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9/1/2014 0 Comments Giving the Right ResponseCabe and Rhonda are trashing their lives. He is an alcoholic and she is a spendaholic. While they love each other, their weaknesses create a bad spiral. Rhonda gets frustrated by the long hours Cabe works and so she rationalizes going on spending sprees. When Cabe gets the credit card bill inwardly he is so mad at Rhonda that he knows he will say things he will regret, so he gets drunk instead. Unfortunately what then comes out of his mouth is even worse. Sadly, both of them know God and inwardly understand that their behavior is unacceptable, but they will not be exiting their spiral anytime soon because of the way they are treated by fellow Christians.
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5/3/2014 0 Comments A Gentle AnswerYou could hear them screaming at each other five offices away. Heads poked out to see what was going on—I was afraid words would escalate to blows, but fortunately that did not happen. Don looked like he was going to have a heart attack, his face was beet red and he was shaking. Rich’s jaw was clenched and his palms rolled into fists but with three of us coaxing we managed to get them separated and back into their own offices.
I asked Rich what happened. He said he went into Don’s office to ask how Allie was doing on the project she was working with him. Don told him she was worthless and to get out of his office, he was sick of taking Rich’s broken employees and felt like Rich deliberately was out to make his life miserable. Rich said the way Don spoke penetrated his brain and hit his anger button. He knew Allie had her weak areas but he was proud of her hard work and resented Don’s judgmental attitude. Furthermore he didn’t appreciate the way the older manager always blamed people instead of trying to get along. So instead of finding a response to deescalate the tension, he spoke the first thought that raced across his brain, “Don you are a loser and I’m sick of trying to help you.” Those words brought Don out of his chair and began a two-minute shouting match. 5/3/2014 0 Comments A Gentle AnswerYou could hear them screaming at each other five offices away. Heads poked out to see what was going on—I was afraid words would escalate to blows, but fortunately that did not happen. Don looked like he was going to have a heart attack, his face was beet red and he was shaking. Rich’s jaw was clenched and his palms rolled into fists but with three of us coaxing we managed to get them separated and back into their own offices.
8/14/2004 0 Comments NurturingThree children walked down the aisle to their rehearsed places. The wee lassies stood four steps up on one side with the little lad on the other. The wedding party was in place and Uncle Ralph began speaking. While the two, prim girls faithfully stood still, the boy inched towards the edge of the step, cheerfully smiled, leaned his body backward and slid downward as only a limber child could. Twice more the process repeated until he was now on the main floor. Jonathan, the Best Man, saw what was happening, turned toward the boy and motioned him to move back to his appointed place. Embarrassed, knowing he’d erred, he went up two stairs, laid down with his face in his hands and quietly shook. Soon, the tears fell in torrents and he stood up wailing, quickly fleeing to his mother’s arms. He sobbed for what seemed like minutes, upstaging the wedding so that his father had to carry him out. While Josh and Katie went on to become man and wife I couldn’t help but think of the tender spirit of that boy and the loving manner in which his mother and father embraced him. They didn’t make a fuss or scold him, they held him. If they were concerned about the crowd, they didn’t show it. Instead they faithfully ministered to their son.
10/27/2003 HardnessVanadium stared at the brawny sweat-laden arms of Dowson as he slammed the pick repeatedly into the soil. All she wanted was a nice hole. But he was getting nowhere. Finally, frustrated and tired he motioned for her to come outside. “It’s no use! This hill is made of granite. Are you sure we can’t put this feeder somewhere else?”
4/18/2003 0 Comments GentlenessWe must have looked funny to the children and women watching us. Here we were, six men—each of us incapable of separating two plastic buckets. We tried twisting and pulling to no avail. One man used his pocket knife. I tried dropping the buckets on the floor. We could bend the plastic but we could not get one orange pail free from the other. It was like someone had super glued each set of buckets together. It felt like our manhood was on the line—this was getting embarrassing!
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