Author: Roger Edwards

Christmas Comes For You

This holiday season, people will ask, “Are you ready for Christmas?” My advice? Dodge the question. If you can’t avoid it completely, then answer shallowly. Talk about your gift list, travel plans or house decorations. But be careful about stating your “heart readiness.” Don’t make bold talk about being spiritually prepared. Now, if you do have a trusted conversation with a friend, talk instead about being un-prepared. Confess that, although you’ve heard the story over and over, you don’t understand it. Talk in hushed tones. If you feel a little… Continue reading Christmas Comes For You

Retirement Calculators

Sometimes, I go online and play around with ‘retirement calculators’. You know what I mean, you fill in the boxes with your financial information and then hit the ‘calculate’ button. The calculator generates what your retirement income will be if you save ‘x’ per month, or get ‘such and so’ a rate of return, or live on ‘____ %’ after you retire. If you don’t like what you see? You merely re-adjust the inputs. With a little fudging, you can cheer yourself considerably. Sometimes, just for fun, I’ll set my… Continue reading Retirement Calculators

Speaking the Truth in Love

Being right isn’t enough. Yet I spend great deal of time effort trying to prove that I am right. Way too much effort. About almost everything. If, say, there is a disagreement about the fastest route to the store, I can’t seem to let it go. Holding my phone under the table, I punch in the address and check my route against theirs. If my route is closer, I lift up the phone and casually show them, “Yep, thought so – .3 miles closer.” I don’t outright gloat, but I… Continue reading Speaking the Truth in Love

Self-Care is Self-Evident, Except When It Isn’t

You have to take care of yourself, isn’t that obvious? Eat to sustain your body, sleep to retain energy, dress a wound to maintain health. Emotional spiritual needs are similar. Stress and trauma cause emotional wounds. Prolonged stress will hollow you out. Even Jesus addressed self-care, calling out, “Everyone who thirsts, come to me…” So it would seem obvious that self-care is a natural part of the balance of life. But as a counselor, I will tell you that people neglect self-care. Routinely. Sometimes the neglect is to the point… Continue reading Self-Care is Self-Evident, Except When It Isn’t

Deep Listening

  Every time I begin a counseling session, I make the same mistake. Every single time, the same mistake. I forget to deeply listen. Oh, I hear the person talking. I can repeat back words and sentences, sometimes verbatim. I use a yellow pad, I face the speaker. I nod at regular intervals. But this is listening only in the most basic sense, it isn’t deep listening. It isn’t courageous listening. Hopefully soon into my session, I remember. Honestly, it is most often a grace that wakes me up. A… Continue reading Deep Listening

The Christian and Technology (Reader View Available)

Philip Yancey recently wrote an excellent article (humorous too) entitled ‘The Death of Reading’. His premise is that the internet is changing how we read. In short, we don’t read well anymore – we are being trained to read (and then live) without depth. Yancey writes:  “The Internet and social media have trained my brain to read a paragraph or two, and then start looking around. When I read an online article from the Atlantic or the New Yorker, after a few paragraphs I glance over at the slide bar… Continue reading The Christian and Technology (Reader View Available)

Acquainted With Grief

Editor’s note: This is a revised version of a previous post from 2015. No one taught me how to grieve. As a child, I don’t recall anyone ever talking to me about it. During college, it wasn’t a part of my discipleship program. I don’t remember a single talk or Bible study on the subject. But I wouldn’t have been interested if someone had offered to teach me. My unstated goal was to avoid loss, and then grief would be unnecessary. Somewhere along the line I came to believe that… Continue reading Acquainted With Grief

Sometimes You Need Braces: Adjusting to Change

  I recently got dental braces. (Read more about making that choice as an adult here). One surprising benefit is that braces offer all sorts of metaphors about making changes in your life. As a counselor, the more metaphors the better. So here goes. You start your journey with braces with a problem and a desire. Your teeth aren’t straight and you want them to be. But to get there, you will have to submit to a long, slow process. You have to put up with small discomforts and inconvenience.… Continue reading Sometimes You Need Braces: Adjusting to Change

A Lesson in Forgiveness

  It happened 35 years ago. I was on InterVarsity Staff (campus ministry) when I got a lesson in forgiveness. The offense was, in the scheme of things, very small. But the lesson was very large. We were at Windy Gap for summer camp with three hundred students from NC/Va. These were some of the best memories of my staff life. Lots of energy, lots of growth, lots of students and staff that I loved and admired. I was approached by one of the senior staff, who asked me for… Continue reading A Lesson in Forgiveness

Deciding on Braces

Yesterday, I went to the Orthodontist to get my braces put on. Yes, at 61 years old, I walked right into that waiting room, the one with the play area, the teen video station and the colorful aquarium. The mothers, waiting for their adolescents to return from treatment, cast inquiring looks. But I didn’t make eye contact. In one way, my braces make me look younger, say about 13. But in another way, they actually accentuate my age. My now pubescent-looking mouth looks photoshopped onto a senior-looking face. When I… Continue reading Deciding on Braces