As One

Two-year-old Peter sat in the high chair happily devouring his food with his fingers. Then his grandmother said matter-of-factly, “He needs to start eating with a spoon. You don’t want him to graduate from high school and still not know how to use...

No Wasted Pain

She looked into my eyes and said, “Don’t waste your pain.” My mind immediately returned to the time years prior when I’d led the memorial service for her young adult son whose life was taken in a car accident. She knew what she was talking...

The Gift of Giving

In his 2024 address to 1,200 university graduates, billionaire businessman Robert Hale, Jr. said: “These trying times have heightened the need for sharing, caring and giving. [My wife and I] want to give you two gifts: the first is our gift to you, the second is...

’Tis a Fearful Thing

’Tis a fearful thing/to love what death can touch. That line begins a poem written over a thousand years ago by the Jewish poet Judah Halevi, translated in the twentieth century. The poet clarifies what’s behind the fear: to love . . . / And oh, to lose....

Unbroken Faith

When Dianne Dokko Kim and her husband discovered their son was diagnosed with autism, she struggled with the very real possibility that her cognitively disabled son might outlive her. She cried out to God: What will he do without me to care for him? God surrounded her...

Winning by Losing

“Not winning is in fact more powerful than winning,” professor Monica Wadhwa argues. Her research reveals that people tend to be most energized and motivated not when they win, but when they almost win. Falling just short of one’s ambitions tends to...