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I was in a conversation with a woman in our church not long ago, and she brought up something her mom said decades ago when she was just a little girl. Very hurtful. And she quoted her verbatim. This woman admitted that she struggles remembering what she had for breakfast the day before, but she vividly remembers those hurtful words from her mom many years ago. She felt rejected.

I know a guy who prides himself on being shrewd. He makes wise financial decisions. He is respected at work. If I were looking for someone to oversee an investment portfolio, I’d call him.

Chicago native George Crane was a psychologist and popular syndicated columnist in the mid to late 20th century. He often wrote on marriage and relationships, and prided himself in giving “common horse sense.”

Everything in life flows from your thinking. You are what you think. Your thinking determines the things you do, your reactions to things done to you, the friends you make, and whether or not you enjoy the things around you. Thinking is everything in life. And all of that thinking comes from your brain.

“I wish God would just tell me!” He has with a lot of things. He’s given us His Word, and there are a lot of straightforward instructions in it. Like the Ten Commandments, for example. But the things specific to us: the daily things, switching jobs, which house to buy, who to marry, whether to have another kid. That’s where we struggle.

I made a decision over four decades ago that has taken the difficulty out of a lot of other decisions since. I decided to marry Linda. Since that decision, most of my other decisions in and around the house are pretty well taken care of. I only need to ask myself, “What would be better for our marriage?”

In our daily Bible reading schedule as well as the Between the Lines podcast, we came across an interesting section of Scripture a couple of weeks ago in 2 Chronicles.

’Tis the season…for thunderstorms! And this month they’ve been all around us…and on us! I’m actually a lover of thunderstorms. The cloud movement, sudden darkness, flashes of lightning, loud crashes of thunder, whipping wind, downpours of rain, even the power going out!

An angel appears at a faculty meeting and tells the dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behavior, the Lord will reward him with his choice of infinite wealth, wisdom, or beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selects infinite wisdom.

I know, it’s technically still spring and I’m talking about summer. But it’s coming, and school will be out before you know it. To make the most of the warmer weather and the longer days, decide now how you are going to spend the summer and plan it. Here are a couple of suggestions.

I just bought a couple of patio chairs that came together in a single box. When I opened it, I saw they were in multiple pieces. Laying them out on the floor, I was discouraged. “This is going to take forever!”

I visited a couple of locations where television programs are taped for the History Channel. I was surprised both times. Television can be very deceiving. Some of it is due to the nature of camera lenses and TV screens, and the way our imagination fills in what is past the camera’s periphery. But a lot of it is intentional deception written into the director’s instructions to give a desired illusion. All in all, these two locations were entirely different from what I had expe