Self-Compassion or Self-Punishment?

Do you typically treat yourself with compassion or punishment? What kinds of sentences flit though your mind when you nearly cause a car accident? “Wow, keep your eyes open, stupid.” or “Oops, I could have hit that car. Thank you Jesus, I didn’t. If we want to change from self-punishment to compassion, what’s the first …

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Me: “Do you really want to let the bicycle trailer to stay out in the weather all summer? What about putting it in the shed?” He’d lifted the fabric-covered carrier off it’s hooks inside the back door and locked it to the outside of the screened porch. Jerry: “There might be room, but the shed …

Thin Places?

Flowers saved me. Not like Jesus saves me, of course. But that’s what ran through my mind yesterday as I bent to smell the fuchsia peony. The scent of the flower next to the sidewalk took me back to my mother’s garden. In the emotional barrenness of my childhood on the farm, her peonies, lilies, …