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

patience

Slow Walking

Slow Walking

I don’t know about you, but walking slowly kills me. Whether it be the zoo, the mall or the museum, there is lots of walking slowly while looking at things. I can walk quickly or run, but the slow walking makes me hurt in ways I never expect. Sometimes I feel like that’s how so much of life is—slow-walking through another problem, another dilemma, another decision. We can’t run through whatever it is, but have to maintain a slow, even pace.

I want the big moves! The big changes! The times when everything flips and you are dealing with a brand new thing. But often, we are called to the slow, steady pursuit of what God has put in front of us.

The beautiful news about this is that God has not abandoned us to do it alone. He never said we were supposed to be able to fulfill all the promises of God by ourselves, or that we should do all the good because we’ve generated enough willpower to make it through. Instead, He promises to be the power within us to walk the slow walk when it’s called for, to keep holding on when everything in us wants to quit or run.

Questions and Doubts

Questions and Doubts

I watched a show the other day in which a character was having a crisis of faith. All the things she believed about God came crashing down around her as she battled through an emotional trauma which started the whole thing. The questions sometimes seem to rise up with enough force to crush us. I talk to people often who are dealing with the same thing—questions, doubt, discontent with what God is doing or not doing.

The Condemnation and Freedom of the Love Passage: A Different Perspective on 1 Corinthians 13

The Condemnation and Freedom of the Love Passage: A Different Perspective on 1 Corinthians 13

I remember the reading of 1 Corinthians 13 in church or elsewhere as the one that made me feel most wanting. Here are all the things you are supposed to do to be loving, and I could see my failures in every place. I’m not patient. I’m not kind. I keep records of wrongs. I’m jealous. I don’t believe the best about people. I’m irritated. I’m offended. I delight in wrong sometimes. I give up on people.

Choosing to Remember the Truth That Sets Us Free

Choosing to Remember the Truth That Sets Us Free

Who am I? Apart from Christ, no more than a broken woman with no special powers or intelligence. A mother who gets impatient with her kids and lives in regret often over the reactions. A wife who loves imperfectly and sometimes focuses on the flaws rather than the good. A person who beats herself up often for all the lack, forgetting to remember the Source for any good thing.

Living in the Tension

Living in the Tension

I think we are geared as humans to try to find a way out of circumstances that don’t feel good. We want to find freedom from the tight rope of walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And yet, often it seems God asks us to stay the course and hold the tension while He provides what we need for that walking.

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus