Posts
Hannah Morrell
Throwing Off Shame

Have you ever considered that when you condemn yourself for something, you are saying that the blood of Jesus wasn’t enough? And when you take on and wear shame, you are saying Jesus’ sacrifice didn’t cover this particular thing for which you feel shame? Unfortunately, several religious communities have preached with great conviction that we must earn the love of God by good works and avoiding the bad stuff. But I don’t believe that is Scriptural or true.

The love of God was demonstrated when He sent Jesus to die for us, even while we hated Him, didn’t know Him, and didn’t care to. The one sacrifice Jesus made took on all the bad stuff—there is nothing that is too much or wasn’t covered at that point—past, present and future. If there was, Jesus would have to die over and over again to cover it.

When we agree with condemnation, we are negating Jesus’ death and resurrection. We are saying it is not enough, and I must really beat up on myself before I can be stamped “approved” by God. I must wallow in self-pity, in condemnation and in shame in order to earn God’s love. Yuck.

Throwing Off Shame
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Hannah Morrell
Priceless Treasure

One of the most often repeated lies people share with me in terms of what they think about themselves is that they are worthless. This has been communicated by various people in their lives, or by their own definition time and time again. Sometimes they feel they should be at a different place in their lives and that would give worth. Sometimes they believe if they had worked hard enough to make people like them that this would give them worth. Sometimes they have been told that their only worth lies in their being used for whatever purpose the user desires, and that they will lose worth if they stop allowing someone to use them.

Worth is not transactional. It is not given when we earn it. A person doesn’t gain worth the more they achieve, relate to others, or give. Some people try to convince themselves they have worth, but it is usually based in something they have to believe about themselves. When someone communicates they are not worth their time, the façade is gone and we struggle to believe we have worth apart from what others communicate.

When we experience rejection while trying to find someone to communicate worth, any sense of having worth is obliterated as we have placed the definition on a person or place in this world. It is gut-wrenching, and feels like death.

Priceless Treasure
Posts
Hannah Morrell
God of the Storm

We had a crazy windstorm last week with almost 24 hours of intense wind gusts and the resulting damages—trees falling, fences knocked down, various lawn chairs and trampolines blown away. I’ve never been through a hurricane on the coast, and I realized what people talk about with the sheer noise wind can create. My husband had to wear earplugs to sleep, and the howling and crashing went on all night.

At some point during the night, I woke up and listened to the wind for a bit while lying in bed. It dawned on me that this was what the disciples felt when they were out in the boat with Jesus, except they were on a boat tossed by the waves rather than a warm bed in a safe house. I imagined the fear and panic that would govern in a situation like that. They were pretty sure they were going to die out there in that storm.

Jesus had been teaching about faith prior to this story told in Mark 4. When the storm comes up, he is SLEEPING. This makes no sense to us when we don’t realize that God is enough in a storm, but Jesus knew His Father was watching out for Him and didn’t need to worry or stress about anything.

God of the Storm
Posts
Hannah Morrell
God's Love

God loves you. That phrase has gotten trite and feels shallow sometimes. And yet, it is anything but trite and shallow. While we hated, mocked, spat on Him, God loves us. While we ran from Him and fought any call of His to come to Him, God loves us. While we rebelled and invited more and more darkness into ourselves, God loves us. While the selfishness took over to distort us into maniacal narcissists, God loves us. While we postured in false humility and rode ego trips for our “good” deeds, God loves us.

God reached through the darkness with which we had surrounded ourselves, calling our names and extending His hand to pull us out of the pit. We didn’t know Him, but He knew us. He knew every bit of us and still chose to love us. He loved us to death, and to resurrection in power. Jesus walked the road of ultimate sacrifice, knowing what was in each of us and how we chose our own way. He looked past it and loved anyway. He never stops loving. We simply need to accept the love.

God's Love
Posts
Hannah Morrell
Being a Snail

I have been thinking about how cool it is that we take a safe place with us no matter where we go. We are similar to snails—they carry their home on their backs, ready to pull into a shell whenever things get scary. The difference is that our safe place is within, and we can access it any time without physically moving. God no longer dwells in a temple made with hands, but in His people. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) He has given us His Spirit, and His very Life within.  

We are in Christ, and Christ is in us. We contain the wrap-around presence of God within us all the time. It’s kind of a cool picture, isn’t it? We carry Him, and He wraps around us and shelters us as well. So many things with God’s kingdom are both/and. His Life is in us, and we are in Him.

Being a Snail

covid

Give Thanks...Even Now

Give Thanks...Even Now

What a year this has been! For me, 2020 has been raw, stretching and also incredibly sweet. Many people want to count this year as a loss, resigning themselves to all the bad that has happened without seeing any of the good. I’m not minimizing the pain—I haven’t seen my mom and dad in eleven months, and miss them terribly. We get to figure out remote schooling with my kids, and have felt the loss of time with friends and family this year. I have walked with many people this year who have suffered more greatly than us. They are stuck in an assisted care facility with no outside contact allowed, have lost loved ones to COVID, or have been laid off from their job.

But the call of my heart today as I write this is to come back to giving thanks, and recognizing the incredible goodness of God in the middle of difficult times. I find that throughout history there have been many examples of people who have kept looking for God’s hand through the pain, and have seen His faithfulness even in extreme suffering. There is something about refocusing on these things that helps lift us up out of the pit of despair, allowing us to see forward, over and past whatever circumstance looms large at the moment.

Walking in Dependence

Walking in Dependence

My son and I were talking yesterday and I watched him finally confront the sadness that he had kept at bay for the last couple of weeks. He was sad he wasn’t going back to school for the foreseeable future, that he wouldn’t get to enjoy days with his great teacher and friends. And he asked me how long the sickness was going to last. And I don’t know. So, we talked about how we do hard things, and find the joy in them. And we talked about how it’s okay to be sad and miss things, and then also okay to enjoy the day in the way we could.

The reactions from many of the people I work with in counseling have been similar—how do we do this season when everything has been uprooted and made raw?

I was thinking through practical tools I’ve been giving people, which I will talk about later in this post. But first, God reminded me this morning we do this season of life just like we do every other season--in dependence on Jesus. Every morning we can wake up knowing that the day is too big for us, and ask Him to be all we need for it. That hasn’t changed with the magnitude of the situation, or the radical difference many of us feel in our lives. God hasn’t changed. He is still more than enough for all the pieces of our lives, even the ones that look like pandemic, shelter-at-home and remote everything.

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus