Tag Archives: mental health

Weeds in Your Thought Life

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Weeds in Your Thought Life

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (KJV)

Taking thoughts captive is like pulling weeds out of a garden. Our mind is the garden and the bad thoughts would be equivalent to the weeds. Sometimes things grow in our garden that we didn’t plant—weeds, volunteer plants, etc. Some are in direct competition with the good plants there. If they are not removed, they can crowd out, suffocate, leach nutrients, and eventually destroy the garden and become stronger which will then be much more difficult to remove and can cause much more damage.

Much the same, we have thoughts that enter our mind that we didn’t put there. If those thoughts are not removed, they can take over and crowd out positive thinking and eventually destroy a positive mindset and can wreak havoc in our lives and relationships. The negative thoughts, like weeds, will grow stronger and spread and form a stronghold in our mind which is much more difficult to remove and much more damaging than just a passing negative thought. 

Taking thoughts captive is like pulling weeds out of a garden. #negativethoughtsarelikeweeds

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Weeds can damage an entire garden, wrong thoughts can damage our soul

In my gardens and flowerbeds, if I allow the weeds to stay, they soak up all of the nutrients, they grow larger and spread out, and they strangle the good plants. This may eventually kill the good plants. If not pulled, the weeds can multiply and take over the garden. I have to get them and keep them under control, and it’s MUCH easier when they’re small—both in size and in number. It’s much more difficult and a lot more work to clean weeds out if I’ve waited until they’ve taken over. It can still be done—it’s just more exhausting and it takes more effort than if I had done it sooner.

Thoughts are much like these weeds. Some thoughts get planted in our minds that aren’t supposed to be there. They’re not supposed to be there because they are in direct conflict with God’s Word. These thoughts may be thoughts of temptation, lust, insecurity, fear, worry, malice, doubt, pride, negative self-talk of any kind, and so on. If these thoughts are not removed, regardless of how small or seemingly insignificant, they could multiply and grow stronger and crowd out the good and godly thoughts in our minds. If these negative thoughts grow in size and in number, they could cause damage—emotionally, mentally, and relationally.

Thoughts lead to action

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A God-Inspired Sabbath

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A God-Inspired Sabbath title image

A God-Inspired Sabbath

There will be times in our lives where God leads us into a period of rest or a “Sabbath”. It may be taking a break from work or something that you do, a hobby, serving, or even a temporary break from a friendship or relationship. These times of rest are there to refresh and replenish you. They might also be there to create margin because God may foresee things coming up that you are getting ready to encounter. You might need extra time and energy in order to face them.

My recent God-inspired Sabbath

Over the last several months I’ve missed my writing, and I miss (and have sometimes felt a little guilt-ridden) about the consistency of new content on my site. Consistency, loyalty, and faithfulness are character traits that I have always valued and strived to achieve and demonstrate. Therefore, it’s been extremely difficult for me to feel like I’m not successfully living up to those traits in my writing over the past year.

Although, I do feel like God, in his kindness and divine foreknowledge kind of gave me a “heads up” that I was going to need to take a bit of a break, a “sabbatical” of sorts, from writing new content and spend some time recycling, updating, and reposting some of the older content on my site. I expected the break to only last for a few months, however, it ended up taking place over the entire year.

Seventh Year Sabbath from my writing

I decided to take a break from writing for my blog (or at least from writing a new post every week). It was a bit of a hard decision. I felt some guilt about it, like I was letting people down or letting God down. When I decided it just felt like I needed some rest, some time off because I couldn’t keep up the way and the pace that I wanted and had been doing. The word “sabbatical” came to mind which then caused me to think of “Sabbath” (aka…rest).

Something made me take a look at how long I had been writing on my blog, and coincidentally, I was just entering my seventh year. God reminded me of the times in scripture where he asked his people to let certain things have their “Sabbath” on the seventh year. He instructed them to let the land rest and not to plant new crops on the seventh year.

Seventh Year Sabbath in scripture

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COVID-19: Fight Fear

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COVID-19: Fight Fear

I hesitated adding yet another thing out there having anything remotely related to COVID-19. Quite honestly I’m exhausted and overwhelmed with reading and hearing about it everywhere I look.

That being said, I do feel like God compelled me to provide resources for those who may need some extra encouragement to fight fear or who may need more reassurance and comfort. Just because I’m not struggling does not mean that others aren’t. Additionally, it would be nice to see some positive, encouraging, faith-related information out there to counterbalance and fight fear and panic inducing media that’s being shoved down our throats everywhere we turn.

Today, I’d like to provide you with some practical steps, encouragement, reminders, helpful scriptures, helpful posts/articles, and some faith and hope building resources to support you and help you fight fear during this volatile time in our world.

First and foremost: God is still God, and He can turn bad into good

God can take something bad, something evil, something the devil uses for harm and turn it into something good. God can turn the tables on our enemy. No matter how bleak things may look in our world right now, God can and will still work through this and in spite of this crisis.

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28 (NLT)

“You plotted evil against me, but God turned it into good, in order to preserve the lives of many people who are alive today because of what happened.” Genesis 50:20 (GNT)

Read this helpful post:

Getting Through a Tough Time and Coming Out Better On the Other Side

God is immutable—He will not change

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Wounds Heal But Sometimes There Are Scars

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Wounds Heal But Sometimes There Are Scars

Have you ever experienced some kind of pain or trauma in the past but have since recovered and healed from that? Do you have reminders, triggers, or stimuli that bring that past pain up again? Does that mean that you aren’t completely healed? Not necessarily. Personally, I don’t think that this automatically means that you aren’t fully healed. Now, as a disclaimer, let me say that this most certainly could be the case, and that some healing might still be in process (as healing IS often a long process, especially when wounds are deep or trauma is severe). However, I also believe that there are times when wounds heal, but sometimes there are scars left behind.

Even after healing, there may be times when we still experience some subsequent pain. There might even be some external or internal triggers to prompt further pain or remind us of an old injury. There may be some additional healing and recovery to be done. Then again, it may just be a scar serving as a reminder of a wound that once was there.

Let me give you an analogy…an old basketball injury

Several years ago my husband, Eric, completely damaged his ACL and meniscus in his knee. “Obliterated” was the precise word the doctor used. Eric experienced excruciating pain at the time of the injury, and the pain lasted for quite some time. He eventually had surgery replacing and repairing parts of his knee, yet afterward he still experienced some pain for a while during the recovery process. He also had ongoing physical therapy for a while. Again this was all still painful, but the pain gradually diminished as his wound healed.

Though he now has permanent scars, over time the knee was completely healed and the pain was completely alleviated. However, it’s odd because there are times when the weather might trigger a flare up of pain in his knee at the scars. Even though the injury is healed, there is a trigger for pain from time to time. The pain doesn’t last indefinitely, and experiencing pain again doesn’t negate the fact that his injury is completely healed. Nevertheless, because of the old injury he just still suffers from subsequent pain on occasion even after healing, and sometimes there are external triggers that might cause a renewed temporary discomfort, ache, or soreness.

Additionally, because of the old injury and the initial pain affiliated with it, he tends to favor, protect, or guard that knee a little more. He wants to prevent that pain or that same or similar injury from happening again. That still doesn’t mean he’s currently experiencing pain or that it’s not healed. He just tends to be a little more cautious and careful—he’s more aware. He may even avoid some of the activities that were involved in the injury to begin with.

Wounds we experience, the scars left behind, and subsequent pain even after healing

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