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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
You don’t have to keep running.
You don’t have to keep fighting.
You don’t have to keep searching for the “cure.”
You don’t have to keep trying.
I know you are tired,
And ache for something more.
I know you just want to sit down,
Letting the weight you’re carrying fall.
The idea that you will get a place
Where it makes sense to rest
Is a fallacy and will continue to drive you
Crazy and exhausted and weary.
Have you ever noticed how backwards Jesus’ way of doing life is compared to how most of our cultures and worldviews communicate it should be? The first shall be last. The foolish will confound the wise. Weakness is required for strength.
I love how when Jesus walked the earth, He did everything in a way that was unexpected. He didn’t come as a war hero who was going to break off the rule of Rome from Israel, but rather a humble baby who grew up to work as a carpenter and then travel as a poor teacher. He didn’t lead a conquering army into Jerusalem but rode a donkey and submitted to death on purpose. Jesus didn’t brush shoulders with the religious elite, but instead went to find the hurting, the sick, the demon-possessed, the lost and the rejected. His followers were not great minds or incredibly pious people, but fisherman, tax collectors, prostitutes, and those who belonged to a disrespected class.
Isn’t it interesting, then, that so many who claim Jesus as Lord seek wealth, power over others, status and use manipulation, spiritual abuse and evil to try to gain it? This was never His way and continues to be an affront to His Life when His name is claimed in this awfulness.
The most impacting people in my life have not been the showy, “important” spiritual leaders, but rather those who lead in humility, with love and grace extended over and over. One of these was a pastor who just died, and in remembering him and his kindness to me, I was amazed at the tenderness God displays to us through people who are willing to be humble and go where He sends them. This pastor was willing to lead a tiny church of rejects who met in the basement of a coffee shop each week, and teach that messy bunch to do family and Church in a way we had never experienced before. He wasn’t famous, or rich or leading the helm of a powerful group of people. This man saw people as they were, not as they were posturing to be, and offered kindness. He was called to a humble walk, and did it with eagerness.
As I prayed through our theme for the annual women’s retreat this year, my first thought was “Walking with the Shepherd”. My second thought was, “How stupid is that—how many people have done Psalm 23, sheep, shepherd, the whole thing. Been there, done that.” The voice of criticism and accusation came quickly, and I almost scrapped the whole thing because of it.
Insecurity and doubt are companions of mine quite frequently, especially when it comes to creativity and leadership. I think of all the people who could do such a better job at whatever it is than I could, all the work that will go into the thing and how inadequate I am for it, or how no one should ever follow me anywhere because I’m lost most of the time anyway!
But then, Jesus faithfully reminds me that we aren’t relying on my ability, but His. He works well through my uniqueness when it is surrendered to Him and the power He brings to the situation. When I first started counseling again after my mentor Mike Wells died, the first thing anyone said in sitting down with me was how they wished it was Mike sitting there and not me. My response inside my heart was, “You and me both!” I felt there was no chance of being the counselor or discipler that the person needed because I was not Mike.
When we look to the world and the circumstances around us, we can easily get discouraged and frustrated. It may seem like we are alone in trusting God, and it’s quite ludicrous to do so. I also get discouraged in trying find something to do to change the circumstances, as I feel that’s often quite limited and unproductive. When we feel stuck or like everything is going wrong, our initial response is often to run away, or to try to change the circumstance.
I like Jeremiah’s metaphor when he is told by God that those who trust in Him alone are like a tree planted by the river, with roots that go so deep into water that it doesn’t fear drought or heat. It has no anxieties. Well, a tree can’t get up and move, so that isn’t necessarily what it means to find happiness in trusting God. Instead, a tree’s roots go deep into the sustenance and water it needs to continue to make leaves and fruit.
Deep roots which grow into a River of Life—that’s what I need to get through the hardships of life. When I see a problem and turn away to Jesus, I acknowledge that He alone is trustworthy. Not my strength (or lack thereof), not my brains, not my friendships. In trusting Him to continue to get me through, I also remember that He often does these things in the face of seeming impossibility. What He calls me to sit in might seem so overwhelming. But with deep roots growing into a constantly flowing River of Life, I have what I need for the day.
So many things over the last few months have felt complicated, stressful and downright scary. I find some humor in the fact that the answers God keeps giving me about each of these situations is very similar—keep it simple. I’m grateful He doesn’t add the “stupid” as some do, but He does remind me repeatedly that trying to figure out a way through these things on my own is only going to bring more headaches.
I don’t generally even pray for a word of the year as some do, but there is always a theme that starts to rise above the rest towards the end of one year into the beginning of the next. I welcome it now, as I realize God is giving me some insight into what He is growing in me. I love that this isn’t a task I’m supposed to complete or a lesson I’m supposed to learn well and check off. Instead, it is what His Life in me is going to achieve and guide me in to as we walk together.
Simplicity, I have noticed, is related to humility. If I feel I must know the way ahead and I can handle it on my own, I end up making things more complicated every time. Humility means that I recognize my lack of ability, and then faith allows me to rely completely on God’s ability within me. Corrie ten Boom said, “It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts.”
Jesus, hear us in our weariness.
We feel pressure, stress, unrest, evil.
We are tired and worn out,
Facing all that is ahead.
You offer hope to a weary world,
And boy, do we need it.
You are Hope incarnate,
God with us forever.
You see us in our pain,
Our frustration, our disease.
You meet us in our mess,
Sitting down and comforting us.
I had been experimenting with intermittent fasting a few years ago when my husband and I went to look at a car I was thinking about buying to replace my old one. As anyone who has bought a used car knows, this process is not known for being quick, and we ended up sitting for hours and hours after test-driving the vehicle and deciding we wanted to purchase it. My choice to not eat for many hours became more and more frustrating, as my stomach growled across the used car dealership while we signed paper after paper.
When we finally left the lot, we drove straight to a Vietnamese pho restaurant that was only a few blocks away. I’m not sure exactly how much time it took me to consume the entire bowl of delicious soup and noodles, but it must have looked hilarious to see me vacuum it up at top speed. The satisfaction of a good meal when you are very hungry is a wonderful feeling.
I am not for one second complaining about my lack of food for the paltry amount of time I was without—I know there are many around the world and in our country that starve on a daily basis, and never know the satisfaction of being full and content after a good meal. I do, however, want to tell you what God has been teaching me about satisfaction recently, and where we go for it.
I am absolutely a fair-weather gardener. I prefer my time outside to be sunny with a comfortable temperature that doesn’t require my fingers to freeze or my face to hurt. Spring planting, summer tending and fall harvesting all fit into this comfort level most years. One of my favorite days of the year is when we go buy flowers to plant in the early summer, for that’s when you can plant here in Colorado with less chance of random snow or freeze that will kill them.
This year, however, I am doing some things differently. I’m trying to embrace the bulb.
Bulbs are planted in the fall, and often late fall when the weather is not quite as pleasant. Thankfully, our weather has been nice, but the ground is still a bit tougher than it is during the summer. I got my shovel out and started digging many, many holes in the flower beds. As I dug, some things struck me.
I prefer flowers because I can see what they are going to look like. It’s instant gratification, as I can look out at my flower beds and see the beauty right after planting. But with bulbs, you bury them deep in the ground, hoping they will look like you are anticipating when they come up in the spring. Bulbs are probably more similar to the work I do with people, investing time, love and hope in them without any idea what will come of it. I love that God empowers us to do this without knowing the end of the story. How many times has God asked you to reach out in love to someone without knowing the response, or if they will reject or betray you? But the end of the story doesn’t determine if you should love them—Jesus loves the unlovable, the enemy and the betrayers. He can be enough love for us to do this also.
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.
I have spoken to many people recently who are dealing with fear, especially as world circumstances get crazy again. I, for one, often get stuck living in my own little peaceful bubble until that bubble gets popped by one thing or another. Then, it’s very easy for fear to take over. I remember when COVID started, standing in the middle of a grocery aisle trying to get air through a mask while I looked at empty shelf after empty shelf. The fear of not having enough was suffocating. These days, I can watch the news and have the same fear rise up in me, watching as people are murdered, tortured, raped, bombed. I ache with sadness for the loss, and run through all the worst-case scenarios of what is next.
I realized during COVID that I have no idea how to prepare for things, and it better be up to my kind Father to prepare me. Who would have thought that people would have been fighting for toilet paper? We often believe, though, that fear somehow prepares us for the unknown. Yet, it actually does nothing to make us ready.
God obviously knows we will struggle with fear, as He addresses it over and over throughout the Bible. Fear can be the most strangling distraction, as we obsess on so many things of which we can be afraid.
Do you ever have days where you feel like everything gets really heavy and hard? You might go from feeling like you are totally in step with Jesus and taking on the world, and suddenly you slam into a wall of your inadequacy, your unbelief or your questions. It happened so quickly you have whiplash as you try to steady yourself but can’t seem to find balance.
I was feeling that way last weekend. I felt all the pressures of preparing to share with women at the upcoming retreat, the uncertainty of book publishing, the frustration of not knowing how to help some of the people I was talking to in counseling. It all just compounded into a big, dark cloud that swallowed me up.
Monday morning (after wallowing most of the weekend in all the yuck), I was driving back from dropping my daughter at school. In front of me was a giant wall of dark grey clouds threatening rain and storms to come. And suddenly, I saw the most brilliant rainbow cutting right through the blackest part of the cloud. This rainbow extended from the top of the mountain I could see all the way up through the storm clouds in colors that laughed at the darkness.
I had a dream this week that has stayed with me as a comfort and encouragement. In the dream, I was a little girl standing in a giant cave with lots of people milling around. To get out of the cave, I had to climb a steep dirt slope, and I was exhausted. I flopped down on the ground, giving up any chance of ascending. A big, burly man walked up behind me, and lifted me up into his arms gently. After adjusting my weight a little, he started to climb the path out of the cave. Upon reaching the top of the slope, he gently laid me down on the ground. I didn’t even have the energy to acknowledge my gratitude for his help, but simply rolled over to go to sleep right in the middle of the dirt. My favorite part of the dream was that the man chuckled softly, tickled that I would just go right to sleep there.
As I have thought more about this, I keep getting more and more insight into what God tells us in His being our strength in weakness. We don’t have to know how to ask for help, or even be able to. God knows we need help before we do sometimes! Some of the very things that seem like they will be the end of us are an incredibly great portal for His strength to be displayed in us. We don’t need to be afraid of those weaknesses or hide them. Instead, we glorify our kind Father as He lifts us up through them.
Be with us in our grief, our mourning, our despair.
Someone we loved is gone from earth,
And it feels so bleak and cold.
Comfort us in the loss and pain,
For it seems so final and real,
Although it’s not the end, we know.
Come quickly when we call.
Aching with confusion and anger,
Not sure which way is up.
I’m sitting at my son’s football practice watching another kid on his team, and marveling at his perseverance. He is slow. He runs a lap behind everyone else. He barely lifts his feet to run. But he doesn’t quit. He puts one foot in front of the other, and keeps going.
This kid amazes me, as he doesn’t let being the last one get him down, but just keeps going. I wonder what he tells himself as he runs. I feel like I need to ask because I probably need the same pep-talk sometimes.
Perseverance is hard. I want to quit and just sit down. Especially when I’m the slowest, last, or feel most left out. Sometimes it feels like everyone else gets the break, gets the credit, gets picked for something important. Or everyone else gets the relationship they want, the peaceful circumstance, or the honor of being the first or the best.
Even as I write this, I’m struggling with a recent disappointment of discovering a grant for the ministry went to someone else, and will not be helpful in supporting Broken & Hopeful this year. The hard stuff can all add up sometimes, and we feel like we might as well quit.
In Christ, I am safe and protected.
In Christ, I am loved completely without pretense or meeting a standard.
In Christ, I have worth bestowed on me through sacrifice.
In Christ, I am a new creation.
In Christ, I am not controlled by sin or evil.
In Christ, I have power to live the impossible Christian life.
In Christ, I am complete and whole, lacking in nothing.
In Christ, I have all my needs met, physical, emotional and spiritual.
A common theme in counseling these days is learning to not take responsibility for other’s emotions. I think we often believe that we are actually supposed to try to keep everyone around us happy, and that we are failing if we don’t. We blame their anger, sadness or disappointment on ourselves, thinking that if we had just gotten it right they wouldn’t be feeling this way. I know I struggle with this myself.
My friend Mike Wells used to say that no one makes you feel anything—you choose it. I didn’t like that statement at all, as I tended to blame my emotions on others quite readily. You can’t play the victim if you can’t blame your feelings on someone! Another way of saying it is that you can’t always control your circumstances, but you do have ownership and choice in how you react to them. I would say that this is only possible through life in Jesus, as it is fruit of the Spirit to have self-control. I pray for His fruit to be seen in me as I react to things that frustrate or annoy me, not allowing my initial reaction to be one of anger or lashing out.
Once a slave to sin and death,
Now free to walk as a loved child of God!
Once a leper, rejected and broken,
Now made whole, complete and accepted!
Once a dirty rag, tossed to one side,
Now a beloved Bride, unstained and untouched.
Once cowering and fearful, waiting for death,
Now a conqueror walking in faith.
Once a performer, desperate to meet a standard,
Now already accepted, with no need to perform.
Once invisible and unheard, no attention given,
Now He inclines His ear to hear and see me.
Once a blind person, seeking through darkness
Now sight restored and made new in the Light of the world.
Once a dead person walking, no way to save myself,
Now filled with resurrection life!
Rest is almost a foreign concept in our culture these days. We are so busy, and fill our lives constantly with productivity, hoping that the busyness will make us feel strong, superior or like we are at least doing life in a way that makes others think we have some value. I think sometimes we are trying to prove ourselves worthy of our own lives. We run at such a pace that we don’t have to stop and think, fostering true relationship or accepting the peace that rest brings.
Rest has almost become equated with laziness. I think often of how in Luke 10, Jesus spoke to Martha when Mary was sitting at His feet, and I wonder how anything practical was supposed to get done with people just sitting around! I would have had the same exasperation as Martha, and have had it in moments of stressful preparation. Jesus wasn’t criticizing Martha’s practical bent, I think, but rather saying that work must come from a source of rest, intimacy and relationship.
Sometimes I believe I have a handle on all that I need to get done in a day, and I’m stressed immediately with anything I see as an interruption in this schedule I see as necessary to get so much accomplished. I think God might purposefully send me interruptions on these days in order to remind me that productivity is not its own source. I must have something that provides strength, wisdom and direction, or I’m just spinning my wheels to accomplish what I have put on my list.
I was walking my dog the other day through our neighborhood park, allowing him to run around and sniff every blade of grass for evidence of other animals. My eyes were on my feet, which is a common occurrence so that I don’t trip as often! My mind, however, was consumed with all the negative news of the day, and the personal struggles that were presenting themselves for obsession. I thought about inflation, about personal finances, about ministry finances, about my kids, about the mess that some schools are these days, about health problems in family and friends, about so much of the pain in the world. I was in deep.
Suddenly, I perceived God’s voice cutting through all the rest of it—Look up! I, thankfully, paid attention to what God was telling me, and glanced above me in the sky overhead. Hundreds of swallows danced and dove over me, catching bugs and enjoying the freedom of flight. They didn’t seem concerned about the state of the world as they made beautiful aerobatic maneuvers, performing what looked like a beautiful, chaotic dance of revelry and joy.
My thoughts went immediately to this verse:
What is the value of your soul to God? Could your worth be defined by any amount of money? God doesn’t abandon or forget even the small sparrow he has made. How then could he forget or abandon you? What about the seemingly minor issues of your life? Do they matter to God? Of course they do! So you never need to worry, for you are more valuable to God than anything else in this world. Luke 12:6-7
I learn from my kids almost every day. I’m not saying they are perfect, or never do anything that requires correction. But they also teach me. I don’t say this in arrogance, but I don’t think I expected to learn this much from my kids. I figured I’d be doing all the teaching, I suppose.
I watch them show up in bravery in ways I never would have imagined as a kid their ages. They face pain, discomfort, embarrassment and fear each day in their sports. My daughter stood on a pitcher’s mound yesterday and pitched two innings of the first game of the softball season, knowing it was going to be harder with this year’s rules and a tough first opponent. All eyes on her, she breathed through her fear and struck them out twice. It wasn’t perfect. It was better than perfect—it was brave.
My son walked onto a basketball court a couple of weeks ago and faced a three-person team of kids who were all at least a foot taller than him, and looked like grown men. He didn’t back down, but worked with his teammates to figure a way around the giants by shooting baskets from the outside and passing frequently. He didn’t quit or run away, and handled the loss like a champ. His perseverance showed in the next game where he came away scoring all but two of the points in the game. Even against incredible odds, he was all-in, continuing to forge ahead and figure out what to do next.
Both of them have faced being in different schools this year, and the loneliness that has brought on some days. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t always get along, but they at least knew they had a buddy somewhere in the school when they were at the same elementary school and would encourage each other in the hallways when they walked by. This year, my son took on middle school, which isn’t a scenario I would like to repeat in my own life. Walking into middle school feels like a totally different world than the elementary school, and he had to learn where all his classes were, how to keep up grades on his own and how to maneuver through the social weirdness that is that age. He has developed friendships, stayed away from the drama and didn’t allow the rejections that happened to deter him from continuing to engage with people.
