depression Archives

Get Astounding Weight Loss and Peace at Being Forgiven

We need a weight loss program for the heart, but we can’t do it alone, so a vicar steps in and declares, ‘You are forgiven. Be at peace.’ I could feel a kind of weight leave my body. I had carried this tension and held this stress for so long […]

Embracing The Pain And Finding The Christ Light

Getting Well Staying Well Helping Others Mental health

Embracing the Pain Finding the Christ light

Emotional pain can lead us to some very dark places, but embracing the pain may open doors for the Christ light to come and eat with us. It was another email of pain. I looked at my inbox, and someone had sent me an email in response to my ‘God, […]

Mental health Spiritual Formation

Does God Hate Me? Part two

Does God hate Me or Does God love me? What you think about God will form the patterns of your thinking and life. Oh, that my heart might know a new reassurance. Recently in my conversations with people, I have been giving them three little phrases to meditate on and […]

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Formation

Does God Hate Me? Part one

Does God Hate me? Is God punishing me? Questions like these need gentle and grace-filled responses, so here are twelve questions that I would like to ask and explore. Sometimes, when I listen to people, I hear little comments that bring a sense of sadness to my heart. Some firmly […]

Getting Well Staying Well Mental health

Willpower is never enough

We want to change, but willpower alone is never enough. It runs out. We need to have a stronger power – a heart power that strengthens our thinking. I was going to change. I was determined. No more of those old habits and going down those old stupid ways. Now […]

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Practices

Your Rehearsal can Change your Mind

Our self-talk can keep us depressed and anxious, but we can learn new thinking tracks. Your rehearsal can change your mind. I always marvel at how the experts seem to effortlessly do something that I would difficult. My earliest experience of this was watching shearers shear our sheep on the […]

Mental health Spiritual Formation

To Reap in Joy you Need to Sow in Tears. Psalm 126

The only way there is through. To reap a joy, we sow a tear, but it’s work, hard work, so we don’t travel alone. We journey with safe others. I knew there had to be an ocean of loss behind the lifestyle mask they were wearing. For all the stories […]

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Formation

Tired? Take Time to Cease and Savor Delight

You’re tired, drained, but you can’t find a simple way to restore. So maybe it’s time to cease and savor delight in the little moments. It had been a tough week—full-on giving out. People, work, tasks, energy-draining memories all want a piece of the energy pie. What was leftover were […]

Mental health Spiritual Formation

God is Going against the Grain and it’s Terribly Good

There is a grain or a pattern to our thinking that needs to change, but we are stuck, so God gently comes against the grain and changes it from the inside out. It goes against the grain of self-protection to let someone in, especially when we have been hurt. But […]

"A conceptual image illustrating the 'inward curve' of the soul, representing the struggle of being locked within one's own thoughts and ego."

Faith & Mental Health

What to do with your Curve – Incurvatus in se

There is a self-centeredness to ourselves, a turned/curved inwardness, incurvatus in se, but there is one that shows how to break the gravity, the pull of the curve. There is a pull on me all the time. It’s in the lyrics of the eighties pop hit. What about me, it […]