spiritual formation Archives

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Formation

Can you Take in the Good and Let it Nourish?

So many good things go unnoticed, but when we learn to take in the good and let it nourish, then our whole direction of a life can change. My neighbors have some small children. Yesterday, while walking in the garden, one of the little boys ran up to me to […]

Getting Well Staying Well

Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?

We are happy to accept good from God, but what about trouble? There is something deeper available when we center on clinging to God. As a gardener, I work in all kinds of weather. Rain, sun, and wind – both light and strong. In the extremes, I complain. The furnace […]

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 Spiritual Formation

Are You Open to Receive?

It’s probably easier to give than to receive, but we can’t give what we haven’t already received. How can someone love, when they don’t know what love is? Are you open to receiving love? It was awkward. Plain embarrassing. It was so uncomfortable that they wanted to run from this […]

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 […]

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 […]

"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 […]

Helping Others Relationships

Listen. You’re on Sacred Ground

There was a single tear, and I knew we were on sacred ground, but there was a decision to be made. I chose to linger and listen. I was talking with a man in his eighties the other day when I noticed a tear forming in his eye. I knew […]

Mental health Spiritual Formation

When the Lesser Dreams get Shattered

It was a dream, but now it was shattered. Perhaps a new dream was to be discovered, and so we dug deep into what truly mattered. It was happening again. The dream was being shattered. The marriage was over, the pregnancy test was negative, a redundancy letter handed out, and […]