Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “circumstances”
There are certain things I wish I’d learned sooner in life. This is one of them: “What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.” Circumstances, both bad and good, come and go. But how I respond in a given situation? That can have a lasting effect on me and on others that lingers for years …
“You have to be careful what you anchor your emotions to.” I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago when those words came out of my mouth. She looked at me and said, “That’s a blog post!” And I’ve been mulling what I said ever since then — about how I need to be careful what I …
What determines your happiness: your circumstances or your attitude? I would have to say there were times … are times … I allow my circumstances to determine whether I’m happy or not. Things go right — the way I want them to go — and I’m happy. All good. Things go wrong? I’m fighting against the drag of my emotions. …
Last week didn’t go exactly as I planned. This week isn’t going exactly as I planned, either. My husband, 17-year-old daughter, Christa, and I traveled to Washington, DC last Friday so Christa could compete in a volleyball tournament with her club team. We started off the trip by showing up at the Denver airport — only to find out that …
Perspective changes everything. As my husband and I wandered through a local park early one morning before my daughter’s day-long volleyball tournament, I paused in front of this wire bench. The surrounding trellises were mostly bare. What few leaves remained were brittle and brown. The landscape was awash in grays and browns. And it had its own certain beauty. …
Brokenness fascinates me. It seems the theme of brokenness intrigues a lot of people — a lot of writers, to be specific. Elisa Morgan wrote about it in her book The Beauty of Broken. Then there’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Henry T. Blackaby’s Brokenness: The Heart God Revives; Finding God’s Blessings in Brokenness by Charles Stanley; and of course Ann Voskamp’s best-selling …
Mention “theme,” and most people are transported back to English class, when the teacher asked, “What is the theme of this book?” Some of us had fun with this question about the central idea in a novel or short story or poem or play, and some of us started counting the days until summer vacation. And then some of …
I’ve attended hundreds of volleyball games since my youngest daughter started playing back in fifth grade. And I’ve also taken thousands of photographs.Yes, of my daughter, but of her teammates, too. The setters. The outside hitters. The liberos. The defensive specialists. The middle blockers. The right sides. One of my favorite photos? When the team huddles up. The girls do …
I’ve always been intrigued by this quote by Anne Frank. Astounded, really. A young girl whose life was destroyed by the Nazi Holocaust states that despite everything — despite losing her home, despite having to hide from people who want to kill her and her family, despite the fear of being caught and taken to a concentration camp (which …
You should see me trying to get out the door. I slip on my shoes, gather my bottle of Sobe Lifewater, grab my purse, and head for the garage. Once I get to my car, I remember something I forgot to bring with me — my car keys maybe, or a manuscript I need to read, or my checkbook. So …
