The Lord made me a physician and I specialized in endocrinology, the treatment of hormonal diseases. Just as I was preparing to retire from practice, two of my colleagues, Drs. Mark Sheehan and Dan Smith, invited me to join their Tuesday morning Bible study. That began a fellowship that changed my life.

They had been to Cambodia and stressed to me something curious they had found in their patients, a high frequency of goiters. That in itself was enough to tweak my interest. Enlargement of the thyroid gland had been a challenge in my practice in North America. I was hooked on seeing how it might differ in another population.

A quick study of the endocrinology literature told me that they were seeing iodine deficiency goiters. Iodine is a key component in the chemical structure of thyroid hormone. If there is not enough of it in the diet, the thyroid gland must work harder. In doing so, it gets bigger. My entire career up to that point had been in Canada and the United States. The soil in many parts of both countries is deficient in iodine. However, iodized salt has been used for generations to correct the deficiency in the diet. FULL POST

As we remember those who died while serving in the U.S. military, parades, flags, speeches, visits to final resting places and other gatherings are among the ways we commemorate their service and sacrifice.

Originally called Decoration Day, a number of places have claimed to be the birthplace of this somber celebration. But it was in the summer of 1865 in the village of Waterloo, in the heart of the Finger Lakes region of New York, that Henry C. Welles, a prominent local druggist, during a social gathering with his friends, shared an idea for a community-wide memorial celebration for the Civil War dead.

The notion, however, did not catch fire until the following spring when uber-patriotic Civil War hero General John B. Murray enthusiastically embraced it. Locals bedecked the village with flags at half mast, evergreens, and black draperies to signify mourning.

On May 5, 1866, led by General Murray, townspeople paraded to the solemn pageantry of military marches and decorated soldiers' graves as it held its first formal village-wide Decoration Day. FULL POST

Imagine a Joel Rosenberg and Tom Clancy collaboration, add intensity, and you have Jeff Nesbit's Peace.

A page-turner that blends a geo-political-techno thriller with human interest and spiritual introspection, Peace offers a realistic look at the fragility of the Middle Eastern balance of power, if it can be considered a balance. Sound dry? Oh my, no!

What carries Mr. Nesbit's work beyond a scholarly treatise in Foreign Affairs is a gripping storyline that spans the gamut from the pristine Oval Office to a squalid covert prison camp in North Korea, the ornate halls of the Kremlin to a dusty tribal village in Malawi. What's surprising in that lopsided contrast is just who exerts more influence over the outcome of the story.

If you like international thrillers that take you through scenarios seemingly impossible to resolve--but plausible to conceive--drenched in suspense and intrigue, you've got a treat in store for you in the pages of Peace. FULL POST

Respect comes in many forms and is given in many ways. There's respect for family, authority, government, spouse, colleagues, talent. But I've noticed that we as a society—and as a world—have lost this aspect of ourselves. However, the respect I see lacking the most and what really concerns me is respect of self.

People have lost respect for themselves. This is so very clear to me from the reality TV shows that we watch—like The Bachelor ,where women vie for position to win one man's heart. (There are worse shows out there, but I won't go naming them all.) I also see on the internet men and women posting pictures of themselves that show me they have no respect for their own self-worth. In my opinion, and it is only an opinion, men and women should not need to flaunt their sexuality in order to get attention. What this says to me is that you feel you cannot be loved or liked for who you are and need to somehow attract people to respect you.

The problem with this is that it does just the opposite. Men don't respect women who flaunt themselves because they see them as a sexual object and not as beautiful women worth getting to know and appreciate. Again, this is only my opinion, and I'm not judging anyone. I just get concerned that people are searching for something the wrong way and will be hurt and ultimately frustrated with their lives. FULL POST

"Take my wife, please!"--Henny Youngman, King of the one-liners

Years ago, while sponsoring an after-school youth group activity, I found myself in an argument with a twelve-year-old who had recently resolved to be aligned with atheism. I had known him most of his life, but every line of reasoning I brought up was dismissed with evolutionary logic and at lightning speed.

My only point scored was when I asked him to explain how humans had developed such a unique sense of humor if we sprang from a black hole. This atypical topic seemed to annoy my young friend as he deferred to primates and their tendency to tickle-play and imitate social behavior. His examples fell flat as I pelted him with questions about the appreciation for and/or creation of humorous banter, conundrums, irony, parodies, satire, and plain old wit. The boy credited the highly developed language skills of our species for all my queries rather than some innate sense of humor. Still, I could see a tiny scratch in his freshly honed atheist veneer.

As the other kids ate pizza, he and I swapped verbal accounts of several outstanding Far Side cartoons, and then he asked me why there was no humor in the Bible if humor was such a fundamental element of "intelligent design." I suggested that our Western culture was not exactly like that of biblical times; therefore, humor had surely evolved along with the morés and tolerance levels of all societies. Or it could be that early translators just edited out such trivialities since they were dealing with interpretations of much more profound issues. FULL POST

All your kids live in the same house, follow the same rules, and probably follow a similar schedule (unless they're spread far apart in age). If you birthed them, and they have the same father, they even share genes. So of course they'd be the same...right?

Wrong! Just living with those birds assures you they're very different, and that's because each of your fledglings has a different place on the family tree—just like you had a place on your family's tree when you were growing up. In fact, one of the best predictions in life is that whatever the firstborn in a family is and does, the secondborn in the family will go in a different (and oftentimes opposite) direction. And as much as you try to make your relationship with your children "equal and the same," there will always be one who is your favorite, and one you always want to knock off his or her perch because the two of you clash so much.

Why is that? Because parents (moms especially) tend to overidentify with the child in the same birth order position, and that can lead to too much pressure on that child...or too much favoritism. What you expect out of your children and how you treat them is what they will become. FULL POST

This Mother's Day, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage, and hopefully strengthen, all young women who are in the early years of motherhood. I remember hearing the older women say so many times, "These are the best years of your life.

Yes, looking back I realize how very good those years were; what precious, fond memories I have of watching and helping God in the shaping of those little hearts and minds. Children are so very impressionable; so very moldable! They are fresh, clean slates that we have the opportunity and responsibility to write on in permanent marker. My caution is this: be very careful and intentional about what you write on those slates, AND be very careful and intentional as to who is allowed to write there.

Giving birth or adopting does not make you a good mother. Taking your children to church does not do it either. Those two factors are actually a very, very small part of the picture. And you may as well face the fact that being tired is generally part of the picture as well. But let me encourage you with these goals:

1. Plan ahead. Before I was even close to being a mother, I began planning how I wanted our household to be. I thought about it when I was quite young, when I considered marriage, as well as when we actually anticipated starting a family. I had decided when I was young that I wanted a quiet and peaceful home for our children. I wanted them to feel secure. I wanted them to always know they were loved—no matter what their capabilities or personality quirks, they would still be loved completely! I planned to accept each one and nurture their individual characteristics—never comparing except to show them how wonderfully individual they were. FULL POST

I was a working mom.... That sounds like a confession, doesn't it? You know, the one that you convey when you let go of pride, gaining the courage to get in front of the group of similar recovering personalities. In some ways, it probably is. The ironic part is, all moms are working moms. If you are a mom...well, you work.

But for me, in addition to what I did at home, I had a huge job I was responsible for at my place of employment. When my husband, Dan, and I married, we started our own business and have worked in our own companies the entirety of our married life. That included the years of raising our two daughters. I was promoting concerts, managing bands, running the operations of a record label—and, at the same time, was trying to move our two girls toward adulthood. My goal with them was to do this with as much success and as little damage as was humanly possible. Some days I wondered if I had the strength, sanity, or energy somewhere in my weary body to pull all my mom roles off.

Now my two girls are grown and on their own (though never far from Mom's heart). I couldn't be more proud of who they are as young adults. But if I told you there were never days of self-doubt, disappointment, and no questions of motherhood sanity ever arose, I'd be lying. In hindsight, I believe I didn't sit down for seven years. I don't mean literally sit down; I mean stopping from doing "something"—whether at the office, on the road, or at home. FULL POST

Osama bin Laden is dead of as last weekend's targeted assault by U.S. operatives on a compound in Pakistan. The long search begun by former President Bush for this leader of the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York has now concluded with President Obama's announcement of the terrorist's death.

Already much has been written in the media about the "effects" Osama bin Laden's death will have—on God's prophetic plan, the market, politics, etc.

But I can't help but think about his death through yet another lens: that of the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11. As the editor of the New York Times best-seller Let's Roll: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage, by Lisa Beamer (with Ken Abraham), wife of 9-11 hero Todd Beamer, I was plunged personally into the aftermath of the horror of 9/11.

I had great empathy for Lisa. We were both wives and moms of young children, passionate about raising our children to be godly individuals with determination, courage, and character. We were both graduates of Wheaton College in Illinois. Lisa was pregnant with her daughter, Morgan Kay (who was born in January 2002). I had just flown back from China after a month's stay to adopt my many-years-longed-for daughter, Kayla. So, both Lisa and I, with tiny babies cooing on our laps, talked, typed, and wiped back tears as we worked late in the night under intense deadlines to finetune the book. FULL POST

One of the fortunate fringe benefits of having my first novel published has been the opportunity to meet aspiring writers. It usually comes after a book signing or a speaking engagement, and the conversation generally starts something like this, "You know, I've always wanted to write a book myself." Little does the speaker know that I'm extremely passionate about encouraging other people to chase their dreams. And that statement gives me the opportunity to step up on my soap box.

I try to live by an idea I call 20/20 foresight (as opposed to 20/20 hindsight); this is an attempt to live in such a way that I won't ever have any regrets for things I wished I had accomplished, but never tried. Of course I'm not perfect, but I do my best to chase after anything that follows the statement, "You know I've always wanted to....(insert dream or goal here)." Now that I've practiced what I preached, at least as far as the dream to get published is concerned, I encourage as many as I can to chase after his or her dreams.

Although I've been writing in one form or another for most of my life, I only started writing for publication about five years ago. I realized I had a passion not only to write for myself but also to reach others through the written word. I never wanted to look back one day and wonder what it would have been like to write a book and get it published. Without further delay, I began looking into the idea of writing a book. FULL POST