Grief is hard, but grieving alone can be a torment of anguish, so we sit with the broken; we are silent and Shiva to the tears. When my father cried loud and hard, I experienced a kind of solidarity in my grief. A child had died, and a funeral was […]
Mental Health
People can say some harsh things to us, but when someone close says ‘Curse God and Die’ you have to go to a deeper place of faith than they possibly have. I was watching him wilt. He was once like a flourishing plant, enjoying water and sun and growing and […]
To demand or expect forgiveness is like a chess player trying to manipulate the board, but that’s not true repentance. Instead, repentance submits itself to the poetry of waiting, praying, and hoping. They thought they could use the Bible to manipulate and control. Verses were hurled, and they were told, […]
We don’ want to be like a barren fig tree, but something has to change. Therefore, we submit to the wisdom of a master gardener. As a gardener, I often go to people’s gardens, and they ask me why a particular fruit tree is not producing fruit. I look over […]
Who are the Five people you spend the most time with? They will be the ones who have the most influence over you. Her response to a betrayal of friendship has probably helped thousands of others to get a better group of friends. The other day I was listening to […]
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 […]
We see things, hear things, experience change, and become afraid. But when we know we are precious to God, a deep peace can come and flood us with strength. It was only a couple of words, and I felt stronger. Words can cut, hurt, and harm, but they can also […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]