“What if you’re the rough around the diamonds. Or you’re the awkward swan amongst the ducks. Or you’re a straw tucked in a stack of needles. Or a three-leaf clover filled with all the luck. What if you don’t know the role you’re playing. And your story isn’t in the tales you’ve heard. Well it means your character is still unwritten. And it’s up to you to fill the page with words.” – Dallas Clayton Just dove into a weeks worth of […]
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 […]
“You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well-constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught…..start living it!” Colossians 2:6-7 MSG There come times where we are revealed or drawn to a certain relevant Jesus promise perhaps about who we are, or who we are not; about how to treat other people; about our being saved through grace; about our […]
“Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. Worship isn’t just something we do; it is where God does something to us. Worship is the heart of discipleship because it is the gymnasium in which God retrains our hearts.” – James K Smith The beauty of approaching Jesus is that we need not have it all together. In fact that very belief leaves us separated from […]
“The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God.” – Soren Kierkegaard. // What would happen if today we relaxed, in the middle of our mess, and let God do his job? This, I’m coming to see, is no easy feat. I often sit with anxiety, because I want so much […]
“Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. ” 1 Peter 1:2-4 MSG // Could this be about control? Control aims to keep it all turning out as we imagined and hoped; stress and trouble free. But the trouble with holding on tight to this, is that when […]
“Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you’re there! If I go to the underground, you’re there!” Psalm 139:7-8 MSG // Earlier in this Psalm it talks about being an open book to God; that in the stories of our lives – he has left no page unturned. He sees the good I know about me, but he sees what […]
“..but God stuck by me. He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!” Psalm 18. // Have you ever been offered something you felt guilty about receiving? ‘If the giver knew your whole story, maybe they wouldn’t be giving this, or choosing me, or spending time with me’ type thing? Ever fallen into the whole ‘I’m not good enough’ for it or her or him or this thing? […]
I think we’re meant to hold on to hope so that we keep living. To let go of hope means to let go of living. Moving. To let go of hope, I think, means to grab hold of something else, something that is the opposite of life offering. We don’t hold on to hope because theres always certainty in whatever it is we want to happen, happening, rather we hold on to hope BECAUSE things […]
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 