There is a time for everything, including rescuing, but let’s focus on the rebuilding through empowerment. It was one of those lightbulb moments for me. I had just discovered something new that threw some new light on an old struggle. Ever had one of those? What I learned is that […]
recovery
We’ve been robbed in more ways than we know. It wasn’t the usual snatch and grab. This was more a subtle insidious taking of life. In the early stages of their depressive illness, they had been put on the new wonder drug Valium. With strong tranquillizing effects, life was muted. Then […]
Under the thin veneer of supposed ‘ordinary’ is a power of creativity and life. There are no ordinary people. If you saw her in the mall you wouldn’t take a second look. This was probably intentional on her part. Average height, weight, with modest clothes she would slip into the […]
‘I’m such a failure’ If you’ve never quietly said it about yourself, then you will most likely have heard it from someone else. This post is to help you help others you have problems with a failure mindset. For myself, I can so easily personalise my failures into ‘I’m a failure’.
When going through Mental Health struggles, you have to give yourself permission to receive, especially from God. Every Tuesday morning, I travel to a garden in a small rural area called Clevedon. I leave early to beat rush hour traffic but also to get a few moments on the top […]
The grind is real. Life for many can be just one continual experience of being ground out by the daily grind. Every now and then, someone sends me an email. I read them all, and always my heart is touched. I send some prayers and ask God to help me write […]
To heal, we need to humbly accept the truth of our human fragility. Medication can help us heal. There is a soap opera here in New Zealand called Shortland Street. In the very first episode, a nurse tells a doctor a simple sentence that has become, believe it or not, part […]
It is one of those memories that is special to me. I was very unwell as a child with eczema and asthma. My parents asked if our pastor and a few others could come and pray for me. They were following the advice we find in James 5:14. We had communion […]
It always happened. After a relapse, he would always say ‘I’ll never do that again, I’m trusting in Jesus to help me’. Charged up by some sort of white-knuckled determination and singing a few Jesus songs off he would go. Sure enough, though his grit would grind out and he […]
‘If it wasn’t for sin I would be out of a job’. This was a little quip I came up with when I was a pastor. The life of sinfulness and helping people through the mess kept me employed, gave me a living. It does for many of us, especially those in […]