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How Abuse Damages Your Faith
The damages of abuse are well-documented and include PTSD, mood disorders, physical illnesses, and a host of relational difficulties. Less discussed are the damages an abusive relationship can inflict on a victim’s relationship with God. Often a good deal of spiritual abuse accompanies any other type of mistreatment and can really hamper a person’s belief in and relationship with God. Because our relationship with God serves as a basis for both deliverance from the abuser as well as healing from abuse, the enemy often targets a victim’s faith. For most of us, our experiential belief trumps the intellectual assent of our religious beliefs. What this means is that our experiences…
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Six Signs that You Love with Intention
I am always amused by titles like this one until I dive into the topic. Learning to love well takes a lifetime of dedication to the art. Most posts on the topic of love have a long to-do list. And while I agree that love does indeed manifest as action, those lists don’t prove generally helpful to me. After all, my husband and each of my children are so different that what looks like love to one feels unloving to another. Neither am I here to recount the five love languages, as helpful as they can be. I think that to love well, basic guidelines read more like emotional maturity…
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Encouragement for Faith Bloggers: Filling the Jars
As a blogger, I need regular encouragement. I wanted to share my own experience with the prayer exercise I published just yesterday because it blesses me on a number of different levels. You can find the link at the end of this post. The gist of it was an imaginative participation in the story of the widow who asks Elisha for help. He tells her to borrow as many pots and jars as possible and fill them up with her little jar of oil. I sat this morning in prayer and as always my blog is on my mind. My numbers go up and down, and I struggle with equating…
Healing Through Art & Words
