Tag Archive | Christian living
Deja Vu Seasons (In Brutal Honesty)
For anyone in a season that is NOT what you’d ever thought you’d have again.
Coronavirus: What Do We DO?
Hello everyone, I’m sure you all have heard more than you ever wanted to about the ever-growing Coronavirus. It’s causing a lot of anxiety for so much of the world. There are the posts about the daily growing numbers of it in a doomsday- like tone, and then there are posts mitigating it. And then […]
Identity and Trauma
Has it ever hit when you feel the present moment of who you are is different from who you were? Either for better, or worse, there’s been a shift. A change. Not in the circumstances, but in you. The holiday season has arrived, and I recently met up with old friends at the Cheesecake Factory […]
Flaws and Shortcomings
Do you get critical of yourself often? Is it easy to see what is not working, what is not perfect, and what others see not perfect either? It gets easier too when other people make sure you know what flaws they see. And I’m learning, whether right or wrong in the diagnosis, fixating on it […]
Inside Out
What I’m learning right now is: to accept and befriend the parts of me that others criticize. I started work in a hospital setting about a year and a half ago. I had no idea it would be so stressful. I’ve heard the phrase before that “nurses eat their young” (FYI there are some amazing […]
Time Does Not Always Heal
Time can heal for some things. However, deep hurts and wounds from life stick with us until we actively face and process through them. An infection begins from a cut, and while the open wound may heal a little, the infection spreads until it gets actively cleaned out. The infection does not go away on […]
Leaves and Streams
Sometimes change in life comes fast and catches us completely off guard. There are other times when change comes slower and we see it, but can only watch as it happens whether we like it or not-like the leaves in fall that indicate winter is coming. We can only watch the colors change before the leaves […]
Walking in Faith
Here is an excerpt from Beth Moore’s Portraits of Devotion. It gave me a refreshing perspective and I want to pass it on. It is based off of 1 Samuel 4:1-11, if you want more context. “I have noticed something specific to religious people who do not walk with God. They cannot tell the difference […]
Healthy Decision Making
Life after college in my early twenties has been a time for discovery, full of the unknown potential for the future. This is magnified 100X after my nervous and spiritual breakdown. It’s like getting your core foundation completely obliterated, and then beginning the process of building a completely different structure with completely different materials. That being […]
Springtime and Second Chances
“We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.” -Harrison Ford One of my oldest friends sent me a sweet letter with this quote during my tumultuous college years. I love that she thought of me enough to send that letter, and my did she know what she was […]
Knots and Necklaces
I had a conversation with a good friend this week about depressive breakdowns and why they are so controversial. It is a complicated thing that affects each person differently. That being said, here is my personal lens that I see through-not that it’s proven true, but from my thoughts and experience of a complete nervous breakdown, what I […]
More on Love
I thought I’d share the devotional I read today in Grace for Each Moment. I think it goes well with my recent post Faith, Hope, and Love. True love is not easily fathomed. Yet, of all the human emotions it is the most profound. We tend to reduce love to mushy sentimentality, thus diminishing it […]
Faith, Hope, and Love
“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 It’s easy to become desensitized to the term “love”. What the Lord taught me in this is very close to my heart. After a combination of: nervous breakdown, depression, panic attacks, isolation, unhealthy relationships, family wounds, church […]
Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover
I work as a prep cook in an assisted living home, and days like today make it worthwhile. There’s a resident who seems to be in the beginning stage of dementia and gets confused often-forgetting where she lives, what floor she is on, walking aimlessly around. I only saw her as the sweet confused lady. The other residents talk about her and some are directly […]
Dealing With Guilt (Part 3)-Magnified Guilt
The last type of guilt I want to address is magnified guilt. And by magnified guilt, I mean an unhealthy guilt that becomes a debilitating chain instead of a healthy reflection of conscience. People suffering from depression or anxiety can be vulnerable to magnified guilt because of an already-present self awareness and often self-judgment. In a world that can be cold […]
Dealing With Guilt Part 2 (Real Guilt)
The first type of guilt I addressed was false guilt, often occurring in unhealthy relationships . However, is guilt itself inherently an evil? I don’t believe so-its basic, healthy function is to reflect our conscience. Believe it or not we DO make wrong choices sometimes, and a logical consequence to that will be REAL guilt. The reality is, […]
Divergence
What do you do when what you believe to be right goes against what everyone else wants? We have all heard those quotes about not fearing to go against the crowd, but actually being that person does not always feel so heroic or noble in the moment. I have an escalating issue at work where my […]
Salt of the Earth
I look at my boss. She’s in the middle of a divorce. Pain. I look at the dishwasher struggling with depression. Pain. I look at the sous chef who stayed up all night fighting with his girlfriend. Pain. Then there’s the server I met recently whose best friend committed suicide, is getting teased at school, […]
Depression and Anxiety in the Workplace
After chronic stress at my job and a particularly unlucky day, I had a bit of a meltdown from work and am reminded of the importance of acknowledging depression and anxiety in the workplace. It does affect how you work, and how you perceive your work environment and relationships. It is much wiser to think about […]
Volcanoes and Diamonds 