A lifetime Las Vegas resident and father of three grown children, Don spent 15 years as a licensed psychotherapist and speaker in private and hospital practices. Prior, he was part owner of an award-winning family advertising agency. Having fallen into addiction to crystal methamphetamine several years ago, losing everything to the drug, he has been clean since 9/4/11 and more sober about life with each passing day. The stories and content of this site are the accumulating epiphanies of his journey into sobriety, shared here to inspire others, especially those who remain embroiled in addictive battles of their own. LifeMeansSoMuch, the song title by Chris Rice (and you are highly encouraged to download it on ITunes or YouTube,) is the lyrical inspiration for the content of this site. Don is currently a life coach, author, speaker and manager at a non-profit, HopeLink of Southern Nevada.
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Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span. Exodus 23:25-26
Among the many laws for and promises to his people found in Exodus is this simple gem.
God promised health and a full life on condition of faithful worship.
The foundational and fundamental ingredient for vital living is always a robust faithfulness.
It’s clear that God’s perfect plan for his people is to provide not just for their needs but also for their thriving and flourishing.
Healthy living begins with worship but ends with a dispassionate abandonment of God as Jehovah Jireh, our provider. He will not stand for neglect of the vessel he has provided each of us.
A whole person and a full life is his plan. It’s up to us to get on board.
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ,set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears,then you also will appear with him in glory.
It’s imagination but not make-believe.
Christianity calls its own to live imaginative, futuristically in the realm to come with minds on the prize to come like it’s already arrived.
It’s a faith so confident, earthly limitations of the here and now can’t contain it.
A mind set on things above versus those of our experience here on earth requires imagination that can never capture the real thing but fuels our hopes and dreams of it.
The Bible provides many detailed descriptions of our heavenly eternity to come, but getting lost in our speculations about it is an adventure we are more than encouraged to take.
This is not our home anymore.
Raised with faith in Christ is our invitation to knock on heaven’s door today and every day for a free peek inside.
65 years later, they’re still my best friends and the holiday heroes who first taught me that I belonged.
Since I first learned to read I scoured the TV Guide each December in search of the day and time the superheroes of my holiday would again invite me into their world.
I’d no idea that the hour I spent with these misfits each Christmas would come to define so much of my early childhood.
The Island of Misfit Toys was first visited by Rudolph, the original outcast, in 1964…the same year when at four years old, I already knew I was different.
Very different.
I wasn’t like other kids or other boys. I was irregular, felt unlike the others and felt unliked by the others.
I was the Charlie-in-the-box, the disowned Dolly and the discarded Spotted Elephant all in one.
King Moonracer, the winged-lion ruler of their small, wintry island that was my everywhere, was, like the others, a flawed mockery of an empty promise that their island rescue was ever possible when you’re just a little too different from the children of the mainstream.
The middle child of three, I’d neither the rights of the eldest nor the admiration of the youngest.
As birth-order theory would later reveal I was the “survivor.” And I’ve earned that title many times over since.
As a caveat, my parents and siblings never were perpetrators of the feelings and beliefs I’d held all those years. I grew up in a great family with great parents and as normal a childhood as I could surmise was normal.
But some of us are just born a bit odd and unusual for some reason and I found myself a misfit on an island in the middle of a loving family who knew no different.
Older now and armed with a therapist’s education and more messed up life experiences than I care to enumerate here, things have finally begun to gel.
“Different” and “misfit” have given way to “unique” and “defining” as I’ve come to accept and love myself for my own peculiarities.
Early identification with these animated friends scripted my life with a deep passion for the underdog, the discarded, the lonely and the horses of many colors.
What I once considered liabilities of my youth are now proud assets of my aging self. Championing causes of the bullied, broken and the more-than-a-little bent are what wakes me up every morning and drives my work, my life and my writing.
But my mind wanders and ponders what might otherwise be my sum of these experiences.
What’s the end game of my oddities? How will all these quirky differences make meaningful differences in this world for other misfits?
Will I solve any world problems, rescue the lost, or be afforded enough time to even write my final chapter?
My worry is I’ll be plucked from this island with more than a mouthful of words still left to speak on behalf of all the other imperfect playthings.
I suppose I may find that this island is really no island at all, I was never really alone, and I was never discarded nor misfitted, but actually a lot more normal than I ever realized.
Too many questions course through my thinker, but history proves that the more questions I ask, the more likely I’ll arrive at answers, and here’s an important one:
I have discovered there are more of us than there are of them.
I might find that having branded myself a misfit for so long I’m able to see more misfittings in others from what was otherwise the same human assembly line from which we’re all cut.
“Regular” people get noticed plenty and frankly, I find that fact a bit mundane. I enjoy irregular people. Indeed, irregularities are what makes people most attractive.
Being normal lacks originality.
But those who leap tall buildings, spend their lives trying, those with an edge, an X factor or that certain je ne sais quoi, supply color to an otherwise bland earthly palette.
I have found that they are the pioneers of thought, masters of creativity and possessors of the deepest of souls.
Early on, us outcasts quickly learned survival skills through not belonging. Instinctively, we know how to appreciate other misfits and the inherent power that lies in being just strange enough to stand out.
And if we get past societal segregations, live beyond our insecurities and fears, and reframe those few developmental moments, we may discover, as I have, that our novelties are what makes us leaders and influencers and that others may follow us precisely because of them.
We all eventually find our place on this big blue island and notice we’re not really alone.
We Everyone has a novelty, a strangeness we can’t and shouldn’t discard just for being different. That oddity is our Ace. Play it proudly and one day you may be stunned to find everyone else at the table was also once blind to the value of their own weirdness.
And that in the land of the blind, the cross-eyed can still be king. Spots and all.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. Exodus 20:8-11 NIV
The only time most of us take an actual day of rest is when we come down sick. And it’s not a day we’ve prepared for. To the contrary, it usually arrives as a thief of our plans and preparations.
Besides, there’s always work to be done no matter what day it is.
God wants us to value down time for its regenerative and reflective properties, both of which are essential to optimal performance the other six days.
But we regard the day of rest as a good suggestion rather than the commandment that it is, on par with not murdering, coveting or sleeping with your next door neighbor’s wife.
Those commandments are a lot easier to keep than taking 14.29% of your week—less than a standard tip you leave as thanks to a stranger— to rejuvenate and reflect.
Preparing the other 85% of the week for a day free of obligations preserves you for performing your best at your actual obligations.
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:2-3 NIV
Anything or anyone. A person, a habit, a goal, money, all are potential gods blocking the pathway to worship the Lord your God.
It’s the first rule of being a Christ follower and the last word in living a fulfilled life.
Competition for your worship is fierce and the field of battle is cluttered with adversaries clamoring to derail you from the singularity of your truest love.
“I am the Lord your God” is a statement of fact for us all.
Clear a path. Eliminate distractions. Make way for God to rule your destiny. He will make your path straight.
This verse is the essential celebration of Christmas.
War, social ills, struggles of every shape and size, all are ongoing, endemic features of maturing societies.
A Christian nation is one that recognizes and places its hope in someone superior to its governing structure for solutions to its woes.
Watching our elected representatives unashamed to publicly acknowledge God and to pray for navigation in their decisions is both humble and comforting.
When a nation is willing to place its faith in an active and loving God like ours, the essential hope of Christmas isn’t limited to a season.
The celebration of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection is an everyday phenomenon evident in those nations who are willingly led by the divine in submission to a much greater power.
This is the essential message of Christmas we can celebrate all year long.
Today, the center of your Thanksgiving table will play host to the main event of your choice.
Might be turkey, could be ham or lamb, or even something else warm and special prepared by loving hands.
It’s those loving hands that make this holiday so dear to us all.
Few things are more savory as the moment all those loving hands join together encircling the many good things God provides to express our gratitude and thanks and hopes for a joyous holiday season.
If it’s your turn to find just the right words to offer God and others, prepare them from your heart and proclaim them to your families and friends in the spirit of Thanksgiving.
Jehovah Jireh is our God who provides all we need, so choose thankfulness and make his place central to your holiday table.
““Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.””
Matthew 11:28-30 NIV
As I make yet another trip around the sun for a 65th year, I reflect on the prior 64 enablers and all their yokes and burdens.
Jesus twice refers to the much sought after rest for which we yearn as we become obedient warriors.
I’m not sure I’m ready for it.
There is still so much kingdom work remaining and a harvest yet to be gleaned, it’s unthinkable to stop now.
In personal purview of maybe another 10-15 remaining lucid years, I may move a little slower and process things with a little more effort, but I finally have become friends with the shape of my heart.
Whole devotion isn’t a prize won at a circus arcade. It’s a privilege earned through trials and errors and intentional personal growth and discipline. Easier yokes and lighter burdens are the rewards until that final rest comes into clear view.
I often say I expect to be a short timer due to my mounting health issues but God has obviously given me another year as a gift for persevering in his harvest.
For that, as for everything in my lifetime of experiences, I am humbly grateful.
And for every small part you have played in it along the way, I’m equally thankful.
Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”” Exodus 5:2 NIV
Stubborn would be an understatement.
Those of us who’ve watched Charlton Heston in ‘The 10 Commandments’ from the passenger seats of our living rooms witnessed 2nd hand what followed in awe.
As the miracle of plagues waged on, Pharaoh laughed in the face of God, soon to discover that God always wins.
Not unlike present day deniers among us in increasing numbers who have misplaced themselves as pharaohs and kings of this world, they all will eventually fall and kneel to the God of the universe.
“Who is the Lord that I should obey him?” asks Pharaoh.
