Were you ever bullied on the playground? Or called names by the neighbor kid? Do you have an annoying co-worker? A friend who pushes your buttons?
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Dr. Roger Birkman would often make this statement: “The reality of life is that your perceptions—right or wrong—influence everything you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place.”
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My parents were caretakers for a group of cottages on three secluded lakes in Northern Ontario. It is an area of 2500 acres with only 7 cottages, plus our family “sugar shack”, where we made maple syrup. It is pristine and still remains this way. I grew up on these lakes and miss being so far away.
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Nobody likes a thorn. You might name your baby girl, Rose, but I have never heard of a child named Thorn. To us, a thorn a bad thing. We do not like thorns. We do not plant them, and we do not want them around—not in our gardens, flower beds, or fingers. Thorns are a nuisance, and we do everything we can to get rid of them.
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The life of a new Christian is both exciting and daunting. As a former atheist, my early experiences as a Christian were filled with opportunities and challenges. What do I do now? I wondered. Should I attend church? Where should I go? Who should I tell? What if I have doubts? How often should I pray and read the Bible?
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Elijah was burned out, completely exhausted, and Queen Jezebel had just threatened his life. Elijah told God, “The people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10). He was scared, stopped trusting in God and felt alone. It was time to quit.
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I’ll never forget how God drew me to HimSELF. You see, I grew up as a people pleaser. The church I attended as a teen was works based, which fit my task-oriented, self-sufficient personality well. I’d heard the Gospel—that Jesus had paid for my failures with His life (John 3:16 and Ephesians 2:8)—but it hadn’t resonated with me. My life in high school revolved around sports, and I planned to attend a Division ...
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Have you ever sighed while setting your alarm clock on a Saturday night for church the next morning? After a week of waking up early for school, homework and extracurricular activities, sleeping in on Sunday can sound refreshing. There’s always the option to watch the sermon later online, right? So, why not hit the snooze button?
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We’ve all seen the cartoons and comics where a character’s thoughts are revealed inside of cloud-shaped thought bubbles. Imagining our own thoughts as thought bubbles can be a great way to examine what is happening inside our minds at any given moment and can give us power over our negative thoughts.
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Every member of our family finds security and comfort in the familiar ebb and flow of daily life. The predictable patterns of our activities work in sync with our body’s internal rhythms to provide the framework of mental wellbeing. However, when new situations interrupt the rhythms of our life, our biological rhythms get out of sync, or additional stresses pop up, we can find our mental health wavering. We wonder, ...
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