Put your whole heart and soul into this day.

We’ve all heard it: caffeine in large doses is bad for you. But to those of us who have to wake up early to start the grind, this sounds like one of those cute but unrealistic facts that doesn’t really add anything practical to your life. I come from a coffee-obsessed home with parents who tossed back coffee like it was water. I started drinking  café con leche  every morning when I was 12. So I definitely understand the struggle. But here is the thing: drinking coffee in the morning might sound like an efficient way to get some sugar in your blood and kick that morning drowsiness, but in the long run,  the caffeine and sugar intake backfires immensely. I’m not just talking about  lifespan issues , such as potential adrenal and nervous system complications—I’m also talking about how coffee moves through your body throughout the day. The dose of caffeine in each cup of coffee can come with a pretty vicious spike and crash cycle. “The first thing...

There are times in our lives when we are confronted with the reality that we are not in control of the world around us. As hard as we try, and as much as we’d like to think we’re in control, the reality is, we are not. And there are seasons and circumstances that remind us of that fact. A natural disaster, a terminal diagnosis, a wayward son, an unexpected layoff… each of those come to mind as examples. At this current moment in time, almost everyone in the world, simultaneously, is being confronted with the reality of lost control through the spread of a virus. A tiny virus, invisible to the naked eye, has brought the world to a screeching halt, disrupting everything in its path—even life as normal. Our control has been upended. No doubt about it. We, of course, never had as much control over our lives and the world as we thought we did, but still, it is hard to lose the little that we had. The world, it feels, has spun into chaos. So how do we respond when the world ...