Anxiety

Rebekah Cornelius | Train – Develop – Care Tugging on one little thread can unravel the whole sweater—a visual that describes my relationship with grief and loss. Loss has unraveled…

Lyndi Markus Editor-in-Chief for UpFront Dear younger me, You’re newish to praying— a little green, a little naive, but so expectant— and I can still feel  You put so much pressure…

Peggy Reynoso Train – Develop – Care I had a love-hate relationship with prayer. For most of my life, God spoke to me sporadically, usually in times of great need…

By Jin Rood, World Missions - As my husband, Mark, and I were completing our final year overseas, discerning where God was leading us next, I felt drawn toward a…

By Glenn Balsis, TDC - Often I gauge my highway travel by mile markers to help me understand where I am as I drive. For my spiritual journey, I’ve realized…

By Jo Newell, TDC God walked so faithfully and kindly with me in the year following our only son Nathaniel’s death. He met me often through people, almost daily in…

By Lyndi Lee Markus, TDC - “Dangit, Jo!” I exclaimed to my spiritual director. Except I did not use the word dangit. I had come to our session discouraged to…

By Amanda Torres, Collegiate - As she struck a match to light the candle for our spiritual direction session, I heard my director say the familiar words she opens with…

By Luke Kleveland, TDC - Before COVID, I would not have imagined doing spiritual direction with anyone. In fact, if you had asked me about this five years ago, I…

When surveying the landscape and mining the data around what is happening to people in positions of mission and ministry leadership, several trends become apparent. Among them are:  While social…

“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…

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…

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,…

As soon as you hear the word transition or change, I’m sure a range of images, experiences, life stages, and emotions occur. As they signal the end of one thing…

 I can’t help but notice that a spirit of argument and polarization seems to have taken over our world. Maybe it feels collectively harder to handle conflict because we’re tired…

SEEK TO UNDERSTAND BEFORE BEING UNDERSTOOD  The first thing most missionaries learn is the mantra, “Different isn’t wrong, it’s just different.”  In situations where we don’t understand others’ actions, it…

For as far back as I can recall, being right has been important to me. You might say it has formed a significant part of my identity. I can remember…

How do we know what we know? How do we determine our position, or what we believe, on various issues? We all combine different sources of knowledge in different ways,…

“Why do you want to do this now?” my business partner asked. “it’s not the right time.” I sulked for a moment, then retaliated. “I’ve been doing most of the…