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
Posts
Hannah Morrell
Walking Like a Superhero

There’s a little boy I see every morning when I’m dropping my daughter off at school. He comes to help drop off his older brother, and always shows up in his Superman pajamas complete with cape. The thing that always strikes me as hilarious is how he walks next to his dad. He’s this tiny little man, but walks like he is 10 feet tall—he definitely has the superhero walk down. His cape flows behind him, and he takes large, commanding steps no matter where he is going.

I love watching him and it makes me giggle a little to watch him stride through the parking lot. This morning, though, God spoke and asked me how I would walk if I knew and believed the super power that dwells within me? That caught me off guard. You see, I used to always walk with my eyes on my shoes (which might explain some of my clumsiness). I didn’t feel that I had worth, and I walked like it. I didn’t understand Who I had, or who I was.

You see, when you have Christ’s Life within you, you have the power of the Living God walking around with you. He says He will be everything you need, and we have all of Him to meet all of our problems, dilemmas and circumstances. I think when I realize that I am the chosen dwelling place of God Himself (1 Corinthians 6:19), and that makes me His.

Walking Like a Superhero
Posts
Hannah Morrell
Cry of the Broken-Hearted

We cry out from a broken heart,
Shards lying all around us on the ground.
Our tears pour out—
It feels like they will never end.

The pain explodes from within us,
Our chests feeling like they will break apart.
Lying face down on the ground,
Our desperate plea for help and rescue escaping our lips.

Our Kind Shepherd is here,
Never leaving, never abandoning us in grief.
A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief Himself,
He will not turn away.

Cry of the Broken-Hearted
Posts
Hannah Morrell
The Powerful Force of Hope

Hope is often viewed as a destination—like saying we hope for the future, and believing we get the hope when we arrive at the future we are expecting or creating in our minds. We believe that our lives should “normalize” or the tough stuff should stop happening at some point, and that’s the point where hope is manifested.

I was reading Katherine Wolf’s Treasures in the Dark recently, and she addresses this after she has suffered an almost-life-ending stroke, multiple neural events, broken bones and recovery from all of those things. She says:

Whether I acknowledged it or not, hope had been a destination to me. Something to be attained or achieved. I thought I could successfully complete a one-time progressive ascent from hurting to healing to hoping, then hang out at the top for the rest of my life. Easy breezy! Maybe this sounds like something you’ve believed too. 

The Powerful Force of Hope

difficulty

Doing the Hard Thing

Doing the Hard Thing

Watching my kids play sports has been so educational for me. I am incredibly proud of them for working through failure, for staying humble and for showing up again and again when they really don’t feel like it. It’s hard to watch them deal with frustration and disappointment, but I realize it’s also so important for them to learn to work through these feelings. I also see how often this is a testimony to me in my own hard things.

The temptation often when we are in a hard place is to believe either it’s our fault (so we are being punished) or it means we should quit and do an easier thing.

The truth is that sometimes we do make stupid decisions and deal with the consequences of those, but even in those choices we can know God and move into His power to deal with whatever hard things are part of our lives. Blaming ourselves or someone else doesn’t make the difficult situations easier—and often just makes us bitter and angry.

Peace in Trouble

Peace in Trouble

When my friend Mike Wells was alive, he traveled a ridiculous amount of time every year all around the world. He encountered problems with planes, baggage, car travel, reservations and all sorts of other things as he was going to visit people. He used to call this being “Wells’ed” as it meant that unusual problems would be encountered constantly for himself and those who traveled with him. I have adopted this phrase for myself, and now call it being “Morrell’ed”. It’s not something you want to happen to you, let me tell you!

This last weekend we hosted our women’s retreat in Golden, Colorado, and there were plenty of examples of getting “Morrell’ed” as things seem to go wrong at every turn. The hotel messed up the booking entirely, and so didn’t have rooms for any of the ladies upon arrival on Friday (but did have some for Sunday which we did not need). You can imagine how fun it was to get that phone call Friday afternoon, only hours before everyone was supposed to be descending on this hotel, telling me they did not have any rooms. They rebooked us in rooms at a different hotel, and provided shuttles for those who didn’t have cars to go back and forth from the sleeping rooms to the original hotel for the meetings.

Right after we checked into the replacement hotel, my mom called me from her room, saying the bathroom door had fallen off the hinge, missed hitting her by inches, and fell down in front of her door to the hallway, blocking her exit. I ran downstairs to get the hotel employees to come get her out of her room, and thanked God profoundly that the bathroom door had not fallen on my mom and knocked her out.

Wisdom and Difficulty

Wisdom and Difficulty

Does it ever seem like all I write about is difficulty? I suppose that’s not entirely true, but it is quite common. Of course, this is because so many of us are in difficulty. I don’t want to pretend that I have all the answers to those difficulties, but I do want to shed light on the way ahead.

I often have people ask me my opinions on many different happenings in the world. I’m not sure they really want my opinion, but rather an agreement with where they stand on whatever topic it is. I have decided with most of these issues, I don’t want to be distracted from my central focus of proclaiming rest and abiding in Jesus. My prayer, though, in many places of life is that I need wisdom. I used to want to be like Solomon, where I ask for wisdom and also get riches and power! What a deal! But now, more often than not, I ask for wisdom because I just need a way ahead. I am not smart enough to know what to do. I don’t have a plan for dealing with anything—recessions, world chaos, rejection, health issues. I need wisdom, and I need it for each moment as I take a step.

I have been reading the verses below in James quite a lot recently, and love the simplicity of what he says. First, when it seems like you are facing nothing but difficulty, it’s an opportunity! What?! It’s not an opportunity for you to pretend everything is great, but to see from the position that God has given you to see joy and His power at work in you to produce endurance and perfection. That doesn’t mean you have to try harder to gain these things. His Life is already within you and releasing it. Difficulty just clears the way. When we are in circumstances that are trying and testing, we get rid of a lot of excess simply because we can’t deal with it right then. We clear the way for what is real, for what will last. So, if you are in difficulty, let the extra stuff go and walk moment-by-moment with Jesus, waiting for His completion of His good work in you. He will do it!

Finding the Joy

Finding the Joy

A few days ago, we were having company over for dinner and I was a teeny bit stressed about the preparation. I always think I’m much further ahead than I am, and I go from totally fine to the-world-is-falling-apart in three seconds flat. My 8-year-old son looked at me and asked innocently, “Mom, what can you look forward to today so you won’t be so stressed and you can relax?” And my jaw dropped open. Here was my child directing me to look past the hard thing to the good—to find the joy in the moment rather than allowing the stress to destroy it. 

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus