Learning to Value Ourselves More by @bethvogt I didn’t participate in school sports. Oh, sure, I played the required PE activities where you wait to get picked for a team, hoping you’re not last. And I remember the games of kickball and dodgeball during recess in elementary school – back when schools allowed kids to play dodgeball. Kicking a …
In Others’ Words: Wrong and Right
There will be times when we are wrong. There will be times when we are right. It comes down to this: What will we do during the wrong times and the right times? Who will we be? When we’re wrong, we can pretend our wrong is right. Or we can close our eyes and ignore our wrong. Or point at …
In Others’ Words: A Peace of My Mind
I don’t want to do anger anymore. I understand that there are going to be times when I get irritated about something or maybe even lose my temper. Life happens, right? But I don’t want to stay angry. I don’t want to be an angry person. I also don’t want to hang around angry people because, well, I can too …
In Others’ Words: The Everything of Family
There’s nothing quite like family rallying together in a crisis. Yesterday, my family rallied round my almost 99-year-old mother-in-law after she fell in her bathroom and ended up being taken to the emergency room via ambulance — she said the trip wasn’t bad — and then spent the day getting x-rayed and scanned. But they also rallied around one another …
In Others’ Words: Living Expectant
How often do we look for our big opportunity somewhere out there — expecting the thing we’ve been waiting for to show up tomorrow, or next month, or even next year? With a “somewhere out there” focus, what kind of right-here-right-now opportunities do we miss? The danger? Being so intent on tomorrow’s possibilities we overlook what’s happening today. Lessons to learn.Relationships …
In Others’ Words: Hearing the Silence
Sometimes it isn’t so much what we say as it is what we don’t say. I used to to think the more I said, the better chance I had of winning an argument … of influencing people and making friends … and yes, well, making my point. Talk, talk, talk meant effect, effect, effect, right? Wrong. The power of persuasion …
In Others’ Words: Beneficial Opposition
I’m not the best when it comes to flying kites. The whole process of running and releasing a kite up into the air behind me? It’s just a bit beyond me. I want to look ahead of me and make certain I don’t run into something, or that I don’t trip and fall. At the same time, I want to look …
In Others’ Words: The Glorious Mess of Christmas
This quote makes me smile. The words takes me back to my childhood … and to the years when my children were younger. And to be honest, there are still messes created in our family living room on Christmas morning. And I love the glorious mess. Yes, there’s noise — laughter and conversation all mixed together. And the room is …
In Others’ Words: Choosing Sides on Christmas
I read through pages and pages of quotes about Christmas last night and I came to a conclusion: People either love Christmas or they don’t. And when they don’t, well, sometimes they tolerate it … and sometimes they just outright hate it. Reading those quotes was like sitting atop a virtual pendulum that swung back and forth, back and …
In Others’ Words: The Better Friend
A few weeks ago I heard that September is National Friendship month. I liked the sound of that: a whole month celebrating, among other things, friendship. It’s also National Honey Month. And National Courtesy Month. And National Sewing Month. And National Blueberry Popsicle Month. On a more serious note, September is also National Suicide Prevention Month. And that leads me …