Personal Growth

You feel betrayed. Someone close to you has hurt you deeply. You want to move past the pain and your obsession with what happened, but how? The usual strategies—trying to get even, trying to forget—just aren't working for you. Perhaps it's...

Is a life-threatening illness, a major life change, or just plain old age forcing you to face your own mortality? Probably, like most of us, you'd rather not think or talk about your own death. But ignoring your death won't stop it from...

Sexual assault is an invasive event of traumatic evil. You were victimized, and now you are suffering. Whenever sexual abuse occurs, love is not part of the equation. Rather, the perpetrator uses power, domination, and control to injure innocent victims...

What if your human parents were violent, deceptive, cold, or even just occasionally disappointing? Can their failures keep you from understanding God's love and having a growing relationship with your heavenly Father? Some say that you can't know God's...

Are you facing a great loss? Perhaps a loved one or close friend has died. Great love brings great sorrow, and healthy sorrow recognizes the immensity of loss. But when death and loss come close, the temptation toward despair and hopelessness is often...

You spend your days (and maybe nights) helping someone else. If you are a caregiver for someone who is chronically ill, you have already discovered there is a need to be more compassionate, thoughtful, and sacrificial than you ever anticipated. But, to...

The damage you suffered may have been done in one terrible moment or over time. But the healing and the restoration will unfold at your pace, at a human pace. It unfolds as part of your story, and it unfolds over time. As a vulnerable child, instead of...

Have you ever felt discouraged about praying? Sometimes it feels like there are more reasons not to pray than to pray. Discouraging circumstances that haven't changed, long-standing requests that haven't been given a yes, boring prayer meetings the list...

Do past failures still trouble you? Perhaps regret over a mistake, the betrayal of someone close to you, an undone task, an angry outburst has left you feeling uneasy. You wonder if God really does forgive you. Sometimes he seems like a dark cloud...

It's only natural to bristle when you are mistreated. Perhaps you were passed over for a well-deserved job promotion, hurt by a family member, falsely accused, or experienced a severe disappointment. An array of emotions—anger, frustration,...

Caring for aging parents is complex and challenging even under the best of circumstances. How do we help them and remain sane when distance, dementia, depression, disaster, divorce, disintegrated relationships, deteriorating health, and discouragement...

How many times have you tried to change a behavior only to find yourself doing the same thing again? Do these phrases sound familiar? "There I go again!" "I've had this struggle for years, and I just can't seem to win." "I do okay for awhile, but then I...

Are you living under a cloud of guilt that you can't seem to shake no matter what you do? Do you feel guilty about everything, all the time? We all have different ways of dealing with our guilty feelings, but none of them work for very long. Timothy S...

Do you dread family get-togethers and try to avoid your extended family whenever you can? When you see your family, do you sometimes regret the way you talk and act? Why is it so hard to get along with the people we grew up with? Childhood hurts,...

Is a personal God really involved in our suffering? And if he is, what in the world is he up to? Why would a good God allow suffering in his world? William P. Smith addresses these and other hard questions by reflecting on what the Bible teaches about...

It is difficult and sometimes frightening not to have the good opinion of others. No one likes to face the possibility of rejection, humiliation, or opposition. Yet, making our goal others' approval confines us to a small world where life consists of...

A loved one has walked out on you. A car crash has left you disabled and in constant pain. You or a family member just received a serious medical diagnosis. Even worse, perhaps you've just returned from a funeral. How do you begin to piece your life...

Do you own your smartphone, or does it own you? How quickly do you pick it up in the morning? Do you check it multiple times an hour to make sure you know what's going on in the world? Do you find yourself turning to it first when you're sad, angry, or...

There are many voices weighing in on the question of whether you can change your sexual orientation. Yes, no, maybe so—it can be confusing and disorienting to sort through the mess. You want to follow God, but what does that mean when it comes to...

Often, in our busy world, our lives feel like one long to-do list. It's easy to get so busy that we don't even notice how exhausted and anxious we are. Do you find yourself saying yes to activities you don't have time for? Have you ever said, "If I...