10-20)

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“I don’t want to do this.”

Gethsemane: Code For… “I don’t want to do this.”

We’ve uttered that statement frequently in our lives.

This time of year, there’s a great deal of emphasis on Jesus. As we prepare for Resurrection Sunday, we read and remind ourselves just how this whole thing came to be: hope, salvation and reunion with God. It didn’t just happen.

And a large part of it depends on Gethsemane.

Yes, Jesus is amazing and loving. But He still had a night of decision. Hours away from being crucified, there was a real moment; He didn’t want to do it.

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Internalizing the Wrong Messages?

I’m a huge fan of classic cartoons. The Roadrunner, in particular, always makes me smile.

Recently, I stumbled across an image, featuring Wile. E. Coyote’s “calling card,” which read “Genius.” And it immediately reminded me of a famous Albert Einstein quote:

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

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My Spouse Drinks at Home, How Can I Cope?

Question: What if you’re in a position where the only place your spouse can safely drink is in your home? I have tried the detachment thing only to have my drunken partner stalk me around the house and badger me with his stupid behavior. He’s not physically violent but mentally abusive and I would like to ignore it but the words hurt. The only thing I can think of is an ultimatum to not drink in my house. Any suggestions would be helpful… and yes I do ignore him when he’s drunk at least 99% of the time… I can’t always do this when I’m being verbally attacked or things are being thrown around the house.

Guidance: The home is usually the only safe place for an alcoholic to drink for obvious reasons. You’re doing the right thing by trying to detach from the alcoholic behavior. Here are seven more ways to detach from abusive behavior. The best way to get the most from this marriage column is to click on all of the links that will lead you to another article.

Understand that most of what an alcoholic says when drunk they don’t really mean. The alcoholic is angry inside-they are holding in a lot of resentment and emotional demons that come out in angry words of abuse to whoever happens to be in earshot. The alcoholic is

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Affirmation via Tattoos and Piercings

“He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’…” Job 15:23

Within recovery, there is often the need to commemorate the struggle, the courage and the life-affirming process, via tattoos and piercings.

Indeed, I’ve encountered many young people who have significant dates and meaningful logos marked on their skin. Likewise, eyebrows, nostrils and lips are also pierced, in the declaration of some kind of personal freedom from pain.

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Our Battle with the Mirror

The infamous mirror. We do battle with it every single day, don’t we? How many of us pick ourselves apart, critiquing, judging and hating every feature? How many of us, upon seeing our reflection, are disgusted and disappointed with what we see?

There is a use for everything, mirrors included. They serve a purpose. Let’s face it — if it weren’t for mirrors, there’d be more instances of lipstick on — and spinach in –teeth. We’d look much messier than we do when we present ourselves to the world.

But mirrors are not the end all, be all to our eternal worth and value. They are far from it.

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Do You Love an Alcoholic? – Stop Rescuing and Enabling

Do you love an alcoholic? How can you live with an alcoholic and love them at the same time? Very carefully. It’s true, it is very difficult to live with an alcoholic, but people do it all the time. Alcohol controls the mind and spirit of a person, so in affect as long as the alcoholic is drinking you will not get much love in return. Being married to an alcoholic is not a reason for divorce. It is reason for helping your loved one with the disease. Alcohol addiction is called the insidious disease for a reason. It breaks up homes, kills lives, and keeps them from discovering the Creator. Can it get anymore insidious than that?

A person who drinks excessively is called an alcoholic but that is not who they are. A person who drives a truck is called a trucker, but that is not who they are. I believe alcohol addiction to be a phase or transition of a person’s life, meaning it can be temporary. But many alcoholics become sober only to start drinking again, soon after, why? It is because they think they are in control of their addiction, but they aren’t. If a person truly wants to get sober and stay sober, they will.

The person behind the destruction and deception of alcohol is a

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Overcoming Addiction: Addiction + Denial = Out of Control

My addiction used to control me. It overwhelmed the person inside of me, and I became a stranger to my family, and to myself. All I cared about was having another drink. All I thought about was where and when I was going to get my next drink. My mind was totally and completely absorbed within my addiction, and I didn’t even know it. I was proud, haughty and selfish. I was an alcoholic.

Do you have an addiction? Some of us overeat, over drink, smoke, look at porn, gamble, do drugs, or become abusive. We can even be addicted to our feelings. When we let our negative thoughts control us to do wrong, we are under the power of our thoughts and feelings. Addiction controls several aspects of our character that keep us from coming to our full potential. I know these things first hand; I have been there and done that.

Mentally the addiction affects the way we

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Talking about Healing: Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.Ephesians 4:29


“Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?” by John Powell (Niles, IL: Argus Communications, 1969) is one of my favorite books.

Powell suggests that people are afraid to tell you who they REALLY are because you may not like them, thus, we reveal ourselves in “levels” or stages: According to him.

The lowest level is cliché.

“Hi, how are you?” “Whazzup?” When you met that special someone, did you really care who he or she was or was it because you had a hidden agenda and maybe did not even know it? Did that first conversation sound something like this? Do you come here often? So you’re a whiskey sour lady, let me buy you a drink. ‘I thought you was somebody else’.

This level is safe. There is no sharing of the human experience. You do not know anything about me and I don’t know anything about you. What you don’t know is she might be going through a heated divorce. He could have just got out of prison for armed robbery.

The second level is

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Loving Your Spouse With Wisdom

worksheet at bottom of article

There are two ways we can love our spouse. We can love under our own understanding of what we think love is, or we can love the way God has directed us to love. I think we all know how to love, but doing it is a whole different matter.

What is the difference between the two? The first way of loving is a condition and learned way to love, which is selfish and self-seeking. We don’t know we are behaving selfishly because we do not know any other way to love. It is a slow conditioning process where we learn to love for our own purpose. But marriage is designed for God’s purpose. God wants you to be happy in your marriage and the best way for you to be happy is by loving in the way God has directed us to love.

The second way of loving is what comes naturally because we have loved and accepted God into our lives first. The reason it’s so natural is because we have recognized and utilized the spiritual Christ in our lives, which makes loving a natural process of who we are.

It is very difficult to love another if we are only thinking about ourselves. Some examples of how we love our spouse selfishly are

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