Children and teens face a tremendous amount of pressure from their peers and culture to find their identity in their activities, performance, or feelings. This modern way of looking at identity can be challenging to navigate for parents who grew up with a traditional view of identity rooted in predetermined roles. What if they could help their children and teenagers find their identity in...
Back when my husband was a youth pastor we took to the streets with teenagers and did street dramas. The stories we told had crazy and sometimes scary (think Satan) characters. There were props (think coffins), clowns, and even ballet. We always drew a crowd because people love seeing stories acted out (although some parents ushered their children away quickly). As we go through...
Biblical counseling is a hybrid of discipleship and biblical friendship. Its occasion is when life seems painful, confusing, or unmanageable, and we turn to the Spirit and the Word for help. This anchors biblical counseling in the ancient tradition of pastoral care, which has now been dispersed to all God’s people (Ephesians 4:11–13). Biblical counseling is not a trademarked school of thought...
The two women who sat across from me in my counseling office were clearly related—they shared many features and mannerisms. Sadly, I could also see that today they came in with a shared fear. About a year ago, Alice had begun to suspect that something was wrong when her mom, Joann, started to misplace things like her keys. Joann, who was seventy-six years old, lived by herself as a widow. Around...
Darkest Night records the last week of Jesus’s life, from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to the sealing of his body in the tomb. It includes the story of the darkest night in history—the night of Jesus’s death and burial. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record that at the moment of Jesus’s death, darkness covered the earth. The day that Jesus died was the darkest day, for God the...
