Category: Personal Essays
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Courageous Leadership Lessons
The room is silent. Billy Beane tells his scouts their decades of experience is wrong. His hands shake as he spreads computer printouts across the table. Every face says he’s destroying his career. But Beane knows something they don’t—his method will change baseball forever. This moment reveals what happens when leaders choose conviction over comfort.…
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Forging Your Link
Faith passes through generations by storytelling. Each encounter with God becomes a link in living history from ancient patriarchs to today. God’s fingerprints? They’re everywhere! It’s your turn to forge your link.
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Someone Called Me Out This Week. Best Thing That Happened to Me All Month.
Someone Called Me Out This Week. Best Thing That Happened to Me All Month. The question isn’t whether we’ll hurt people or get hurt ourselves. The question is what we do next. Someone called me out this week, and I’m grateful they did. When My Ego Gets in the Way A respected colleague edits my…
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I Screwed Up
I lumped everything together in my earlier post about grief and community silence. Got it WRONG. https://fiveminuteobservations.com/20205/07/29/the-church-failed-me-in-my-darkest-hour-but-god-didnt/ So, I owe you an apology. You orchestrated our survival in those first devastating days after Jude died. You created the GoFundMe that carried us through funeral expenses. You organized the meal train that fed us when we…
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Why You Are a Story Worth Telling
A quiet moment at Flaming Geyser State Park. A question to my dad. A camera around his neck. I didn’t know then how much that day would teach me about storytelling and why our ordinary lives might hold the most extraordinary stories of all. What if the one you’ve been carrying is the one someone…
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The church failed me in my darkest hour. But God didn’t.
I never imagined my son’s last words would sound so ordinary. “Goodnight, Mom. Goodnight, Dad.” Those words echo in my head. They were Jude’s last. Early Saturday morning, I came home after running 13.1 miles to find him unresponsive in his room. Death stole his life while I was running. Jude and I followed our…
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What An 80s Movie Teaches Me About Gratefulness
Sunday afternoon, popcorn in hand, watching a classic 80s adventure unfold on screen. A man dangles from a cliff, fighting for his life, when something unexpected happens in a brief exchange that stops me cold. What I discovered in that moment changed how I see gratitude forever—and it started with a pair of running shoes…
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The Woman with the Cleaning Cart Who Changed How I See Worth
At 7:15 AM, she rolls her cart through the Gibson Center radiating what the patients are seeking. Most abandon it somewhere along the way. The secret I discovered will reshape how you see everything.
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Where Grace Abounds in Community
Worn-out running shoes staring back from my front door. A Garmin watch that chose July 4th as its dramatic final day. Six months of watching fitness melt away like polar ice caps in July heat. This is what desperation looks like for an ultra runner. But it’s also the setup for discovering that grace doesn’t…
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525 Degrees of Truth: A Roofing Accident That Changed Everything
You can smell hot asphalt from three blocks away. But when you’re standing next to 525-degree molten tar, that smell becomes everything. The mid-June sun beat down on Timber Ridge Junior High that Friday morning. We had a new guy on our Arrow Roofing crew. Darrell claimed to be a journeyman. His handshake was firm,…
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Seeing Heaven At First Light
📱 Share this story | 💌 Save for later Guess where I found heaven? It’s hiding in plain sight. Come with me to First Light Coffee, Thursday mornings. You’ll see! 7:43 AM sharp. Espresso machines hiss steam. First Light Coffee pulses with morning energy. Aromatic, rich smells of fresh roasts mix with the scent of…
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Fighting for My Writing at Midnight
The coffee shop clock blinks an angry red glow—11:47 PM. My freelance article sits unfinished, due in eight hours. My finger hovers over the ChatGPT app. Three taps and I’m done. But fifteen years ago, a college professor taught me why shortcuts always backfire.
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Good Neighbors Gone Bad
“She said WHAT? Who says that?” “Hold on, they’re sayin’ somethin’ about meat…” “Attention shoppers, we have a special on Chuck roast, three ninety-nine a pound—” “Okay, I’m back. Yeah. Beth straight up tells her the check ain’t good till Monday!” “Lord, Crystal, that’s exactly the kind of mess I got tired of. Nobody in…
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When Flip-Flops Meet Grace 🚴♂
I missed my brother’s miracle because flip-flops annoyed me. Now I celebrate impossible moments everywhere. Who’s waiting for your standing ovation today?
