Unprocessed grief and shame can keep us emotionally frozen, unable to truly connect with the people we love. In this post we explore why so many Christians struggle with hidden shame, how it masquerades as depression, and what it means to actually heal from the inside out. Using the Bible's two greatest commandments as our guide, we'll look at how loving yourself is not selfishness, it's the foundation of loving others well. Includes a 7-step guided prayer for healing shame.
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Descending in a Culture Focused on the Ascent
It is challenging to focus on descending into a place where the soul can search and roam, exploring our depths, in a culture so focused on getting better and better.
I never liked fictional stories or anything to feed the creative parts of myself because I always felt I had such little time on the earth and I should spend it reading self-help books and things that help me ascend. “Driven” is a choice word you could say about me for most of my life. But where was I going to go? Where would this ascent lead me?
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Welcoming Grief and Sorrow
I sat on the floor of her room and played It Is Well With My Soul — the last time I would ever play hymns outside of time with my Naomi. If I hadn't spent weeks deeply processing grief before that moment, I might never have walked through that door at all. This is what it means to welcome sorrow instead of running from it.
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The SACRED WORK OF GRIEF - An Introduction
Every morning I woke up in a sweat, reciting a mantra just to ground myself: "It's 2023, I am 48 years old, I live here, I am not married, my mom is dead." It was in the darkest season of my life that I first encountered the sacred work of grief — and discovered that loss is far bigger than I ever knew.
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HOW TO PRAY WHEN YOU HAVE ADHD
Have you ever thought about how Jesus prayed alone? Why was Jesus looking for solitude? I mean, obviously He was a people person right? I’ve been teaching on prayer for many years, and one thing I was known for was always giving people ‘tools’ or ‘resources’ with my teaching. I used to think the reason for that was I was a hands-on children’s-youth-type teacher, but now I believe it’s a different reason than that.
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No Fear In Love
There was a time when I had no fear of people or the church, because in my own mind, I was living righteously, so righteously in fact that no one could judge me. Of course, they could judge me, but in my mind, I was righteous enough to have a defense against any judgment. I don’t feel that way anymore. I feel very guilty, full of shame, and constantly aware of all my sin and failure. My thoughts are filled with things like people are just waiting to expose me at every turn. That’s an awful way to think about people. In fact, that makes it quite difficult to love them and interact with them if you’re just afraid of them.
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I Have Nothing Bad to Say!
Whenever my mind wanders to places of sadness in my circumstances or fears of the unknown, this hope and promise in His Word overrides my carnality. In light of all He has done for me, how could I complain? You know that death and life are in the power of the tongue, but in your mind- your every thought- is an even greater power.
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Love for Love
Can you sit in a room with someone, say no words, give no actions, and feel loved? This is what we run to and run away from with God. There is no greater love felt than simply being in God’s presence, could you agree? To be in the presence of another and feel love, is truly love. When there is nothing to gain from it, nothing to stoke it to keep it going, it simply is.
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SOLITUDE
It is a furnace, it is in this place we face our demons. You know when you are alone, truly alone, you find out how much you can’t stand being alone. Alone with your thoughts, alone with your insecurities, alone with the realities of the parts of you inside poking their heads out to remind you that they are still there and you can’t ignore them when you are alone, just you and God. You must get around people and be busy- distracted, in order to ignore the existence of these demons.
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MOTHERING OUR YOUNG
Did you know the Bible mentions sparrows and swallows in the same breath — and that they carry two very different meanings in Hebrew? While the sparrow is a general word for any small bird pointing to God's watchful care over every living thing, the swallow has a unique Hebrew word used only twice in all of scripture. In this post we dig into what both birds symbolize, what Psalm 84 reveals about finding your home in God, and the surprising spiritual lessons hidden in the wings of a swallow.
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Fighting the Good Fight
There are fights you fight to win, and there that are fights you just fight. You fight the good fight. Do you win? Not in this age. In this age, you just keep fighting. You never win the fight against the flesh. You fight the fight against the flesh.
Read MoreDead on the Inside
This is the story of my life-long struggle with chronic depression that has been healed over the years through the power of Jesus which heals the deepest sadness and a special song that came out of facing the darkness in my soul.
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The Force of Favor
Have you ever wondered why the universe seems to favor some people above others or why you keep going in circles no matter how hard you try? What if supernatural favor isn't random, but something you can actually partner with? In this post we explore the spiritual force of God's favor, why humility is the key that unlocks it, and how pride quietly causes it to evaporate. If you've been feeling like nothing is clicking, explore this blog post.
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Sacrifice of Praise in Suffering
When we are delivered out of this world and in heaven with Christ there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more suffering. The pains of this age will cease. The betrayals and accusations will be a thing of the past. All the things that ail us will be remembered no more. There will be no more dark days. My offering of praise when everything seems perfect and is going my way does not cost the same as the offering I give when I am so heavy burdened I can barely stand.
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Jesus Prayed Alone
Jesus was the ultimate people person — surrounded by crowds, followed everywhere, with barely a moment to Himself. So why did He keep slipping away to pray alone? In this post we look at three specific passages where Jesus went to a solitary place to pray, what time of day He prayed, and the intentional, sometimes radical, steps He took to carve out time with the Father. If you've been struggling to find space for a consistent prayer life, Jesus' example will both challenge and encourage you.
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I'm Purposely Not Telling You
Sometimes I feel like I want to throw a fit- God! Why aren’t You answering me? Why aren’t You speaking? Can You just make this clear please? But what a humbling meditation to think that there actually may be a good reason He is being quiet… and it has nothing to do with my motivations, piety or me at all. There’s more happening than meets the eye and I must develop this ‘trust muscle’.
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Being Used By God
I heard someone preach about this idea of “being used by God” a long time ago, and the imagery they shared stuck with me for many years and often comes up in my mind.
I was thinking about this idea of how we find our value in being ‘used’ by God. If we are God’s children and we desire God to ‘use’ us, what’s wrong with that, right?
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All Things Work Together
I have never been one who could follow a recipe precisely. Most of the time that hasn’t been a problem, so it comes out less sweet or needing salt, no big deal. However there have been so many times that I missed a critical ingredient or tried to do my own thing and it came out horrible. I can’t count the number of baked goods I have had to throw away over the years because no one would eat it. And yet I would continue to make the same mistake over and over and tell myself, “Why cant you just follow the recipe!?” There have been times however that I messed up pretty bad and unexpectedly it came out amazing! Shocking!
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Adversity Matures our Love
Last year the Lord began speaking to me about this word, “surrender”. It was as if a sharp needle poked a raw, open wound. We all use the word “surrender”, and we sing about it and speak of it as if it is normal and simple, but this encounter I had with the Lord over it proved different. In essence, what the Lord was saying to me was, “you don’t know the first thing about ‘surrender’.”
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The Foxes that Spoil
The setting is a garden. The season is the end of winter. An interesting picture. This is a time of year our gardens are not trimmed or tended to, having just come out of the winter. It’s the beginning of the season when the sun has barely poked its head and out of the dead and barren surroundings, small, green tender plants beginning poking their heads above the surface. It can be quite deceiving actually, the changing of the seasons. On one hand, it looks as if winter is over and you begin to see signs of spring, but the final frost hasn’t quite come.
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