[featured-image link=”null” link_single=”inherit” single_newwindow=”false”]123rf.com[/featured-image] I am depressed. (Are you? Find out here.) I don’t just mean sad, down in the dumps, etc. I mean I am struggling, right now, with a major depressive episode. I take medication for it. It’s an ongoing reality in my life. Especially now. I’m sleeping 12-16 hours a night and just not wanting to do anything, not finding joy in most things that I usually love. Gaining weight. Just

[featured-image link=”null” link_single=”inherit” single_newwindow=”false”] My post idea today comes from a reader, who emailed a heartbreaking note to me. She attached the quote at the top of this post, and wrote: I came across this quote not too long ago and it stopped me in my tracks. As a teenager I was sexually abused by [identity clipped] for [length of time clipped], so the first part I understand. It’s the second part that stops me in my tracks. How could that ever be

[featured-image link=”null” link_single=”inherit” single_newwindow=”false”]123rf.com[/featured-image] My original post on this topic concluded with these lines: Both living in truth and living in falsehood bring suffering. In my next post, I’ll talk about why the suffering that truth brings is better. Have you ever had a terrible, miserable, horrible, awful experience that, when it’s over, you look back on it and say, “That was beyond horrible– but I wouldn’t trade it for any

123rf.com Someone struggling with serious health problems wrote to me today and said, “Dave, some of the stuff you’ve faced with your MS is horrific. How in the world do you keep trusting God and believing he loves you?” What a great question. With her permission I have reprinted my answer, below, because I wonder if it might be helpful to others. — Question: I just don’t understand how you and God can have a relationship when you are suffering from such a depressing, debilit

image courtesy of 123rf.com On February 10 I posted about how some people were not comfortable with how I speak of God, because my language isn’t traditional enough and doesn’t reflect enough orthodoxy. This morning I received a beautiful, if short-lived apology from one of those to whom I had been referring in that post. Only it went on. And on. It became at first philosophical, and then a bit forceful, and finally culminated in the following: Actually you’re in the perfect

Through my recent posts on this blog, others who are suffering, some more deeply than I, have connected and sent me questions, looking for encouragement in their own struggles. The post below is a response I gave today to a woman with stage four cancer who wrote to ask, “how do you NOT give up?”  I hope you, like her, can find something here to encourage you on your unique journey through suffering. — I am humbled that you would ask me your questions. I’ll take a crack at a

Image courtesy of Chris Luckhardt, licensed under Creative Commons Have you ever been in that place where you seem to be surrounded with horrific things? As I write, two of my closest friends on the planet are fighting cancer. This morning I got word that an amazing young man with cancer, for whom I had done premarital counseling and then his wedding in 2010, succumbed to his disease this morning. I gotta be honest, it’s starting to get to me. I’m sick of cancer. Jessica and

Image courtesy of Stephen Cuyos, licensed under Creative Commons Remember, Jesus himself invited the comparison of God’s love to the love of human parents for our children. If you extend your love to your children constantly, every second, for a specified number of years, are you then justified in killing or torturing them for having not responded? Could you even desire to? If you were capable of doing that , wouldn’t that mean — by obvious definition — that you never really

Public Domain on Pixabay.com [Start at the beginning of this series] Jesus invited us to understand God’s love by thinking of our love for our own children. He did this mainly in two places. One is the parable of the prodigal son. The other is when he said, “If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.” (Luke 11:9-13). In this passage, Jesus is saying that God’s love a

Image courtesy of Jennuine Captures, licensed under Creative Commons Today I am beginning a four-part series explaining my theology, which is based on God’s unconditional and never-ending love for us. This is theology, so it uses a lot of scripture passages, and I realize there are many passages I do not use that create questions of interpretation. This is always the case in any theology. My intention with using scriptures is merely to show that my theology has deep Biblical

image courtesy of 123rf.com And though we love to numb the pain We come to learn that it’s in vain Pain is our mother She makes us recognize each other — Linford Detweiler I have long said that stories of brokenness and failure bind a community together much more than stories of success and victory. Not there’s anything wrong with success stories. Church (and all other) communities need them. People are encouraged and excited by them and it helps keep momentum going. But brok

Last week I went into an eye surgeon for a consultation. I have a cyst in the corner of each of my eyes. It doesn’t hurt, and isn’t even very obvious, but it bugs me. They needed to check to see if removing the cysts will interfere with my tear ducts. Apparently the way they learn this is by taking a syringe full of water and a rounded needle-type object on it, sticking it into your tear duct,  moving it around in a giant circle, and then squirting water into the duct until y

photo via 123rf.com God, I want to pray but I can’t. Sometimes you are our only hope, and it seems like you’re really not much. You let that little girl in California get murdered the other day. Right now, in every corner of the earth, someone is grieving over a child who is about to die, crying out to you for deliverance — knowing you are their only hope — and maybe afraid that that’s not much. I know, death isn’t the end of THE story. But it’s an important part of OUR story