This made me think in a different way about what Jesus was asking - more to your question” in what do we have faith.” Maybe Jesus was asking do you believe in the boat, do you believe in calmer weather, is your faith in your fellow sailors, is it in vaccines, in powerful weapons, in the economy - yes where is my faith - so often misplaced. Prayers that you O Lord, would rescue me, not from my circumstance or condition, but from my unbelief.
I think to be still and know is one of the hardest things we can do, especially in these disordered, frantic times. I'm grateful for people like you, Nadia. that strive for that and strive to help others do the same.
Thanks as always for your wise words! My favorite paragraph was this one:
“ I want some day to get to the point where I can trust God in the moment and not just in retrospect. Maybe things will work out, maybe they won’t - but I can either have a sense of God’s love during the whole thing, or I can be so freaked out I forget it’s there.”
I have spent the last year being totally freaked out by all the losses and other shit I went through.
Some aspects of my life still suck, especially my financial situation, but I am relearning to trust God and be grateful for God’s love and the people in my life (especially my wonderful husband) who love and support me.
Currently in a VERY stormy season. Thank you for the reminder to both ask the sacred questions AND remember the immediacy and permanence of the love of God in Christ Jesus.
I just subscribed as you had me at stop the Hate on Nate!! Lol I don’t know if you read these but I am so sad today Sunday morning that the evil of men like Putin and Trump can have such incredible negative consequences on so many yet the goodness of people like yourself, the story on Sunday morning about “black white and the gray”, Brené Brown’s new book atlas of the heart doesn’t seemingly grip our collective existence with the same reach and power. Why can’t good win over evil…help
By this time next week, I will be post mastectomies. Bye bye boobies 😭
I would love to have a therapist to talk things over with, but apparently they don’t magically appear. I have to work to find a therapist that 1. Takes my insurance
2. Understands cancer care
3. Is available
4. Is someone I feel comfortable with
All this when I just want to crawl back under my comfy covers and check out.
Oh and there’s Texas’ war on transgender kids, war in Ukraine, a continuing pandemic and so much gun violence!! Yeah I’m freaking the hell out
Oh Sandy, I hope you find the right person t accompany you during this time. The baseline right now is grief and loss due to pandemic and injustice and war - so anything personal on top of that is just too much.
Hi Sandy. No TWLOHA is a bit of everything. If you go to their main Web page - you will find an entry point / search text as follows
Yes it's very much engaged in recovery from trauma and suicidality, but it's collected a remarkable data base. Praying for help to open up. 🙏
Copied from the TWLOHA page.
"Connect to Resources
Use our FIND HELP Tool to locate free or reduced cost counseling and other mental health resources in your community. Select the level of care you’re looking for and enter your zip code." Select Keyword Counseling Support Groups Outpatient Residental Treatment Addictions"
I have recently found it very difficult to find a therapist etc and I am in good physical health. I did finally start reaching out to friends and aquaintences in the mental health field and got some names... I wonder if your local cancer resource center? has mental health resources. you would think. hoping for good connections for you.
Hi Sandy re therapist and getting access I can't promise they will have cancer survivor therapists, but perhaps check out (or get a friend to check out) the therapists listing's on the website TWLOHA - it stands for To Write Love on Her Arms. They have a range of support services and I believe list therapists across the States. Sending a prayer right now from Sydney. 💜🙏💜🌈
Thank you! TWLOHA I think is just for those who are in recovery. I recently heard about them by listening to For The Love with Jen Hatmaker podcast. My problem is I need to actively seek out a therapist and I quit after calling five people with no luck.
While I’m not a therapist and don’t understand cancer care, I totally understand wanting to crawl back under the covers and check out! I spent all of last year feeling that way, and now write online about my mental health issues and what helps me cope. If you just need to talk to someone, feel free to DM me.
I love this message. I’m not really in a storm … but cumulative circumstances have left me with profoundly shaken faith. I can remember believing and trusting God. But for now I have hope there is a real God who still cares for me, us, the earth. I have hope that God is more than a delusion of narcissists, more than a projection of mental illness, and more than a tool used to control behavior. I can manage hope that a greater being than myself is out there. I am praying that hope is enough to shatter the doubts that assault what little faith i can find. I find comfort in randomness … bad things happen … good things happen… And I find comfort in the psalm 139 that wherever I go - God is there. I pray that is true.
A young man, 32, who was unfortunate enough to receive genes for mental illness from*both* parents, asked, for very good, healthy reasons to stay in our spare room. He was with us for about 8 weeks. On a Saturday morning, early in February, he had breakfast with us, was feeling pretty good, went to his room, locked the door and committed suicide.
We lost our own son in 1994 to a drunk driver, he was the drunk driver.
I had Polio at 4 months of age, my father died of pneumonia 12 days later. I now have post polio which basically means the muscles and nerves polio left me with are very tired after 70 years.
There are days I believe and days I don't. Yes, I'm talking with a therapist. However, how can a god who is supposedly all the "omnis" let all this shit happen? She's supposed to be loving and caring, yet lets all this shit around the world happen.
I understand science rules the world and we know very little about science and medicine, however, this old lady is tired of playing knick-knack patty wack on my thumb.
Hey God pull some of this heavy burden off your beloved child Marcie's shoulders.. it is suffocating aggrivating bullshit and it sucks. please share your yoke. Thanks. Amen.
So sorry for all of the trauma you have experienced. I too wonder sometimes how a loving God can allow all the bad shit that happens (especially the ignorant and hateful actions of churchgoers and leaders who claim to be doing God’s will).
I recently had the thought that God is doing a piss poor job of running the world.
For the most part, though, I don’t blame God. Humans have free will and we often make bad choices that hurt ourselves and others. Other times, things like illnesses and natural disasters occur. I don’t think God causes them; I think God weeps with us and helps us in ways we don’t always realize.
I can read the Text and find great solace …not because of my great faith, rather, because of the implicit undergirding of our God’s faithfulness.
Bishop Desmond Tutu summed it up, …in paraphrase, “…God won’t without us and we can’t without God”. The relational aspect of my faith becomes more audacious when I look at myself I the mirror!! Carroll Ray Steiner
My current crisis of faith has me asking "What is the definition of God's faithfulness?" How does God show up for those fleeing for their lives in Ukraine, for George Floyd when a knee was on his neck? I truly need someone to tell me. The world feels pretty damn hopeless right now.
It hasn't stopped raining for a week on the east coast of Australia- I'm staring at the latest downpour. Floods everywhere. War everywhere - Thank you for this image of Jesus not being grumpy but asking the poor folk to just be still. As a carer I've learnt to be relatively calm in a crisis but it's in the small irritants of the day that I tend to lose it. Lately I've been trying to bring some "be still" to those moments- where are my glasses - the sky is falling! Be still. "Where is your faith."
Gathering it closer rather than grabbing on to it later. Be still.
My mother and aunt were Olympic swimmers back in the 1940's ... when the waves of Life breach the top of my boat I have always trusted in my own ability to "stay afloat" and tread water until the energy of any particular situation shifts to Change. So many things on the social spectrum today have been lunging into frantic wave patterns unrecognizable to myself, family and friends. We find ourselves gulping in lung-fulls of its saltiness and choking on the surface of the waters. I have not been one to develop a personal relationship with the Mystery and progenerator of Life. "God" as so many name it ... I do not have a faith for God, at least not one I recognize as such. I do know of the Light that exists within Life, I have observed it in many of its forms ... I draw upon this knowledge and have come to find solace that I am never alone. I carry this same Light ideep within the cells and tissues of my own body and can join with it in each Breath ... God is not a concept that exists in my head, it exists in the very intrinsic physics of matter and is interconnected deeply with All Things. It has no fear of the cataclysmic changes in Nature, nor of the machinations and Shadow that lies within human hearts. It created all and works to fullfill its own Purposes and Plan ... far above anything I can muster up in my imagination.
I do have anxious moments like anyone else. I feel fear, failure and disappointment and I do not think that everything is going to be "okay" based on my middle class standards. Life is sloppy and can be a train wreck at times. When challenged by anything, I don't know where to place my Trust necessarily. I go outside to listen and observe the movements of the birds and animals, catch the unfolding of seasons and cycles that have nothing to do with me whatsoever. I Rest in my total lack of control in anything, really ... and just Breathe.
Thank you. I think of him as one of my "children". I grieved one in 1994, you grieve the rest of your life. Now I grieve another son. A "good grieving" is hard work an, while it does ease, it never leaves.💗 Thank you!
This made me think in a different way about what Jesus was asking - more to your question” in what do we have faith.” Maybe Jesus was asking do you believe in the boat, do you believe in calmer weather, is your faith in your fellow sailors, is it in vaccines, in powerful weapons, in the economy - yes where is my faith - so often misplaced. Prayers that you O Lord, would rescue me, not from my circumstance or condition, but from my unbelief.
exactly.
I think to be still and know is one of the hardest things we can do, especially in these disordered, frantic times. I'm grateful for people like you, Nadia. that strive for that and strive to help others do the same.
Thanks as always for your wise words! My favorite paragraph was this one:
“ I want some day to get to the point where I can trust God in the moment and not just in retrospect. Maybe things will work out, maybe they won’t - but I can either have a sense of God’s love during the whole thing, or I can be so freaked out I forget it’s there.”
I have spent the last year being totally freaked out by all the losses and other shit I went through.
Some aspects of my life still suck, especially my financial situation, but I am relearning to trust God and be grateful for God’s love and the people in my life (especially my wonderful husband) who love and support me.
Be still and know I am God!! Sometimes is so difficult but we need it desperately!!! This is how I start meditation.
Emphasis on the "be still" part.
Currently in a VERY stormy season. Thank you for the reminder to both ask the sacred questions AND remember the immediacy and permanence of the love of God in Christ Jesus.
I just subscribed as you had me at stop the Hate on Nate!! Lol I don’t know if you read these but I am so sad today Sunday morning that the evil of men like Putin and Trump can have such incredible negative consequences on so many yet the goodness of people like yourself, the story on Sunday morning about “black white and the gray”, Brené Brown’s new book atlas of the heart doesn’t seemingly grip our collective existence with the same reach and power. Why can’t good win over evil…help
By this time next week, I will be post mastectomies. Bye bye boobies 😭
I would love to have a therapist to talk things over with, but apparently they don’t magically appear. I have to work to find a therapist that 1. Takes my insurance
2. Understands cancer care
3. Is available
4. Is someone I feel comfortable with
All this when I just want to crawl back under my comfy covers and check out.
Oh and there’s Texas’ war on transgender kids, war in Ukraine, a continuing pandemic and so much gun violence!! Yeah I’m freaking the hell out
Oh Sandy, I hope you find the right person t accompany you during this time. The baseline right now is grief and loss due to pandemic and injustice and war - so anything personal on top of that is just too much.
Hi Sandy. No TWLOHA is a bit of everything. If you go to their main Web page - you will find an entry point / search text as follows
Yes it's very much engaged in recovery from trauma and suicidality, but it's collected a remarkable data base. Praying for help to open up. 🙏
Copied from the TWLOHA page.
"Connect to Resources
Use our FIND HELP Tool to locate free or reduced cost counseling and other mental health resources in your community. Select the level of care you’re looking for and enter your zip code." Select Keyword Counseling Support Groups Outpatient Residental Treatment Addictions"
I have recently found it very difficult to find a therapist etc and I am in good physical health. I did finally start reaching out to friends and aquaintences in the mental health field and got some names... I wonder if your local cancer resource center? has mental health resources. you would think. hoping for good connections for you.
Hi Sandy re therapist and getting access I can't promise they will have cancer survivor therapists, but perhaps check out (or get a friend to check out) the therapists listing's on the website TWLOHA - it stands for To Write Love on Her Arms. They have a range of support services and I believe list therapists across the States. Sending a prayer right now from Sydney. 💜🙏💜🌈
Thank you! TWLOHA I think is just for those who are in recovery. I recently heard about them by listening to For The Love with Jen Hatmaker podcast. My problem is I need to actively seek out a therapist and I quit after calling five people with no luck.
While I’m not a therapist and don’t understand cancer care, I totally understand wanting to crawl back under the covers and check out! I spent all of last year feeling that way, and now write online about my mental health issues and what helps me cope. If you just need to talk to someone, feel free to DM me.
Wendi, you are a dear! I am a little weird about contacting people I don’t know on the internet. So that could be part of my therapy seeking dilemma 😆
Sandy, I totally understand your reluctance to contact someone you don’t know on the internet. I’m going to share a link to one of my articles that I think you might find helpful instead: https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/how-i-survived-the-worst-year-of-my-life-911ab6aa2376
Thank you Wendi! I did see this and you have some helpful suggestions. And I did find you on Facebook, so may message you yet ;)
I’m so sad that you’re going through this. I’ll be praying for you this week!!!
Thanks Gloria! Surgery is Ash Wednesday. So this 40 day journey through lent will be to recover and love my new body 😭 I hope I can
I love this message. I’m not really in a storm … but cumulative circumstances have left me with profoundly shaken faith. I can remember believing and trusting God. But for now I have hope there is a real God who still cares for me, us, the earth. I have hope that God is more than a delusion of narcissists, more than a projection of mental illness, and more than a tool used to control behavior. I can manage hope that a greater being than myself is out there. I am praying that hope is enough to shatter the doubts that assault what little faith i can find. I find comfort in randomness … bad things happen … good things happen… And I find comfort in the psalm 139 that wherever I go - God is there. I pray that is true.
A young man, 32, who was unfortunate enough to receive genes for mental illness from*both* parents, asked, for very good, healthy reasons to stay in our spare room. He was with us for about 8 weeks. On a Saturday morning, early in February, he had breakfast with us, was feeling pretty good, went to his room, locked the door and committed suicide.
We lost our own son in 1994 to a drunk driver, he was the drunk driver.
I had Polio at 4 months of age, my father died of pneumonia 12 days later. I now have post polio which basically means the muscles and nerves polio left me with are very tired after 70 years.
There are days I believe and days I don't. Yes, I'm talking with a therapist. However, how can a god who is supposedly all the "omnis" let all this shit happen? She's supposed to be loving and caring, yet lets all this shit around the world happen.
I understand science rules the world and we know very little about science and medicine, however, this old lady is tired of playing knick-knack patty wack on my thumb.
Hey God pull some of this heavy burden off your beloved child Marcie's shoulders.. it is suffocating aggrivating bullshit and it sucks. please share your yoke. Thanks. Amen.
So sorry for all of the trauma you have experienced. I too wonder sometimes how a loving God can allow all the bad shit that happens (especially the ignorant and hateful actions of churchgoers and leaders who claim to be doing God’s will).
I recently had the thought that God is doing a piss poor job of running the world.
For the most part, though, I don’t blame God. Humans have free will and we often make bad choices that hurt ourselves and others. Other times, things like illnesses and natural disasters occur. I don’t think God causes them; I think God weeps with us and helps us in ways we don’t always realize.
Holding you in my heart and prayers
I can read the Text and find great solace …not because of my great faith, rather, because of the implicit undergirding of our God’s faithfulness.
Bishop Desmond Tutu summed it up, …in paraphrase, “…God won’t without us and we can’t without God”. The relational aspect of my faith becomes more audacious when I look at myself I the mirror!! Carroll Ray Steiner
My current crisis of faith has me asking "What is the definition of God's faithfulness?" How does God show up for those fleeing for their lives in Ukraine, for George Floyd when a knee was on his neck? I truly need someone to tell me. The world feels pretty damn hopeless right now.
It hasn't stopped raining for a week on the east coast of Australia- I'm staring at the latest downpour. Floods everywhere. War everywhere - Thank you for this image of Jesus not being grumpy but asking the poor folk to just be still. As a carer I've learnt to be relatively calm in a crisis but it's in the small irritants of the day that I tend to lose it. Lately I've been trying to bring some "be still" to those moments- where are my glasses - the sky is falling! Be still. "Where is your faith."
Gathering it closer rather than grabbing on to it later. Be still.
Really relevant considering today! Thanks Pastor!
My mother and aunt were Olympic swimmers back in the 1940's ... when the waves of Life breach the top of my boat I have always trusted in my own ability to "stay afloat" and tread water until the energy of any particular situation shifts to Change. So many things on the social spectrum today have been lunging into frantic wave patterns unrecognizable to myself, family and friends. We find ourselves gulping in lung-fulls of its saltiness and choking on the surface of the waters. I have not been one to develop a personal relationship with the Mystery and progenerator of Life. "God" as so many name it ... I do not have a faith for God, at least not one I recognize as such. I do know of the Light that exists within Life, I have observed it in many of its forms ... I draw upon this knowledge and have come to find solace that I am never alone. I carry this same Light ideep within the cells and tissues of my own body and can join with it in each Breath ... God is not a concept that exists in my head, it exists in the very intrinsic physics of matter and is interconnected deeply with All Things. It has no fear of the cataclysmic changes in Nature, nor of the machinations and Shadow that lies within human hearts. It created all and works to fullfill its own Purposes and Plan ... far above anything I can muster up in my imagination.
I do have anxious moments like anyone else. I feel fear, failure and disappointment and I do not think that everything is going to be "okay" based on my middle class standards. Life is sloppy and can be a train wreck at times. When challenged by anything, I don't know where to place my Trust necessarily. I go outside to listen and observe the movements of the birds and animals, catch the unfolding of seasons and cycles that have nothing to do with me whatsoever. I Rest in my total lack of control in anything, really ... and just Breathe.
Amen, Amen, and Amen.
thank you. I have found this story troubling. I like your take on it...
Thank you. I think of him as one of my "children". I grieved one in 1994, you grieve the rest of your life. Now I grieve another son. A "good grieving" is hard work an, while it does ease, it never leaves.💗 Thank you!