On a June day at a family gathering after the funeral of their uncle, three young children were observed folding and unfolding a large American flag. Earlier that day, they had watched it being ceremoniously folded for presentation to their tearful aunt by uniformed Navy men at the graveside service. What was the children's flag activity about? It was play in therapeutic form, a "working through" by the children of an event they could not understand fully at ages 6, 7 and 9, but that had an impact on them nonetheless. Their interaction with the flag was spontaneous and it connected them to the events of the day in their own way.

Recently I came across a verse in the Bible that really jumped off the page. "Laughter is better than sorrow, because a happy face is good for the heart." Does anyone else find laughter healthy? It speaks to the ways our attitudes and contentment will impact the rest of our lives and well-being. In life there can be a lot of heaviness, but a spirit of laughter is good for us. There's evidence for that perspective elsewhere in the Bible as Proverbs 15:13 states, "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit."

Identity. Such a small word, yet so monumentally important. A person's identity encompasses likes and dislikes, values, personality traits, morals and so much more.

Eating disorders seek to destroy identity and often succeed. If a woman or girl has an eating disorder for a prolonged period of time, she becomes ever increasingly defined by the disorder. In fact, the more the disorder takes over, the more her identity diminishes until there is precious little of "her" left. Of course, this is the goal of the eating disorder. Not unlike the "enemy," an eating disorder comes to steal, kill and destroy.