What is your drug of choice?  comfort, security, competition, praise, staying busy, controlling people, being in shallow relationships, having too much or too little money, worrying, seeing ourselves as superior or inferior to others. The above list of addictions came from an intriguing post...

Have you ever felt your life was out of balance?  Have you ever had a season when you were simply to busy to rest and reflect upon your life but later came to realize that by resting and reflecting, your life actually got easier and made more sense?  I have just recently come through a...

Do you ever feel torn between worlds?  Wanting to be fully present in two places at one time? A while back homeless families from the CARITAS program were staying at my local church.  CARITAS provides shelter to the homeless through local congregations who host residence for one week a...

My Embrace team may not be biological family but we are very much a spiritual family.  Only God could have brought us together and given us such a love for one another.  My sister Yolanda has a special talent for liturgical dancing.  Yesterday at the Embrace Christmas party she gave us the...

In one of our recent discussions about the role of spirituality in The Healing Place recovery program, one of our Unity Works participants asked the following question, “I still have questions in my mind about the “God of my understanding”.  Does AA proclaim the Gospel or...

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. “ This passage from Luke 5:16 is one of many that tell of Jesus habit of seeking solitude in the wilderness.  Throughout the ages, Christians have heard and responded to the call to withdraw.  The dessert mothers and fathers, lived...

In the fall of 2008, Embrace Richmond received an AmeriCorps grant which we have used to hire a number of homeless and formerly homeless men and women.  Many of these individuals are graduates from The Healing Place a 198 bed residential recovery program based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics...

Once a year, I return home to Central Texas.  This year we choose to come home for Christmas.  As we moved from the metropolitan east coast culture into the small town rural Texas, I began to see reminders of my father everywhere.  The Roadrunner Café reminded me of how much my dad always...

Historically Christians have struggled with mental health and how to care for those who suffer from mental illness.  I was recently read a blog post by a pastor whose wife suffered from severe bouts of depression.  He reached out to his fellow ministers and asked for advice.  The first...

A year ago our ministry began partnering with The Healing Place which is a 197 bed homeless shelter for men in recovery.  The program is based on the 12 step recovery process of Alcoholics Anonymous.  It is an intensive program with most men spending six to nine months working through the...