Coping With Loneliness
Edna says, “First, I lost my mom, then four years later my husband and then three years after that my dad died. I...
Coping With Loneliness
Karen Mulder
Karen Mulder is the founder of the Wisdom of the Wounded ministry. She lives in Holland, Michigan with her husband Larry.
Hand Delivered Flowers
Hand Delivered Flowers
A man stopped at a flower shop to order some flowers to be wired to his mother who lived two hundred miles away. As...
How Are You REALLY?
How Are You REALLY?
Dee, who is dying from cancer, says in the novel Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, “Individuals ask me, how ARE...
A Father’s Example
A Father’s Example
A young woman relates that when she was a little girl, her father, an artist, would often be busy at his easel...
Chronic Pain?
Chronic Pain?
After I'd been out of commission for a few months, my pastor made a passing reference to "these chronic conditions." I corrected him—my condition wasn't chronic, it was just slow to abate. Now, five years on, I still don't know what to call my dis-ease and wonder whether I will ever feel “normal” again. But my dictionary defines chronic as "persisting for a long time," and there's no denying it's been a long time.
If I resist the word "chronic," I hesitate to claim "pain" as the problem. I've told doctors often that I don't really have pain. Rather, various discomforts and malfunctions, sometimes manageable, sometimes incapacitating, have wreaked havoc with my life and expectations.
Is Your Teenager Depressed?
Is Your Teenager Depressed?
All teens suffer bouts of moodiness and sadness from time to time. It’s all part of the emotional rollercoaster...
How can we offer hope to someone who is suffering?
How can we offer hope to someone who is suffering?
If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Providing hope to someone whose days are dark with worry or who is suffering with a serious illness is also giving them courage and the vitality to keep moving. What are some things we can do to bring that touch of hope?
How Can We Involve Our Teenagers in Caregiving?
How Can We Involve Our Teenagers in Caregiving?
Dear Karen,
I'd like caregiving to become a natural part of what my family does together. How can we involve our children in caregiving? How can we especially involve teenagers? - Sue
I have been discussing this questions with various individuals and following are some of my conclusions from those conversations:
