A big part of enjoying school includes having friends you look forward to seeing each day. The Bible says that a person who wants friends must show oneself friendly (Prov. 18:24).
Don’t allow your attitudes and actions to cause you to be someone the other students hate to be around.
- The pity seeker feels sorry for him or her, trying to get the attention and pity of others.
- The bragger talks about him or herself, what “I have,” what “I can do,” and what “I know.”
- The loner isolates him or herself from others, making it impossible for others to get to know them.
- The gossip always talks bad about others in the school, including those who are supposedly his or her friends.
- The roller coaster goes up and down emotionally. One minute they are happy and a minute later they are crying.
- The bully constantly demeans and picks one person that they perceive to be weaker than him or herself.
Source: Every Teenager’s Little Black Book of Hard to Find Information
by Blaine Bartel.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Blaine and Lori Bartel didn’t set out to build a place like this. They became it.
Blaine once lived at the top of the ministry world—national TV, a booming youth movement at Church on the Move, and a growing church in Dallas. But while the stage lights were bright, the darkness underneath was darker. A secret 23-year sexual addiction buried everything he valued—his marriage, ministry, finances, reputation, and identity.
Crushed and barely holding on to life, he spent over a year in deep therapy, wrestling with shame and fighting for healing. Then, somewhere on a windswept highway between Kansas City and Tulsa, he heard the voice that lifted him out of the soil:
“I am not going to give you a recovery. I am calling you into resurrection.”
Everything changed.
Blaine found complete freedom and began decoding a Jesus-centered path that leads men out of the grave and into new life. For more than a decade, he’s been guiding other men through that same resurrection.
Lori was walking her own road—rebuilding after 17 years married to a chronic alcoholic, carrying both the wounds and the courage of a woman who refused to stay broken. She was searching for purpose, for peace, for somewhere her heart could breathe again.
Then God crossed their paths.
They met over pasta at Ti Amo (“I love you”—God’s little wink).
A year later, in a simple wedding wrapped in hope, they said yes to each other and to a calling bigger than themselves.
Today—13 years in—they share one mission:
To pull men out of addiction and to rebuild the marriages addiction has shattered.
House of Resurrection is the fruit of the very ground that once tried to bury them—a sacred space for honesty, healing, and brand-new beginnings.
They are joyful parents of four grown kids, proud grandparents of two, and happiest anywhere with lakes, beaches, sunshine, and reminders that darkness never gets to write the final chapter.