For those of us who enjoy writing, I think when we write something without our voice being allowed to lace its message, it’s missing something important. When our voice weaves throughout the bones of its body, it gives the message character and quirk and style, and perhaps more importantly, the conviction that comes from allowing ourselves to care and have an opinion. I think for the first couple years of my degree, I noticed my […]
Standing in the middle Where east meets west, And north meets south The sun shines down warm in this spot And the breeze is quiet and cool, Patiently waiting, circling the soul that has, for whatever reason, Found itself paused in the middle. Whether for weariness or fear Or for grief or disappointment, Or some other such thing. The calm of the middle will always be here, encircling, warming, holding, until the breath has found […]
The more I explore mental health in my counselling training, the more I see an issue not with the people who are struggling with stuff (which is most of us at some point) but rather, how the ones who these people are surrounded by (which I think also is most of us), respond to the ones who are struggling. What is the nature of the discussions being had of people struggling some way in […]
“Watch what God does, and then you do it…. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that..” Eph 5:1-2 (MSG) ‘Love like that.’ I think sometimes it’s easy to read God’s words as […]
I don’t know about you, but I’ve often felt pressure to step out of what is comfortable, ‘to do the right thing – even when it’s hard.’ Keep pushing through comfort To achieve the dream, to get the reward, and all of that. I still think those ideas are neat. I still hold them as values. Because, It’s ideas like these that give us ambition, drive, progress. But. I’ve also got a hang up […]
“They’ll rebuild the old ruins, raise a new city out of the wreckage. They’ll start over on the ruined cities, take the rubble left behind and make it new.” Isaiah 61:1-7 (MSG) The verses leading up to this talk about how exactly those who mourn in Zion are able to ‘rebuild new cities.’ About what conditions are needed to move from mourning, to rebuilding. What is within their power to rebuild will be dependent upon […]
“I leave the gift of peace with you—my peace. Not the kind of fragile peace given by the world, but my perfect peace. Don’t yield to fear or be troubled in your hearts—instead, be courageous!” John 14:27 TPT There are these things in life we can’t avoid, because the collective picture is always greater and beyond the control of just our own paintbrush – it involves the sometimes wonderful but sometimes fateful, strokes of others […]
“If one’s religion is to mean anything, if it is to last, it has to stand outside of time and place. Its truths have to be transcendent…. To be blunt, a god that is no bigger than our own desires is not God at all, but a divinized rationalization for self-worship” – Rob Dreher I find a weird sort of peace in reading this quote – weird because in the past it would have held […]
“It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.” Tim Keller. // Never are we pressing our faith into thin air – never are we putting our faith into nothing. Faith must always be placed into something. When we stand, our faith is upon the ground holding us; when we swim, our faith is in the water to keep us afloat. He, in a sense can […]
This week I was a little bit struck by one simple piece of the Sunday evening message; Encouragement as simply a passing on of courage to another human. For me, the little hugs and the ‘you can do its’ spoken in the thick of my anxious or doubtful moments always seem so small and insignificant because I’m often fixed on how these could never take the fear or sadness or the struggle away. But I […]
anne-marie elizabeth 