• I think it’s safe to assume that physically, plunging down the first drop on a roller coaster feels a lot like riding a runaway train hurtling off a cliff. (Admittedly, I’ve never actually experienced the latter.) Even though our brains know the ultimate outcome of each event, both experiences will cause us to scream like that […]

  • My wife took the beautiful photo that inspired this painting. There was something about this dandelion that captivated me.  He’s reaching the end of the line. He is weary, but remains proud and steadfast. Some called him a weed, disrupting the status quo and infecting the neighborhood. But he knows the truth. He has run his […]

  • The cheetah is known for being fast. Really fast. It’s the fastest land mammal, achieving running speeds of up to 70 miles per hour. But what most people don’t know is that the cheetah can’t maintain those speeds for long. In fact, a cheetah spends very little of its time running. It needs to recuperate and build up […]

  • I recently came across this in my photo stream. Part photo, part iPad drawing, it’s my original vision of the art studio I wanted to build as an addition to our home. This was exactly what I wanted; a little extra light-filled space added on to the home office already there. If I could have […]

  • I pulled out a notebook and pushed aside the bowl of creamers and the container of jellies. My family was at one of our favorite breakfast spots, our go-to place for celebrating big milestones. This day was decidedly less joyful, however; more of an escape from a nightmare we recently experienced. A few miles away, […]

  • “How do I die?” This is the question my dad asked me eleven days before he passed. He was confident in his decision to stop fighting his body, and it was obvious he felt liberated by this new thinking and was ready to get movin’. I loved the childlike anticipation in his curiosity. But really… How […]

  • In January of 2020, I was thisclose to giving up on my twenty-year dream of living in a lake home. Then the pandemic hit, making the decision all but irrelevant, considering the fact I calculated that if we didn’t figure out an alternative revenue stream to speaking, we’d be bankrupt by November. Instead, that became the month […]

  • In the immortal words of a trick-or-treating Charlie Brown…I got a rock. It wasn’t just any rock, mind you; it was a kindness rock. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, people hand-paint ordinary rocks with inspirational or encouraging messages and leave them in a public place for someone to find.  This particular one was shaped […]

  • “Where there’s a will, there’s a way!” they say. But what if you can’t find a way? Can you relate to this? Sometimes I trample my dreams before they’ve even had a chance to take root. For example, when something epic bubbles up from my heart – a fabulous, joy-sparking dream – I immediately go […]

  • This is a picture of Kim and me at the Cornerstone music festival, very early on in our dating years. Together with friends, we camped out with thousands of other Christian music fans in the middle of a field during a sweltering stretch of Illinois summer. Here we are showing off our “hardcore” faith represented by sun-kissed […]