Fear - it’s a powerful emotion. Have you ever experienced fear so intense that you couldn’t move - that you couldn’t breathe? Maybe had a panic attack? We all experience fear, but God has an antidote for it.

As I began to prepare my mind and spirit for the January 2016 Inheritance of Hope Legacy Retreat^®, I was also preparing my two boys for a music camp that they would be attending the weekend I was away.  Each of my boys is fairly musical, and this camp’s focus was on “musical improv.”  Up until this time, the boys’ instruction had been extremely methodical, rote, and memorized.  I was eager to see how they would do with this new introduction to flexibility and freedom.

One day, they told us, an enormous snake—much longer than a man—slithered its way right through their front door and into the kitchen of their simple home. Terrified, they ran outside and searched frantically for a local who might know what to do. A machete-wielding neighbor came to the rescue, calmly marching into their house and decapitating the snake with one clean chop.

Do you feel blue, kinda down, depressed? We all get that way from time to time. But when that emotion threatens to pull you under, what do you do? Where do you go? Who do you turn to?

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A year ago, I reflected on the wonder of “Unto us a child is born,” which took on fresh richness as Allison and I experienced new parenthood along with Advent. Now we can hardly believe that we have been parents for a year already! Our baby girl has grown and changed so much, and so have we. As Advent scriptures and songs once again circulate, different parts of them grab my attention. In a recent reading of Isaiah 9, the phrase “Everlasting Father” struck me. I love my little girl to death, but that is tragically literal – some day death will interrupt my fatherly love. An “Everlasting Father” is worthy of reflection.

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Sheryl Sandberg recently shared movingly about what she has learned about motherhood through grief. But how do we help someone who is grieving?

We don’t know what to say. So, too often, we say nothing. Or worse, avoid.

You've probably heard that God created you as a one-of-a-kind treasure and He's got a great plan for your life.  But right now, you feel lonely, depressed, or maybe just numb.  And down deep, you don't believe anyone cares about you -- maybe even God. 

We are pleased to share resources with you from Chip Ingram's Living on the Edge Ministry.  In this message, Chip explains how you can begin to experience God when you feel like a nobody going nowhere.

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Crises are a part of life.  Some are global -- tsunamis, earthquakes, or terrorism.  Other are local -- cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, or the death of a loved one.  But here's the question: "Is it possible to experience God in the midst of that kind of catastrophe?" 

We are pleased to share resources with you from Chip Ingram's Living on the Edge ministry.  In this message, Chip explores how you can experience God through your darkest times.

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Peace… a short, one-syllable word. It even sounds soft as it rolls off the tongue. Yet to my mind, its meaning is elusive. At least it was before writing this piece.

As a writer, I always have my Merriam-Webster dictionary close at hand, and, over the years, I have accepted and oft-quoted its definitions as unquestionable truth. Until now.

We began our group discussion with the normal “ice-breaker” small talk stuff.  How long was your trip, how did you get connected with Inheritance of Hope, etc.?  It was nice; it was cordial.  One man stated that he wasn’t really into talking about these kinds of things.  He quickly “passed” the conversational ball to his wife, the one with cancer.  

Pretty soon, the honesty came forth... it was hard, refreshing, human.  One woman, who had been battling cancer for some time, said, “Our whole life has been changed... they put me on a table, telling me to hold my breast, and moved me around like an animal…”

No words of mine could make that kind of experience make sense.