The solution is to take things one event at a time. Instead of thinking, “I’ve blown it so many times, I’m a failure,” think, “I’ve had a great night. Praise God!” And if you sin tomorrow night, instead of thinking, “I’ve blown it again and again and again.” Think, “I blew it. Please God, forgive […]
Talking to Our Souls
We recommend this Ed Welch post — Talking to Our Souls
Where Is Your Focus?
by Lisa Leidenfrost It is helpful, when you find everything to be confusing and you can’t make sense of your situation or God, to always go back to what you do know. Stand on things that are fact and can never change. These things will give you an anchor for interpreting the confusion around you. […]
Sustaining In Suffering: Drawing a Line In The Sand Of Retreat
Caring Christians throughout church history have recognized the tendencies toward isolation, escape, and retreat. To combat them, they have practiced sustaining. In sustaining, we refuse to allow one another to suffer alone. We come alongside one another to grieve together. We understand that shared sorrow is endurable sorrow. I picture sustaining with the rather macabre […]
we experience all suffering as death
Ultimately, we experience all suffering as death. Whether it is the little death of a flat tire, or the bigger death of a broken engagement, or the grand death that ends our earthly life, we each face daily casket experiences. Robert Kellemen, God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, p. 12
groan for home and to live in hope
Suffering causes us to groan for home and to live in hope. The author of Hebrews, surveying the landscape of the Old Testament journeys, shows us the way home. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were […]
Suffering Has Its Reasons
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely […]
What Dying To Yourself Looks Like
In the light of her comments about things not changing or getting better, I wonder if telling her the depression/mania situation will probably never change, like Paul’s thorn in the flesh, and that she’s going to have to learn to live with it would be helpful. I wonder if we need to help her see […]
misplaced affections
Show me a person who has lost hope and I’ll show you a person who has misplaced affections. When the weight of our problems outweigh the weight of the Gospel in our lives, we are not far from discouragement, anger, and despair. Counseling solutions.