We can have an overreaction to life’s events, but when we search out what’s behind the reaction, we often find history-based pain. Let’s help the prickly pear. It was a reaction I wasn’t expecting. I had made a few jokes, and their response wasn’t to have a simple laugh with […]
Faith & Mental Health
Being kind to yourself means noticing the inner critic that tells you “you’re not enough” or “you should try harder” — and choosing rest and grace instead of pushing harder. It’s not self-indulgence; it’s recognizing your human limits and trusting that you don’t have to earn your worth. Rest, understood […]
We can become so loaded down with religion that our faith makes us unwell, but Jesus can make us well when we reach out for the fringe. They were loaded down. You couldn’t see it, but as you listened, you could hear and feel it. It was a load of […]
Quick answer: A “shadow” is any unresolved pain from your past — a hurtful parent, an old shame, a generational pattern — that quietly warps how you see yourself and God today. You begin to remove it by turning to look directly at what’s causing it, naming it honestly, and […]
Words have power. Self-deprecation is to pray against the self, but we can learn to pray for the self and so develop healthier thinking patterns. It was the words at the end of his sentence that caught my attention. ‘I’m so stupid; I always do things like that’. You […]
We think our lives have a strength to them, but remove a few Jenga pegs, experience a shock, and we can easily topple to the stress. So we build with each other and find new resilience. A couple of mornings ago, my son said “Nice Jenga Dad.” I was puzzled […]
When chaos comes, or we become aware of the mess we are in, we have choices to make. Charge at it, retreat from it, or engage in the mystery. All the nicely laid out plans had been turned upside down. I had a recipe for life, and now all the […]
When we keep looking at the mountain of struggle, we can feel crushed, but when we know someone greater than the mountain is with us, we can find the help we need. Mountains move when we meditate on God’s goodness. Where I live, I’m surrounded by mountains. They’re not very […]
We can listen to the obvious – noise, distractions, voices, but it takes a focus to notice the whispers. Mental health comes from a spirituality that is listening for the quiet and unspoken. It was the busyness of their life that concerned me the most. Jumping from one thing to the […]
Low self-worth? Feeling like a worm? The secret about worms is that they have incredible strength and power. Something so small can teach us something great. In this post: Feel Like a Worm The Power of the Tongue The Surprising Power of a Worm Worms Have Agency — And So […]