My brother and sister-in-law love to snowmobile. I’ve never really gotten the whole winter sports culture, but I’ve heard you can’t mock what you haven’t tried, so I’ll assume there is something awesome about it.
They tell me on a good day, the restaurant parking lots in northern Wisconsin are empty of cars but full of snowmobiles. It all just sounds ... Read More
You know those super awkward moments where everyone is standing in an elevator and no one is talking? They seem to happen anytime we find ourselves in a contained area with a bunch of strangers.
I had a moment like that recently when I was flying somewhere by myself. I had parked the car in the cheapest airport lot, which meant ... Read More
Want to really enjoy this holiday season? Try giving to others out of delight, not duty.
Sure, there are gifts we feel obligated to give. But the magic of Christmas comes when we re-create the spirit of the season for another person just because we feel like it. It’s not hard.
Ask Katie Kringstad, the director of children’s ministry at First Lutheran ... Read More
Have you ever bitten off more than you could chew?
I’m not talking about the Christmas ham — I’m talking about a project you thought you could handle, but couldn’t. That’s what happened to Oscar Bergos from Moorhead, Minn.
Luckily, kindness pulled up to save the day.
“About 15 years ago, I had a cottage out near Detroit Lakes, Minn. Although I was ... Read More
For the record, you should never do anything in front of children that you might find embarrassing when talked about in front of adults.
When we go on vacation, I like to hunt down the town’s best specialty bakery. I have a tendency to buy two flavors of cupcakes at a time because it just feels like too much pressure to ... Read More
Sometimes it’s not the first blow that knocks us down, it’s the second or the third.
We can hold it together for the initial bad news, but all too quickly comes a totally unrelated problem that causes us to come unglued. I think they call that the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Jolene Rohde has been going through a tough time. ... Read More
We never really know what someone’s going through, do we?
The clerk at the grocery store who stands on her feet all day and then goes home to take care of an ailing parent. The teacher who pours lessons of kindness and sharing into beautiful little hearts and then realizes she’s been sharing her husband with another woman. The teen who ... Read More
I’m a sucker for a Hallmark movie. Love is in the air when the owner of a small-town bakery falls for the big-city developer who intends to shut her down, but then has a change of heart and sweeps in to save the building from demolition. Somebody hand me a bucket of popcorn and a hot cocoa.
In real life, love ... Read More
What if I told you there is a group of people who are going to accomplish 5,000 acts of kindness in just 15 days? Think it can be done?
What if I told you most of those people still live in their parents’ houses? And don’t have jobs? And wear “PAW Patrol” pajamas each night?
The people taking on this massive kindness ... Read More
Have you ever seen kindness ripple through a room? It happened just the other day in Sioux Falls, S.D.
The Edith Sanford Breast Center put on an amazing conference for survivors and I got to talk about using kindness during a cancer journey.
When I finished speaking, the emcee took the mic and told the crowd that one of the survivors wanted ... Read More
