Mental Health Archives

Good Conversations don’t leave you Feeling Judged

Feeling judged can make you want to hide. Why put yourself out there if people are going to judge you? What you want is a good conversation. They didn’t have the conversation because they knew they would feel judged. Feelings of being dismissed, ridiculed, ‘shot-down’, laughed at, mocked would […]

Relationships & Connection

They make me feel

They make me feel … (add in your emotional extreme), but there is a space between stimulus and response. Use it. I was watching the news the other night and the first item was about a mother complaining about how a politician made her daughter feel. She claimed that the […]

Relationships & Connection

It’s Hard to Put into Words

There is an internal world to every one of us with words that need sharing, but it’s hard to put into words, so we need someone safe to help us. They wanted him to tell them what was going on inside, but it felt more like he was in the […]

Spiritual Formation

Finding that Still Small Voice

It’s a noisy world with lots of stressors wanting our attention, but there is a still small voice longing to be heard, so quiet yourself and listen. I have a pendulum clock on a bookshelf near me. Yesterday, I noticed the pendulum was swinging back and forth freely, but now […]

Trauma & Recovery

Opened Too Early

There is a time for everything, and some things get opened too early, but there is hope, and God can bring release and recovery. They had been opened too soon. They weren’t ready yet. Her deep beauty had not been allowed to fully mature, but now it had been […]

Grief & Loss

I am Waiting for the Shroud to be Lifted

Something was wrapped over them. A shroud. But there is a waiting to be found and a rich party to one day be found. There was something draped over them, or at least that was it felt like. A shroud. What’s a shroud? It’s something that envelopes or obscures. […]

Trauma & Recovery

Sitting with Shame

Sitting with shame can suffocate life, but sitting in solidarity with someone in soul talk can break its control. It’s there if you want to hear it. A sneaky, whispery voice from the past. You hear it in others. They may have said nothing directly to you, but it’s […]

Faith & Mental Health Mental health

Why Was I Created?

It wasn’t random. It wasn’t chance. It wasn’t the roll of some celestial dice or the flip of a coin. Your creation was part of a work of art God has had in mind for all eternity. I know that’s hard to believe. It seems so vast, immeasurable, and beyond […]

Faith & Mental Health

Can You Pray For Me?

Can you pray for me? How do you respond when someone asks you to pray? I often get requests for me to pray, but I am often not sure what to pray for. Sometimes the need is very clear, but at other times it is vague. They want me to […]

Faith & Mental Health

Is This Punishment from God?

I haven’t lived a perfect life, and I wonder if my problems are punishment from God, but maybe I don’t know the whole story and that God is overflowingly full of grace and mercy. They wanted retribution. Payback. A desire for revenge coursed through their veins for what had happened […]