Onward, Upward, and Further In

Suffering and the Heart of God by Diane Langberg (available in audio on Scribd, Hoopla, Audible and in print at Parasource, Amazon) Please consider reading this book. Diane Langberg has seen with her own eyes the devastation of genocide, sexual abuse at a cultural scale, trafficking, and many other traumas. And she urges Christians to be like Christ, and GO NEAR to the brokenhearted, get messy, and minister as God teaches us to minister. Sadly, most Christians are sorely ill-equipped to love those experiencing crisis (a separating time, and intensely painful and disorienting time). Christians need to learn STAYING POWER in the alarm moments of other people's lives (Oswald Chamber)! We need to expect the sufferer to be anxious, fearful, despairing, angry - and quite possibly angry with the helper! We need to learn how to become a help and support rather than a contributor (ie Job's friends). I've personally been quite hurt by the impatient and judgmental responses of many Ch...

My mind is NOT the same any more. And every moment of the day is different. I struggle to understand simple things some moments, and then other moments I'm able to understand complex things! It's been a frustrating journey to re-learn how to think and understand and deal with my less 'with it' moments/days/weeks. But I have learned! I continue to try and challenge my brain by reading or listening to books. I start with 5 minutes. If I'm completely bewildered by the 5 minutes, I give myself a break and try again later. If I'm not entirely bewildered, I keep going for as long my brain allows me. I have also had to learn how to listen to books. My natural learning style prefers to actually read. I am not an auditory learner! However, my chronic headaches make it difficult for me to read. I'm thankful for audiobooks; they have been a game-changer for me! However, it took a lot of work to get where I am now. With this, I also started with 5-minute i...

My 'energy bank' is far too often empty. This concept is hard to understand, even for those of us who live like this! A person with a healthy body can keep pushing their body. They can wash that one last dish. They can force themselves to walk home. There's still a little left in the tank, and a healthy person can squeeze out those last drops of energy (even when sick with a cold)! For me, my body completely crashes. I literally fall down or black out if I try to squeeze out a last drop of energy. I have literally had to crawl home numerous times when walking my daughter to school. I also never start with huge energy store. I have to pace myself. If I make dinner today, I will probably need to rest all day tomorrow. If I visit family for the day, I will probably have 2-3 crash days where I am forced to stay in bed. This is not how I want to live my life. I wrestle against this still! I keep trying to force myself to do that extra load of laundry. But the conse...

I have often wrestled with whether I have a high pain tolerance or a low pain tolerance. I've had this discussion at length with other friends who struggle this way! But the answer is both! Weirdly, I can have low pain tolerance simultaneously with high pain tolerance! I know! Bizarre! The thing is, I live with multiple kinds of pain, every day. Headaches/migraines, joint paint, muscle pain, bone pain, endometriosis, severe TMJ, pelvic pain, IBS pain, sinus and ear pain, foot pain, knee pain (my knee cap dislocated 3-4 years ago, and it never returned to normal), arthritic pain, skin pain, eye pain, and the list can go on! I carry a LARGE load of pain. And for much of that pain, I've learned to ignore it and function in a way that most people don't know I'm in pain. I go to doctors, and they can poke and prod me and I don't say a word. High pain tolerance: I go the ER, and the things I'm going through should have me screaming yet I am sitting calmly and p...

I wrote this prayer (using Psalm 103) for those who are suffering.   This Psalm has carried me through many years of tragedy. From Psalm 103: I pray that the deep, abiding peace of God will bless you. And I pray that your soul, deep within you, will be able to bless the LORD, and bless His Holy Name, YAHWEH, the great I AM THAT I AM. I pray God’s name will wash over you, comfort you and heal you. The LORD is the pre-eminent, always existing, above time, all powerful GOD. I pray that His very glory will quiet your heart and gently lift your head so that you might meet His gaze - so that His face may shine upon you. I pray that you will never ever forget His beautiful and gracious benefits. If you revere God, He forgives all your iniquities – magnificently forgives every word, thought and deed that you have committed against His Holy Name. He heals all your diseases. There’s so much that is rotten in this life. So many unnameable things. But the LORD sees, and He WILL HEAL...

I struggled for a while with this consuming, uncontrollable anger. Pre-Covid lol. I hated it. I didn't want it. I kept trying to shove it down. That didn't work. Then when Covid hit, anger seemed to flood the world. I needed serious help, as did the rest of the world! For me, the 3 most helpful things in dealing with that anger have been: 1. Praying the Psalms. I learned from this to really wrestle with God, and cry out to Him in my anger. I did this over and over and over, every day. I gave my anger to God. Over and over and over. I confess, I felt like there was no end to my anger. But as I prayed, I learned there is no end to God - and to treasure that His thoughts are higher than my thoughts and His ways higher than my ways. 2.Therapy: with a Scripture-saturated, Christian therapist willing to call out my sin. But also able to compassionately help me see what was really triggering my anger. A variety of traumas built up this wall in my soul. I was afraid. ...

"Charm is deceitful, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."  ~Proverbs 31:30 "For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." ~1 Sam 16:7b When I was single, I took these verses to heart. I sought to be a woman who fears the Lord. But I also sought to desire a man who fears the Lord. I understood that charm in men is as deceitful as it is in women. I understood that beauty in men is as fleeting as beauty in women. These verses challenged my entire worldview. God humbled me, as I prayed and prayed through these two verses. Many of us, whether man or woman, have lists, or must-haves. For most of us, our inclinations are very shallow. Myself included. I put inordinate value on attractiveness, talents (like musicality, artistry, etc) and personality. Not that these things are totally unimportant. But for me, and for many of us, these things were the foundation of wha...