Kate Motaung

When Our Life Strategies Don’t Work I always prided myself on holding my life together, but that all changed in my early 30s. Aching to prove myself as a man, I became a workaholic pastor, neglecting my family and precipitating a crisis in my marriage. My wife courageously confronted me and insisted that we change before it was too late. I agreed. A few months later we lost our second child in a miscarriage. A few months after that,

References “Pure Desire” by Ted Roberts Sex addiction– that doesn’t happen to Christians, right? I mean, no Christian would ever look at porn or take any approach to sex other than “It doesn’t tempt me.” Of course we don’t think like that. And what if maintaining this facade that all of us are basically saints who never struggle with sin is keeping struggling believers from seeking the repentance and recovery they need? Sin is shameful enough. If a person

I was recently struck by Ruth Graham Bell’s statement that, “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” Forgiveness is something incredibly powerful. If it could somehow be packaged and sold, a daily dose would probably save a lot of marriages – for so many marital problems  can be traced to issues of forgiveness. Yet if we are honest, we should acknowledge that most of us are stubborn and struggle to lay aside our pride. We don’t like to take

How many of us have grown up thinking about the American dream—if you just work hard enough, you can accomplish your dreams? And how many times have we heard that the reason our lives are going well, ornot going well, is because—according to the cause-effect mentality—“if you live a righteous life, you will be blessed and will never have to deal with difficulty.” And the flip side of that is: “Wow, your health (or life) is a wreck. What

If I have forgiven, why do I still experience so much emotional pain? A wise older woman once explained how forgiveness “works.” If someone comes up to me and slashes my arm with a knife, I am left with a wound. Choosing to forgive means choosing not to retaliate. But I am still left with a nasty wound on my arm. If left untended, it may get infected, or develop gangrene, or create an ugly scar. Tended, it will

Prevalence During any given year, the National Institute of Health (NIH) reports that as many as 17 million Americans suffer from depression. Depression is a real illness which is costly in terms of relationship problems, family suffering and lost productivity at work. The good news is that depression is highly treatable. Symptoms While all of us feel sad or down sometimes, these feelings tend to pass quickly.  Depression, on the other hand, may be present if symptoms persist more

Spring and something else was in the air. The morning was crisp and beautiful. But it could have been dreary and cloudy for all I cared, as long as I could be with my girlfriend, and dream out loud. Me: “What do you think of that house over there? Do you like it?” She: “Yeah, but I like that style over there better.” What was being communicated in that not-so-veiled exchange? We were both single, liked each other and were thinking of the future … together. Sure enough,

Rabbi Irwin Kula, in his book Yearnings (2006), uses the image of “dancing with uncertainty.” Kula resists being seduced by the illusion of 100 percent certainty and says he has come to accept assuredness as the “51 percent.” This allows the other 49 percent to remain very much alive and valued in a person, thereby maintaining a sense of wholeness. Kula believes that every decision is a partial and ever-evolving truth that embodies halacha, the Jewish idea of “pathing” a way forward

It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. (Proverbs 25:2 ESV) Proverbs has a way of getting right to the heart, and the mind, of a matter. This is not to suggest that Proverbs is an easy tip-sheet for life. It is more like the tip of an iceberg, in that the answers it provides can point us to underlying mysteries. As I suggested in my previous article, an experience of

In my own life, and in my experience as a Christian counselor, waiting is the soul-mate of uncertainty. They go hand-in-hand. Often, clients enter counseling feeling as though they are stuck in the ‘waiting room’ of life: mired in the painful conflict, chaos, and questions of a current situation or a memory—or both. They want answers, and they want them quickly. They want to feel better. The equation has already been assumed: answers = relief. There is a ‘certain’

Does your husband have any faults? Is your wife inadequate in any way—does she have weaknesses? Does your mate irritate you? I’m sure that the answer is “no,” but just in case … I want to assure you that there are good reasons to not ignore these faults. Don’t waste them. They are important. If that sounds counter intuitive, you’ve got the right idea. Christian marriage introduces an entirely new dynamic, really a counter-dynamic, to the way of the

We all know how powerful addictions can be. Despite the best will in the world, the decisions that we make to stop engaging in harmful activities all too often come to nothing. This is because the decisions that we make do not reflect our true desires. In my previous article I explained how our decisions and our desires are located in two different parts of the brain. This means that, while we may decide to stop a particular activity, we often