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I remember very well when I told God, “Sorry, I just don’t want to do this anymore.” What had begun as a very direct calling from Him had come to a point of despair. I had no doubt three years earlier, He had told me in a thousand different ways to go into the field of “Christian Psychology,” as it was called then.

“Dear Self-Entitled Yuppie,” the hand-scribbled note began, “on what planet do you think it’s okay to completely block peoples’ driveways?” The note was tucked under my windshield wiper. The letters were large enough to read from a distance. The author
questioned my ability to read English, deemed my car “stupid” and finished with great concern that I might “PAY ATTENTION” in the future. I read the note in an impound lot. It cost me several hundred dollars to be reunited with my car. This day home from work
was not going well.

In the middle of Advent during the turbulent economic times of 2011, a young mother sat with me for spiritual direction, head bent over clasped hands, tears streaking her cheeks. A scholar and teacher unable to find employment in those fields, she found that for the sake of supporting her family she was going to have to accept the only job being offered to her: a low-paying, unskilled job as a barrista at a café.

We all have things in our lives we wish to change. The solidarity of a group experiment can provide the resolve to make the
changes we haven’t been able to make on our own. Several years ago we began a learning lab we call Experiments in Truth to address the disparity we often feel between how we want to live and how we actually live. We invite one other to make simple but dramatic
changes to our normal habits over 40 days.

Melissa tried to steady her voice as she spoke. Workplace bullying by a coworker had jeopardized her health to the point where, in her own words, she was “ready to go over the edge.” To make matters worse, Melissa’s supervisor not only failed to take corrective action, he invalidated her pain, urging Melissa to forgive her aggressor and just move on since, after all, Melissa was a Christian. Now her abuser was up for a promotion— a promotion that would make her Melissa’s boss.

My husband, David, is a marriage and family therapist. He had a couple that came in to deal with the wife’s Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder because her disorder was affecting their marriage. They scheduled a prayer ministry session and in that one session God moved her healing forward by years. Then David was able to help the couple focus on their marriage.

I painted the five large-scale images that illuminate… The Four Holy Gospels using water-based Nihonga (Japanese style painting) materials, with my focus on the tears of Christ (John 11)—tears shed for the atrocities of the past century and for our present darkness.

Early church writers frequently drew insights into the spiritual life from the medical profession. Origen, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and others were up-to-date in the best medical practices of their day. For these early Christian writers Christ was both the Chief Physician and the medicine of salvation. Christ, as Physician and prescription, applies his life-giving sacrifice to heal the whole person both the body and soul.