Over
100 different Nehemiah Notes featured on
this site (articles by
Blaine Smith)! |
|
|
Glenn Kirkland, long-time
NM Board member, dies.
|
|
|
Nehemiah
Notes, August 15, 2008 |
The Challenge of Optimism
Not Caving in to Your
Personal Capacity for Despair
|
|
|
When the stock
market crashed in October 1987, Jake feared it meant the end of life
as he knew it. He had pinned his financial hopes for retirement upon
years of careful investing in securities.
Within a day, chest pains
landed him in the hospital. The diagnosis: a heart attack. His body
had caved in to the bad news along with his emotions . . .
|
|
|
The slide into despair happens so easily, yet is
always a tragic overreaction. Blaine
talks about how to avoid it and stay hopeful in the face
of setbacks. Read the
article.
|
|
|
|
|
Nehemiah
Notes, August 1, 2008 |
When Someone Lets You Down
Not Losing Heart When Others
Disappoint Us
|
|
A woman in a class I was
teaching once asked a favor of me. The community where she lived had
an unfortunate ordinance, which could result in her
losing the lease on her home. Cary had joined with other residents to
lobby for the policy’s repeal. She asked if I would be willing to
write a letter to the town council urging this change. I told her I’d
be glad to help, and promised to get the letter off quickly.
The following week I caught the
flu, and then, with other pressures, never got
around to fulfilling my promise . . .
|
|
|
|
When
others hurt us, God sometimes brings long-term benefits
from the experience that astound us. Blaine explains in this article.
|
|
|
|
|
Nehemiah
Notes, July 15, 2008 |
No More Catastrophizing
Not Letting Imaginary Problems
Consume Us
|
|
The
capacity of the human mind to conjure up imaginary problems has
long intrigued and amused me.
During my first year out of seminary, I occupied the drafty
attic bedroom of a one-hundred-year-old home that I shared with
other members of the Sons of Thunder. This rundown house, an abandoned monastery bordering a
cemetery, had been donated to our use for a dollar a year plus
some TLC. Early one morning I awakened and edged myself to the side of
the bed. I suddenly realized I was staring at . . . a bat,
clinging to the wall in front of me.
|
|
|
Blaine helps you put the brakes on out-of-control
worrying in this article.
|
|
