Blog
From and about women who love Jesus and want to share His message through Scripture, everyday inspirations, and relatable stories.
But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. —Matthew 6:15
As I’ve looked back over my life and my bouts of depression, I’ve realized there’s something else that contributed to my blues. And when left unaddressed—or dare I say untreated—that feeling can grow and produce more harm than I ever imagined. Now I’m not saying every episode of depression has a direct correlation to an emotion or incident. Sometimes it is genetic or based on hormones or something we cannot explain. But sometimes, if we’re honest, loss can cause our depression. I talked about the grief of losing my mother earlier, but in the midst of that mourning period, I realized I had also lost a dream. I was grieving an opportunity I thought would flourish into one of my life’s dreams, but instead, it had not and had left me feeling lost and with little hope. My next move was unknown and this was tough to handle.
The high school youth group I attended with my boyfriend before I became a Christian was at one point studying the book of Job. I couldn’t find this apparent vocational guide in the new NIV Study Bible my mom bought me for Christmas. It seemed weird to me that it wasn’t the book of Jobs, unless maybe there was just one job that was appropriate for Christians? It was time to turn to the book of Job, but, alas, the Bible’s table of contents was not alphabetical. I didn’t grow up performing “sword drills” in Sunday school classes, and, if you must know, I didn’t know, at first, that “Job” was pronounced J-OH-B, not J-AH-B.
This morning I stood in front of my new community garden long box and thought about what I would soon plant. These are my joys in gardening:
planning a garden
buying plants
getting them in the ground
cutting flowers to brighten my home
enjoying and sharing the food my time and care have produced
Most people who know me well know I’m a pretty avid knitter. I’ve been obsessed ever since I learned. If I’m sitting, I want to be knitting. So it really made me think when one of my favorite knitting podcasters, Laura from Penrose Knits, mentioned one of her knitting goals for 2023 was to knit less. (What? Why?!) Laura explained that she’d realized she needed to make more space and time in her life to focus on her mental and physical health in other ways like therapy and exercise. Even though she loved knitting, it was necessary to be intentional about knitting less in order to take the pressure off herself and leave more space in her life for health.
Viewing art used to feel like a marathon. I needed good running shoes on my early visits to art museums as I raced through the hallways to check off having visited all the most important works in any gallery. I had looked at the canvases, sculptures, or installations, but I hadn’t seen them. Over time, my pace slowed down as I began to be captivated by the art. Van Gogh’s Olive Trees resonated with me for both its beauty and the reminder of Jesus in Gethsemane, so a reproduction hangs above my office desk. The stunning portrait of the man chosen to carry Jesus’ cross, Simon of Cyrene by Egbert Modderman, stopped me in my tracks. And the many paintings of desert flowers by Lilias Trotter bring me joy for their beautiful tenderness.
“I am the way.” John 14: 6
When my husband stopped driving, I started fretting. Did I see well enough at night to drive us? Would I get lost? Could I ignore his “back seat driving,” telling me which lane to take, where to turn, or which route to follow to get us home?
We have a counter in our home covered in a strange, ugly, tan, bumpy tile. It’s been there since we moved in almost twenty years ago, but it’s just one of those things we live with, because what do you do with ugly tile?
“A bruised reed he will not break” (Isaiah 42:3).
Our Norwegian Forest cat Mystique, who has long impossibly soft, black fur and big, yellow eyes, is a little princess. She loves cuddles, belly rubs, getting brushed, and falling asleep on my lap every evening (also picking fights with our other cat Heathcliff whenever he gets the attention she craves). She’s so at home in her life with my husband and me that it’s sometimes easy to forget what she was like when I first met her years ago as an underweight, malnourished street cat with tangled fur. She was too skittish to be touched, just brave enough to beg for food that she’d eat while keeping a cautious eye out for any threat coming too close.