childhood trauma
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Come into my home with me today, join me in my prayer life, and my daily reading. Welcome! A Jewel: Unfettered consistency. I heard the Lord quietly whisper unfettered consistency to me this morning. “What does unfettered mean,” I thought to myself. Unfettered means unrestrained or uninhibited. God himself was telling me that nothing would…
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‘You weren’t born to be anything you want; you were born to be something quite specific.’ —Martin Shaw, Smokehole Somewhere along the way I was taught that freedom meant becoming anything I wanted. Build yourself. Reinvent yourself. Curate yourself. Keep every door open until life itself becomes one long hallway of mirrors. But God has…
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One of the most unbearable things about evil is that it often appears to prosper. It sits at the head of the table while truth eats alone. It laughs louder. It sleeps well. It gathers admirers. And the soul begins to ask its oldest question: Where is God? But perhaps that question mistakes silence for…
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My body became a monument to everything I refused to say. For years I searched for what was broken in me, never suspecting it might be my soul crying out. Headaches. A neck so tight it felt like it was holding up decades instead of a head. It is a strange thing, how flesh becomes…
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The world can offer advice for healing the body. It may even help us understand parts of the mind. But the healing of the heart belongs to God. And I don’t believe healing is something we finally “arrive” at, as though one day we become completely fixed and untouched by pain. I think we…
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I used to think the greatest tragedy of my childhood was everything that was taken from me. My innocence. My safety. The ordinary, forgettable childhood every child deserves. And those losses were real. God never asks us to pretend evil was anything less than evil. But over the years I’ve begun to notice something unsettling.…
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The Lie of “Handling It All”… Somewhere along the way, someone started saying, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” It’s printed on mugs, shared in church hallways, and offered to hurting people as though it’s Scripture. It sounds comforting, but it isn’t fully true. God absolutely allows more than we can handle.…
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I spent years running from stillness. The moment life became quiet, I reached for something to fill the space. Drugs. Sex. Attention. Fantasy. Chaos. Busyness. It hardly mattered what the distraction was, only that it kept me from being alone with myself for too long. I thought I was avoiding boredom. Looking back, I think…
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They tell me I’m wasting my breath—picking at scars that should be hidden under sleeves. As if we are best served by silence, wearing smiles like masks stitched too tight, our eyes peering out like ghosts from behind glass. These are the ones who believe in tidy appearances, that betrayal and pain can be buried…
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Come into my home with me today, join me in my prayer life, and my daily reading. Welcome! A Jewel: God’s love separates. So many religious folks like to believe that unity is the only message in the Kingdom of God. Not so! His love often separates us for protection, for growth, for nourishment and…