Care

Black and White to Color: Rewiring My Brain for Intimacy 

“I just wish you could connect with me better, and relate to me at a deeper level,” my wife said. It didn’t sound mad this time—but it was with heartbreaking sadness. After decades of marriage, we were once again having this weighty conversation. My dismissive attachment style wanted to run

Riding the Waves of Transition

Transitions can be hard, especially those that aren’t expected. But even for the ones we long for, there are still lessons to learn, emotions to sort out and most of all, places where we can meet with the Lord.   I had always wanted to be married. In my mid 20s,

The Reality You Feared: Practical Steps for Making it Through

I had been crying loudly for 15 minutes. My wife was laying peacefully and mostly non-responsive in bed next to me. Cancer had been taking her life for over a year and she was days away from breathing her last breath at age 38. I was at the end of

An Empty Place

With our belongings loaded onto a ship for the journey back to the U.S., I find myself sitting among the dust bunnies on the floor of our vacant Tokyo home, pondering the significance of the past 24 beautiful and complicated years.  The farewells are over, our missionary roles are finished,

What I Wish I’d Known About Anxiety

For years, and I’m ashamed of this, I was the guy in the room thinking, “Oh man, not another emotional staff mess to deal with.” I was 38 years old and just as stressed out and tired as anyone else (that seemed to be a pre-req for EDGE Corps at

Naming Our Fears, Reclaiming Our Hope

When I was a young father, my wife Cathy, and I moved from our settled hometown to our dream counseling graduate program in Denver. We felt thrilled and in the center of God’s will. However, our then 10-year-old son, Seth, was struggling. His loneliness, isolation, and new school left him

The Unexpected Companion

 I will never forget my first meeting with the psychiatrist. His office was in a mental health hospital, and it was straight out of a movie… complete with a creaky gate, old brick buildings, and zombie-like patients walking the grounds in hospital gowns.  After a litany of questions, the doctor

Unflappable: Flying by Faith in the Face of Fear

“You’re so unflappable,” people tell me sometimes. And I laugh. Every time I choose to use my voice to say something that’s hard, I always have a level of anxiety internally before I say it. I don’t know if my anxiety will ever go away, but as a child and

Anxiety: An Invitation to Slow Down

“Parang malalim yata ang iniisip mo?” (English: “Looks like you’re thinking about something deep.”)  As a child, my anxiety was perceived as deep thinking. When anxiety takes hold of me, it consumes my thoughts, and often blinds me to the promise of God’s tender and infinite care for me.  When

A New Song

“How’s your health, Caitlin?” This was a simple question from a caring Navigator staff woman, as we caught up during a wedding weekend in 2009. Suddenly, the room spun and I had trouble breathing. Heart racing, I lay down on her couch and tried to compose myself. What in the