Personal Life
Because you are seeing me for counsel on your personal life, I believe that you have a right to ask about mine. I’ll try to be as transparent as I can with any questions you may want to ask, but here’s a brief summary:
My wife Joni and I both love God, each other, our daughters, two grandchildren, and hiking in the Rockies. Joni, also a licensed counselor, is an exceptionally amazing woman as all who know her would agree. After we married in 1990, she not only supported me in getting my doctorate but became a great mom for our two daughters. After beating her first bout with breast cancer, she became the voice of breast cancer survivors for the American Cancer Society, and spoke at the White House, where she shared the speaking podium with Michelle Obama. After that, she earned her master’s degree in counseling, worked with troubled Native American youth for a few years, and now, after beating her second bout with cancer, has her own private counseling practice.
In years to come, Lord willing, I hope to offer spiritual retreats up in the the Rockies after I finish my first of a series of books on what it really means to abide in Christ (John 15:4-5) and abound in spiritual fruit (John 15:8; Galatians 5:22-23).
HOW I KEEP SANE
I try to “practice the presence of God” on a continuous moment-by-moment basis in secret, conversational prayer. A minute not spent in God’s presence, for me, is a minute wasted. Next, I seek spiritual and emotional intimacy with Joni more than with anyone else. As an avid guitarist and hiker, I try to steal as much time as I can playing and arranging fingerstyle guitar pieces in my music studio and hiking the mountain trails near my home up here in the Rockies.