Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

You Don’t Always Know What You Need Until You Get It

what do you need in your life right now?

I got invited to a men’s Bible study about four months ago. I didn’t know what I was missing.

You don’t always know what you need until you experience what you’re missing from your life. This point hit me straight in the heart recently.

Four months ago I got invited to start attending a men’s small group Bible Study on Wednesday mornings. How long is it, I asked. About 90 minutes, sometimes two hours. Hmmm. I’m a working man. Do I have that much time?

I’ve gone to church every week for my entire life. I taught teen and then young adult Sunday School for more than 20 years. I’m not a Bible scholar, but I do have a seminary degree, and what with working in Christian publishing most of my adult life … how do I say this without sounding like a jerk … I’ll just say it … I feel like I know the Bible pretty well without adding another study. I always have something to learn, but I often get that through reading or sermons. It’s always felt like enough. [Read more…]

Clear Email Clutter and Keep a Clean Inbox

Email can take over our lives - keep a clean inbox.What does it take to clear email clutter and keep a clean inbox?

Whether it is a page of physical or electronic paper, the time management experts tell us that to be efficient we need to work toward handling items once rather than coming back to the same things over and over. I used to put a dot in the corner of a sheet of paper every time I touched it to see how I was doing. That got a bit discouraging. I finally just threw everything on my desk away and lit a match.

Probably not a good idea for you or me.

Even if email isn’t your favorite way to communicate, a lot of important business shows up in your inbox. Some of your best customers and friends do prefer email for getting things done and maintaining relationships. Some of the messages that hit your inbox really do matter to you professionally and personally. [Read more…]

Weight Loss and Gain: My Latest Journey

The highs and the lows of my weight as an adult.

A look at my weight gained and lost as an adult.

It’s fun to blog about weight today because I’ve dropped 45 pounds this year, most of it in the past four months. There have been other days when writing about weight gain and loss would not be nearly so much fun. A few of you know what I’m talking about.

I’ve been trying not to be “that guy” who thinks about and talks about his diet 24/7, but two factors work against that:

  1. When you are on a strict diet, the regimen is almost by definition an obsessive undertaking; and
  2. When you lose a lot of weight, people notice, say nice things, and ask a lot of questions.

I truly admire those disciplined – or metabolically blessed – few who maintain a very trim, healthy, and consistent weight year in and year out. I’ve not been that person.

Right after college, I put on a quick 30 pounds – I worked full-time, kept crazy hours, and completely stopped all exercise. After seeing a picture of myself – I closed my eyes when I walked past a mirror – I got back out on the tennis court, but more importantly, learned to work out both anabolically and aerobically.

In my early thirties I hit my college weight again (a little lower than my senior year), much of that due to becoming a biking fanatic and getting rid of most breads and sugars from my diet.

In my late thirties and early forties I put weight on but worked with some guys that were really into weight lifting, so I actually had some muscle (that showed) for the first time in my life. I mixed the lifting with racquetball, basically ate whatever I wanted, and stayed in good shape. [Read more…]