Posts
Hannah Morrell
Out With the Old, In With the New

In the work I do with pastoral counseling, we discuss the past and the way it has shaped our view of ourselves today, as well as our views of God. I do believe there is validity in doing this analysis to a degree, as it allows us to know why we do what we do presently, and also how to do something different as we move forward. So often we need to know the problem before we can allow God to heal the problem.

I do, however, believe that there is a limit to this, as continuing to go over and over the past ends up getting our eyes on the hurts and not on the way through. We must allow God to take the hurts of the past and replace it with our new identity. He has already done this, but we get to recognize how that plays out in our lives. Instead of continuing to believe we are worthless, shameful, unloved and unacceptable, we get to move into the reality that Jesus has made us worthy, shame-free, loved enormously, and acceptable completely. The more we focus on the past, the more stuck in it we become. So, it becomes a fine line between understanding the past and the effects on today and letting the past continue to control our present and future.

Mike Wells used to say that dwelling on the past and our pain for too long is incredibly boring. We get bored just over-analyzing all of it and getting nowhere. I want better, more and new. I don’t want to allow whoever hurt me to continue to control where I go now, both mentally and physically.

Out With the Old, In With the New
Posts
Hannah Morrell
Praise and Anxiety

I have been intrigued by David and his life quite a lot this year, and have loved watching his emotion be expressed in so many of his psalms. He is angry, sad, depressed, confused—so many emotions we tend to stuff and pretend God doesn’t want to hear about. David is very honest about all of them, and I love that God receives it. The other thing I’ve noticed about David’s writings is how much He focuses on praising God, even in the middle of less than ideal circumstances.

This man had a rough life. He was running away from people who were trying to kill him often—sometimes they were enemy armies, and sometimes they were people who were supposed to be allies but betrayed him. His own son ended up making him run for his life. David made a lot of mistakes, and the Bible is very honest about too. We are never under any fantasies of David being perfect with a perfect life. But still he praised God, and thanked Him for His love and faithfulness.

I read recently that studies have shown that anxiety and gratitude cannot coexist in your brain. If we are focusing on gratitude and praising God, even in the middle of suffering and struggle, we don’t let the anxiety have the run of our brain. Praise actually becomes one of our greatest brain weapons. We are able, no matter the circumstance, to stop and praise God. We may not be thankful for the situation, but we can thank Him for His love and faithfulness just like David did. We may be in physical pain, in mental anguish or in emotional upheaval, but we can still worship Jesus and lift our spirits. I find it fascinating that Paul and Silas in Acts (***) were singing praise to God WHILE in prison. Yes, God busted them out, but they were singing before that happened!

Praise and Anxiety
Posts
Hannah Morrell
Faithfulness Even Still

My friends in Haiti are isolated from the world again after the gangs fired on a commercial plane and the airport was closed this week. They were ousted from their homes for over a year while fighting raged around them and they went into hiding. They have shown up for teen and preteen kids who are watching their friends die, and who are still healing from their pasts. I am so blown away by their faithfulness.

I speak to several woman who are raising kids while dealing with debilitating illness and chronic pain in themselves. They show up for their families in the ways they can while desperately surviving their own health journeys. I know they often feel like they are failing, like they can’t do what other moms can do. But I stand in awe of their faithfulness to keep showing up.

Faithfulness Even Still
Posts
Hannah Morrell
The Wilderness

Several years ago, my husband and I were camping in Moab, Utah with our one-year-old son. Camping is probably a generous term—we did have a pop-up camper and weren’t really roughing it. We did, however, drive about half an hour outside of town on a dirt road to the middle of nowhere, and then parked the camper at the top of a rocky hill. The views were spectacular, and we would only see another car on the dirt road about once every few hours. It was a little taste of the wilderness, with only us and our little camper. No cell service, no toilets, and no other people around.

This seemed like a fantastic experience until we decided the next day to head back into town to get a few groceries. After piling in the truck, my husband tried to start the vehicle, but it wouldn’t start. The truck’s battery was dead. And the wilderness experience that seemed like a lot of fun became quite scary.

I started to panic, wondering how we would ever get out of there. No cars came by on the road, and it was at least a day’s walk to get back into town with a one-year-old and only so much food for camping. Finally after a bit of worry, my husband brilliantly figured out that he could use the camper batteries to jump the truck battery, and we were finally moving again.

But what about the figurative wildernesses in which we find ourselves where we can’t figure a way out, and we sit and wait with no resources and no hope? Wildernesses are a real experience in life, and one which often catches us by surprise. I’m not sure why, as so many of the people in the Bible went through years and years of wilderness, sometimes figurative and sometimes quite literal. There are stories of prison, hardships, desert-living, wandering, frustration, hopelessness, disbursement and aching for home.

The Wilderness
Posts
Hannah Morrell
Why I Choose Jesus

I get questions a lot of times about why I love and serve God even when He doesn’t always give me what I want. A lot of people wonder why I continue to pursue relationship with Jesus, and consider it old-fashioned or burdensome. So, I wanted to write a post about why I choose Jesus.

It’s definitely not because of the people who call themselves Christians—although some are a wonderful gift to me and I’m so grateful for them. But the people in the Church are messy just like everyone else, and when we expect them to be perfect or to never hurt or reject us, we will be disappointed. I know, though, that people who believe in Jesus recognize they need something other than themselves to do life. So, as they are dependent on Him, they love people well. When they are relying on their own self-righteousness or rule-following, they end up in a place of religion which is toxic and downright abusive sometimes. The word religion means to bind over and over again. When we bind ourselves up in trying to please God without the power He has given us to do so, we are in a bigger mess than if we deny Him entirely.

I also don’t pursue relationship with God because I was raised to believe Him and brainwashed into doing so. In fact, I have had many reason NOT to pursue relationship with Him over the years, and it would actually be easier for me and make more sense to drop the whole thing! I could make more money, have easier relationships and not experience nearly as much rejection.

Instead, I love Jesus because He loved me first, not when I met His standard or expectation. He reached out to me in love with no strings attached. I don’t have to accept His love, and He experiences rejection more than any other person I know as many refuse Him.

Why I Choose Jesus

abandonment

God's Loving Pursuit

God's Loving Pursuit

One of the tenderest ways I see God love us is in His pursuit of us, never giving up even when we run away with all our might. This isn’t an aggressive pursuit to push us into doing something, but rather He waits for us to be at a point to receive His love. He is always close, waiting for us to yield to the amazing love He wants to give us.

He leaves the 99 sheep to find the one. He seeks out the lost coin, the lost treasure to restore it to its proper place. He pursues the ones who feel themselves to be too much, too broken, too lost. I picture Him as running next to us, not chasing us down, but reminding us that He is always available and waiting for the turn to Him.

Sometimes it isn’t until we are lying on the ground in exhaustion, panting to inhale any breath of air we can get, that we finally look up and realize He has never left. We may be too tired to care, but our hearts shift when we see that He does not abandon.

The Deception of Being Alone

The Deception of Being Alone

My daughter hates to be in one part of the house by herself while we are in the other part. She doesn’t want to go upstairs or to the basement alone, even if we stand at the stairs and remind her that we are present and not leaving.

I have friends who, during this stay-at-home season, are suffering through all by themselves. They are isolated in an apartment, have lost their jobs and are trying to find ways to entertain themselves and keep busy.

Sometimes even when we live with others and have good connections, we can feel alone. I was struggling with that feeling recently—feeling that I was slugging it out all by myself. Everyone else seemed to have a team or an ally in their work, and then there was me. I suppose some of that comes with working in a one-woman nonprofit ministry. But God started showing me that the idea that I am alone in this battle was a deception.

From Fear to Freedom

From Fear to Freedom

It is amazing to me to look back over my life and see the hand of God at work all throughout to reveal/ uncover Christ in me. Early in my life, I would fight the tools He would use. I still do, but much less often and with less intensity. It’s in those struggles, the very tools that I used to see as the enemy, that I am now seeing the tender invitation of God to a deeper relationship with Him and a life of freedom.

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus