Carmen Lăiu

Being a parent means, among other things, engaging in agonising negotiations to keep the supermarket aisles relatively quiet and the shopping trolley from overflowing with sweets. Some are successfully concluded. Others, a real failure. Although we are very adept at recognising a spoiled child on the street, we have a much harder time spotting the signs in our own children. After all, what...

Was the death of Jesus the end of an extraordinary life, or just the beginning of eternal life for those who believe in Him?

Where there's fear, there's shame, says a Romanian proverb. What the proverb doesn't say (and what many of us don't know) is that the folds of shame hide a multitude of emotional problems and dysfunctional relationships that are passed down from one generation to the next.

Over the years, the concept of positive thinking has proved to be extremely versatile and has managed to lure millions of people into the grip of powerful promises, convincing them that life can offer more than what they have been able to experience so far.

“When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window,” poet Ogden Nash once said, encapsulating one of the most common sources of intergenerational conflict—the role grandparents play in the upbringing of their grandchildren.

"I was wrong. I'm sorry"—these words can have a magical effect on a struggling relationship. But if we fail to show empathy, the apology will sound fake or hurt the offended person even more.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Max Lucado wrote an article summarising the spiritual lessons we can learn from an event that the news described as a "once in a thousand year flood".

When a closed window shade becomes an SOS sent by those used to living on their own but afraid of dying alone, something has fundamentally changed in a society that not long ago valued human relationships.

After 25 years in the ministry, during which he never once considered leaving, Pastor Tim Kuperus admits that the last three years have been difficult enough for him to consider a different path.

"When things happen too fast, nobody can be certain about anything, about anything at all, not even about himself" (Milan Kundera).

I’ll never be able to separate the memories of childhood from that of books. They intertwine like colours in fabrics, in a jumble of real and fantastical, bitter and sweet, joy and guilt.

"We've got all you need, and so much more!" is the tagline that appears in the opening minutes of a famous animated film; a slogan that is not at all disturbing to viewers who have long since become accustomed to the commercials of consumer society.

If we were asked how many of the thousands of sermons we’ve listened to in a lifetime were truly memorable, the answers might not be too encouraging for those called to share Scripture. Equally challenging, however, remains the way we prepare to be good listeners of the Word.

When Reader's Digest asked readers to share a time when someone took care of one of their needs, the stories poured in, proving that our world is still full of ambassadors of generosity.

If the death of our parents is a blow which makes “the very fabric of life…buckle and cave in,” the ageing of our parents resembles a classroom where we learn to give more than we are used to receiving.