I speak in front of people every weekday. Granted, it’s mostly 20-30 teenagers (some would say that’s hard enough), but I do speak in front of people. I’ve also spoken in front of groups of 50, 300, and — in one nerve-wracking moment — several thousand people as a faculty speaker at a graduation. One…
When I was a kid, I heard stories about “Tupperware Parties,” where people would gather together and experience the joy that is Tupperware, all while cooking and doing other stuff. As a boy, I didn’t know much about them, since these parties were predominantly hosted and attended by women. I also remember my mom talking, with…
He was a lay leader in my family’s small church. A gray-haired single man in his 50s. He taught Bible classes. He held positions on church committees, served communion, and made sure there was a huge celebratory cake in the fellowship hall on the Sunday when I was baptized along with several other church members….
Most marriage advice tends to focus on the big things. Finances. Communication. Intimacy. Respect. Love. All of those things are really, really important, and when they’re missing, a marriage can fray, go cold, or even fracture. Today, though, I’d like to talk about three relatively small things that have been good for my marriage, and…
While it may seem like politics has gotten more fractured in recent years, the truth is that politics has always been a divisive topic among families. Benjamin Franklin, one of the fathers of the American Revolution, famously had a falling out with his son William, a British Loyalist, and the two never really reconciled. Families…
When I plan family dinner menus every week, I try to have my kids each pick a meal they want to eat. The catch is that they have to help prepare and cook their individually chosen meals for our family. I have two children ages 10 and 6, so they each spend at least one…
In July of 2018, I went to a writer’s conference. There were about 350 people present, and I’d met exactly three of them in person: my wife (who came with me), another author that I’d met for lunch once, and that author’s daughter. That left a whole lot of people I hadn’t met in person….
I’ve been a high school teacher for close to two decades now. In that time, I’ve had to deal with my share of angry students. Some kids, by virtue of the challenges life has dealt them, live with a swirl of emotions that can include anger – anger at family, at friends, at teachers, at…
