Posts by GrowthSkills

As life is showing signs of normalcy again, we have an urgent and unique opportunity:  to intentionally redesign our work life balance.  Balance might be a fallacy, or a fantasy, because it seems we’re always falling off the teeter totter.  Weave seems like a better metaphor, because work seems to weave itself in and out…

Do not forget to entertain strangers for by doing some people have entertained angels without knowing. Hebrews 13:2-3  As a bible reader we have been introduced to angels throughout scripture. The following encounters convince me that angels are indeed real. An Angel of the Lord blocking Balaam from cursing God’s people. (Numbers 22: 22-28) In…

If your pandemic life is anything like mine, in the past year you’ve become less scheduled and more isolated in your home.  I lost an ease in navigating life and with it, an interior silence from years of meditation practice, I hadn’t realized was so fragile.  I’ve spent much of the year trying to find…

It’s not the story anyone expected.  An aging sports star yearns for a few more years of glory.  His team for 20 years thinks he’s past his prime.  But rather than a slow and painful decline, he leads a brand new team to the Super Bowl.  Doesn’t matter if you love him or hate him,…

Life is a journey.   This past Fall, our family made this truth a literal reality.  On August 19, 2020, my wife, 3 kids, niece and I climbed into a travel trailer towing SUV and embarked on a 4-month road trip across America and back.   Having never experienced anything like this, we truly did…

As a young girl, I remember the thrill of anticipating Christmas. Immediately after Thanksgiving, Christmas was on everyone’s mind. Holiday lights began appearing on all the houses in my neighborhood, twinkling happily everywhere.  My older brother Bill and I spent much of our time trying to find the gifts we knew my mother had hidden…

Giving Space by Michele Fleming, Ph.D. Does this sound familiar?  You are having a conversation with a friend who holds thoughts and beliefs that are vastly different from yours.  Next thing you know, you start to get triggered – a slow rising of the need to be right.  To deliver a brilliant rebuttal.  Or to…

So here we are still living in this new upside-down world of Covid19 and quarantine. It feels like I woke up in some weird alternate universe. Nothing is the same. For some of us, including me, the quarantine has been extended far beyond what I thought it would and has had a significant impact on…

Romans 7:15. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Life is complex, often the same experience will hold both good and bad.   For example, I am grateful for our country’s awakening to injustice in our police force and I’m outraged by the death of George Floyd.   Maturity is engaging in all of…

It felt like life was changing again for the better.  Restaurants were hanging “open for business” signs in their windows. “Come in” signs beckoned, calling out “please give us a try.”  Last Wednesday evening, I went out to a restaurant with my two older granddaughters. We sat in the dining room of a quaint little…

In The Law of Happiness,  Dr. Cloud says,  “Happiness comes as a by-product of the “life well lived.” Number one, happiness can be found and there are principles and practices that revealed that. Number two, those principles and practices of the law of happiness are the ones that God has given all along in His…

We each have a story.  Sometimes we love the story, and other times we’d rather opt out of our narrative and into another.  The beauty of your story is that even the difficult plot points, the ones that leave you a little bruised and broken, have the capacity for good and for redemption.  In fact,…