Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. Christianity stands for principles that are not stood for in our culture. It stands for something lofty, but costly. It stands for principles that are timeless rather than those that suit the times. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “So it is that this man named Jesus handily performed feats that were astound…

Defined By Our History “The nature of our histories are always secondary to what we choose to do with them.” Craig D. Lounsbrough Our histories impact us. However, what impacts us doesn’t define us. Our histories can scar us, cripple us, leave us plagued with deficits, and reeling from loss. Our histories can leave us with overwhelming insecurities…

Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. Christianity stands for principles that are not stood for in our culture. It stands for something lofty, but costly. It stands for principles that are timeless rather than those that suit the times. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “So it is that this man named Jesus handily performed feats that were astound…

Who are you giving yourself away to? To what propaganda have you come to subscribe? To what bit of media polished bias or refined political spin have you succumb? Who has your ear, and therefore holds the heart to which your ear is attached? What are the voices that have methodically and patiently lulled you into some sort of comatose complacency w…

Defined By Our Deficits “Any deficit that you have can never stand against the asset that that deficit is waiting to become.” Craig D. Lounsbrough You know, we come to define ourselves more by what we lack than by what we possess. We define ourselves by the successes that we haven’t had, the relationships that didn’t work, the careers that never ha…

Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We spend our lives acquiring what we think we need to fight the battles that we think we’re fighting. In a world fraught with fear and uncertainty, we assimilate whatever grants us this sense of invincibility and power for whatever battle we think we’re fighting. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “I do not we…

Father’s Day Some Thoughts Hi, I’m Craig LounsbroughWelcome to LifeTalk On Father’s Day week, I want to change the program up a bit and share something a little different on this Father’s Day week. Sometimes it’s a single thought that changes everything. Not some sweeping set of ideas or broad-based philosophy, but a handful of words. Just a handfu…

Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We ignore our conscience because we want to do what it says we shouldn’t. But, we also ignore the consequences of ignoring it. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “Disabling your conscience is like disabling your smoke detector. It doesn’t stop a fire. It just leaves you ignorant of the fact that there is one.”…

Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We run after a lot of stuff. Our time, our energy, our finances, and much of our lives are spent chasing stuff. And when we catch that stuff, we typically find that it doesn’t do for us what we thought that it would do for us. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “The insanity of it all is that the search for th…

In the Footsteps of the Few I Was Thinking To Think Outside the Box “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Pablo Picasso I think that most of our thinking (despite how much there is to think about) is really pretty standardized and chafingly rote. We think in predetermined patterns and pre-existent templ…

Too often we don't take the time to really ask why we support what we're supporting. We get swept up in some energizing movement, or we're utterly captivated by some cause. Something feels inherently good and the premise that drives it appears sound. We find that an army of people have raced to the forefront of this cause, or it's embraced as long …

Defined By Our Appearance “If the mirror doesn’t give me much back, it’s because it’s not designed to reflect the things within me that make the reflection truly magnificent.” Craig D. Lounsbrough The world has set an airbrushed standard of what we’re supposed to look like. This photoshopped menagerie of idealized versions of a perfected humanity d…

LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues. Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes. All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire. Today's thought is: “If I don’t passionately desire freedom for all of my fellowme…

Finding Ourselves Somewhere Else In the Footsteps of the Few Not Where We Were It seems that we have some vague and rather ethereal sense of where we’re going in this thing called life. For the more contemplative soul, that sense might be quite refined. For the casual traveler, it might be a bit more nebulous and scattered. For many, where they’re …

Our freedoms are not a "right." They are, in fact, a "privilege." They are not ours to abuse. Rather, they are ours to cherish. But as we abuse these rights by demanding our right to them or exercising them in ways that will destroy these very freedoms, we forget that they are fragile. Very fragile. They are not permanent. They are not guaranteed. …

Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We need to stop. We need to put down our calendars, set our phones aside, strip ourselves of the voices incessantly clamoring for our attention and listen. Just listen. For life is not what we’re chasing. It’s what we’re leaving behind in the chasing. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “Rich is the person who …

Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We spend our lives acquiring what we think we need to fight the battles that we think we’re fighting. In a world fraught with fear and uncertainty, we assimilate whatever grants us this sense of invincibility and power for whatever battle we think we’re fighting. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “I do not we…

Not Where We Were It seems that we have some vague and rather ethereal sense of where we’re going in this thing called life. For the more contemplative soul, that sense might be quite refined. For the casual traveler, it might be a bit more nebulous and scattered. For many, where they’re going is defined by the tasks of the day, rather than enlarge…

Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We build bridges or barriers. If you think about it, everything that we do builds one or the other. And the function of a bridge is quite different than the function of a barrier. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “Every decision will build a bridge or a barrier. Therefore, what stands in front of you at this…

Dear Mom: I realize that on days like Mother’s Day people tend to wax nostalgic, venerating those Mom’s among us who have passed. It is, I suppose, a way to express both our deep respect and enduring gratitude, while somehow holding you a bit closer in heart and mind since we can no longer hold you in our arms. Mom, you are missed more than the rea…

Am I Passionate for the Right Things? “In full uniform, the color guard marched by as part of the parade. And as they did, he forced his horribly slumped and deeply aged body out of his worn wheelchair and stood to ram-rod attention. He held a salute until the guard had passed, and then he feebly collapsed back into his wheelchair. As I stared in e…

Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. Sometimes we feel helpless. In the midst of tragedy, or painful losses, or devastating moments, we often feel that we are helpless to do anything other than standby and watch. Yet is that really all that we can do? Consider this “Thought for Life:” “Prayer inserts me into the middle of any battlefield regardl…

Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. It’s my sense that God doesn’t need me to speak to you. He’s quite capable of doing that without me. But there are times when I sense that He wants me to speak something of Him to you. And this is one of those moments. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “I don’t always preach God, for His existence is obvious.…

Let’s start here. Think about this thought: “Too often we have stripped our single greatest asset of its power and hobbled it to the degree that it has come to be viewed only as a pathetic last resort. Yet despite our incessant meddling, this asset nonetheless remains a first resort so potent that it never needs a last one. And that asset is prayer…

The Self That I Long to Believe In Bigger on the Inside Than the Outside Attempting to Define Success to Define Ourselves “It would make sense that our worth should be, and in reality is based on something that cannot be proven for any other reason than its value lies forever beyond the most magnificent achievements that would serve to even remotel…

LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues. Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes. All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire. Today's thought is: “Decisions based on timeless truths will never leave our tomor…

Defined By Our Self-Esteem “I can only imagine how much low self-esteem has robbed us as individuals and ransacked our culture. It is a rogue beast bent on diminishing us to some point of forlorn incapacity. Plagued by this beast, we live out marginalized lives that surrender the accomplishments and forsake the achievements that could have been our…

New beginnings. The way our lives frequently go, we doubt the existence of new beginnings...at least for us. We've had too much loss, far too much pain, and circumstances that seemed anything but kind to us. And as we look down the road of our lives, we can only envision more of the same. We really don't believe in new beginnings because all we've …

Backwards - The Grand Reversal of Easter By Craig D. Lounsbrough I am backwards. I don’t think I’m backwards, I wouldn’t necessarily see myself as backwards, nor would I tell you that I’m backwards; but I’m backwards. And the oddity of it all is that I actually see backwards as forwards. From where I’m sitting it doesn’t look backwards at all. Howe…

Defined By the Culture "Taking It to Our Knees - Declaring Who I Am “When they ridicule me and tell me that my need to do the ‘right thing’ is embedded in an overweening insecurity about doing the ‘wrong thing,’ I quickly inform them of three things. First, I inform them that it is nothing of a need born of fear, but everything of a choice born of …

LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues. Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes. All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire. Today's thought is: “I am left with no alternative than to look beyond the efforts…

I Heard a Robin - Hope in the Dark We all create expectations. But how often are our expectations a wholesale surrendering of ‘what could be’ to ‘what is?’ How often are they borne of a discouraged soul and a frightened heart that cannot see beyond the realities of the moment so as to envision a brighter reality standing at-the-ready in the next mo…

LifeTalk Script I Am Only ‘One’ Understanding Our Impact “I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.” Edward Everett I am only one. That’s all I am. I am only one and I will always be only one. I was born as one, I will live as one, and on the day of my death I will die as one. Living as Being Only One A…

LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues. Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes. All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire. Today's thought is: “Love is the essence of our humanity expressing itself in acti…

LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues. Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes. All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire. Today's thought is: “Running from what we fear is like throwing a bunch of stuff i…

LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues. Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes. All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire. Today's thought is: “Who are you sending into the future and how are you sending t…

LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues. Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes. All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire. Today's thought is: “It comes down to 'fear' and 'faith'. 'Fear' of what stands in…

Slavery as an institution is pretty far removed from the minds of most of us residing here in 21st century America. Slavery sits back plenty far enough in the faded, yellowed and brittle pages of history to create a more than comfortable chasm between us and itself. We view that chasm of time and social development and modernism as broad enough to …

Flecks of Gold On a Path of Stone - Simple Truth's For Profound Living An unknown author wrote, “Real treasure lies not in what that can be seen, but what cannot be seen.” Oddly, we possess this strangely cockeyed perception that we must be able to see something in order to treasure it. What we see as treasure is really only the thing that’s reveal…

Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone – Simple Truth’s for Profound Living” Someone once uttered the timeless saying that “timing is everything.” There’s something about things happening in a certain order in a certain time that makes it all fit in a certain way. We sense a natural and correct progression that, if followed, leads to success or happines…

Common sense is a ‘common’ phrase that is in reality far from common. To add insult to injury, common sense also seems to weigh in a trite bit light on ‘sense’ as well. It might be proper to say that common sense is neither common nor does it make much sense anymore. Today, common sense commonly lacks sense and we are the poorer for it. It seems ra…

"Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone - Simple Truth's for Life's Complex Journey" - Part Four Did you ever have one of those surreal moments when it seems like something snaps in your head and suddenly you see everything like you never saw it before? Have you experienced those times when things unexplainably shift and they don’t look at all the same …

Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone - Simple Truth's for Life's Complex Journey" - Part Three The concept of sacrifice seems more suited to novels or epic movies. It appears more an ideal; a concept that when observed from a safe distance seems wonderfully heroic, deeply inspiring and chivalrous in a way that stirs up something powerful in us that se…

Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone - Simple Truth's for Life's Complex Journey" - Part Two Forgiveness often seems to be one of those things that’s a genuinely nice idea, but not really a life liberating reality. Life is full of nice ideas; those trite sayings, gentle stories and brave concepts that would make life a whole lot better if they were re…

Obstacles to Prayer LifeTalk “I want to live a life where prayer is the first thing that I do, the second thing, the third thing, and the last thing after the prayer has been answered.” Craig D. Lounsbrough Many of the obstacles to prayer are things that we have not given sufficient attention to, or we think that they’re somehow normal, appropriate…

"Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone - Simple Truth's for Life's Complex Journey" - Part One We yearn for security. There is an inherent need deep within the fiber of our being that desires to be able to lean on and lean into the things around us, knowing with steeled assuredness that they will hold us firm and steady. We want life to be safe because…

The odds that are we’ve never met, and if we have, I hope that I was able to leave something with you in the meeting as that is my passion and my calling. My life has been devoted to helping people. You know, you start out with a vision to help people, and that vision is often pretty romanticized. In your mind you envision changing people lives, an…

The question of purpose is simple, direct, but inherently complicated. The question demands bravery. It rises on the belief that we have an utterly indispensable role to play in our own existence because it is not just our own existence. Fulfilling our purpose has an equally critical role to play in the existence of others. It is our part in this e…

You know, I grew up with a lot of dreams. A lot of things that I wanted to do. We all have dreams. Maybe your dream was to have a great marriage. Maybe it was to start a company that changed a community, or a nation, or maybe the world. Maybe it was to raise solid kids, or travel, or write a book, or invent something revolutionary that made life be…