ENCOURAGE - EQUIP - EMPOWER
IT STARTS HERE.
The celebration of Easter is over. Praise God, Jesus is victorious over death! We can live with the power of the resurrection in our lives. The other morning as I was sitting with Jesus, I was still reflecting on what He experienced. I was thinking of Him on the cross and was wondering what emotions and thoughts He experienced as He faced the end of his earthly life.
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In the Oscar winning movie adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility, two sisters have their romantic hopes dashed. The elder sister, Elinor, never reveals her lost love and suffers in secret. The younger Marianne is overwhelmed with misery after losing her love. As she says in the book, “Misery such as mine has no pride. I care not who knows I am wretched.” If you have seen the movie, you may recall Kate Winslet’s performance as the distressed Marianne and Emma Thompson’s characterization of the restrained Elinor.
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The summer before entering seventh grade my parents encouraged me to be a part of fall sports. The two options were cross-country and volleyball. It only took a week of volleyball camp to determine that I would run cross-country. All summer my dad, an avid runner, tried to get me to go run with him. “Just a mile” he’d coax, but I was not interested in training.
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It’s a new year. Lots of people are anxious to make changes. Many are reflecting on the past year and progress made. It’s a new start, a new beginning. It should feel exciting, fresh and motivating.
But maybe you’re feeling a bit like me. Stuck. Looking at the past year and not seeing the growth you would like. The failures seem to loom large, and the progress has been slow. The new habits gone to the wayside. The goals long forgotten. And maybe, like me, you feel a little discouraged, or a lot discouraged.
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I don’t feel like a new creation.
These days, most days, I feel stuck. Stuck in old ways, old habits, old insecurities, old sins. It’s as though I’m in a swamp, my legs and arms encased in thick sludge, and I can only move forward one inch at a time. Some days it feels like centimeters.
I don’t know if this particular “stuckness” is due to seasonal depression, spiritual warfare, sin nature, or something else entirely, but it’s lasted for several months now and I’m tired. Physically, mentally, emotionally.
As a new year comes speeding towards me like a motorboat…
“The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.” Psalm 19:7a NIV
This summer at Willowdale Chapel, we’ve been hearing how various members of our pastoral and teaching team find refreshment…I have spent part of this summer meditating on Psalm 19 in my various travels… Refreshing, restoring, reviving and renewing sound wonderful, but I wondered… How can a law accomplish all that?
A few of my favorite ways to cool down in the heat of summer are sipping an ice-cold glass of mint tea by the pool, jumping in the ocean after basking in the sun or floating on a tube in the lake. The common thread? Water. Without water, the heat would get to me. I get dehydrated very easily and begin to feel sick, tired, and parched. This is much like how my flowers look after I forget to water them; sad and droopy.
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Over the past four years, 22 remarkable women wrote blogs for WillowdaleWomen. They shared their wisdom on a range of subjects including: mental health, living through the pandemic, grief, singleness, confidence, setting healthy boundaries, biblical strategies, building flourishing friendships, trusting God’s plan for our lives and so much more. Women from around the world in 80 countries have read their stories.
Here are the top 10 blogs since the WillowdaleWomen launch in 2018:
Music, unlike anything else in my life, has always been a way for me to process and express emotions. As an 8 on the Enneagram and an ENTJ on Myers Briggs, (if you’re not familiar, basically I’m the heartless ruthless type. Kidding…or am I?) expressing my emotions doesn’t come easily, so music has been vital to me throughout life …
