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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
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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
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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
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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
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Hannah Morrell
Breathe & Rest

You don’t have to keep running.
You don’t have to keep fighting.
You don’t have to keep searching for the “cure.”
You don’t have to keep trying.

I know you are tired,
And ache for something more.
I know you just want to sit down,
Letting the weight you’re carrying fall.

The idea that you will get a place
Where it makes sense to rest
Is a fallacy and will continue to drive you
Crazy and exhausted and weary.

Breathe & Rest

freedom

Set Free to Walk in Freedom

Set Free to Walk in Freedom

Once a slave to sin and death,
Now free to walk as a loved child of God!

Once a leper, rejected and broken,
Now made whole, complete and accepted!

Once a dirty rag, tossed to one side,
Now a beloved Bride, unstained and untouched.

Once cowering and fearful, waiting for death,
Now a conqueror walking in faith.

Once a performer, desperate to meet a standard,
Now already accepted, with no need to perform.

Once invisible and unheard, no attention given,
Now He inclines His ear to hear and see me.

Once a blind person, seeking through darkness
Now sight restored and made new in the Light of the world.

Once a dead person walking, no way to save myself,
Now filled with resurrection life!

Don't Let Worry Be My Bread

Don't Let Worry Be My Bread

Don’t let worry be my bread today,
But let me, instead, feast on the delights of your love and faithfulness.
Take the care and burdens that weigh me down,
Leaving the lightness and the relief of freedom.
Pull the fires of rejection from my heart
Quenching them with Your tears and compassion for me.

Dismiss the distractions and confusion that fill my brain,
Replacing them with focus and peace no matter what is going on around me.
Take the cursing and the spewing that fill my mouth,
Giving blessing and hallelujah that only come from you.
Remove the discouragement and hopelessness,
Putting courage in me, restoring my soul with hope and sweetness in You.

The Constant Oasis

The Constant Oasis

Do you ever feel burned out? Like you’d just like to pack up and run away from your life? Maybe it’s work, or maybe it’s the kids, the marriage, the bills, the house issues, the health problems, the recovery from trauma. It kind of feels like a little kid running to hide under the covers to protect them from the monsters in the closet—it probably won’t really change anything to run away, but it feels like it might be helpful somehow.

I feel that way sometimes. I want to hide from the parts of my life that feel too hard, too painful, too much work. Hiding doesn’t fix them, but at times it feels like the only way to deal with it all.

The communication from the world is generally—keep going, don’t quit. The communication from the church sometimes is—keep working, don’t let anyone see you are hurting. The communication from our own selves is—keep trying, your worth is tied up in not quitting.

I Lift My Eyes Up

I Lift My Eyes Up

I lift my eyes up, because sometimes it seems all help is gone.
I lift my eyes up in a desperate search for stable ground.
I lift my eyes up, wanting something to be my rock and fortress.
I lift my eyes up, seeking out answers, or explanation or something real.

My help doesn’t come from the mountains, though.
But from the Lord of the mountains Himself.
He is present, active and ready, although it may not feel true.
He is ready to help, and acting already though maybe not in the ways I want.

Recognizing Freedom

Recognizing Freedom

I just got to spend an incredible weekend with a group of women talking about freedom in Christ. I was so excited about what God was teaching me through preparing for the women’s retreat, I wanted to share some of it in a blog post.

Freedom is not something we create, but rather recognize. We are recognizing the freedom Jesus has already provided for us. He has done all the work, and the responsibility for freeing us from sin, shame, rejection, and so many other things is all His. When we accept this gift, we slowly begin to move into the realization of this freedom.

From what are we free? From our past and the negative identity messages that have been ingrained in our minds as we acknowledge the new life given and the Truth that sets us free. From rejection and people-pleasing as we recognize that crazy people don’t get to tell me who I am—only Jesus gets to tell me who I am now. From being a slave to emotion as I realize that emotion isn’t bad, but it should never be in charge and should be led with truth. From the world’s definition of success and failure as I recognize that success to God is knowing Him (Jn 17:3) and dependence on Him for every bit of my daily life. From fear as I recognize perfect love casts out fear and can move into being motivated by love instead of fear. From comparison—seeing people with God’s eyes and loving them rather than trying to feel more superior through comparison. From walking in sin as I realize sin isn’t natural or comfortable for the believer who loves Jesus, but it isn’t a guilt motivation but rather a natural outflow of Christ’s life in us. From filling needs with things of this world, as we realize they are like cotton candy—taste good for a minute but have no nutritional value or sustenance. From religion as we see the rules never helped anyone be free, but the relationship is the beginning of freedom.

Beauty From Ashes

Beauty From Ashes

Walking through the burn scar of a recent forest fire in the mountains of Colorado is an eerie thing. It sort of feels like a ghost town, abandoned and barren. Charred remnants of trees lay blackened and oddly shaped all around. I felt overwhelmed by sadness to see all the once proud trees cut down to just burnt sticks. And then, as He always does, God lifted my hanging head to show me the beauty. Beauty from ashes.

I suddenly saw the fantastic beauty of the flowers, especially the one called fireweed which grows abundantly after a fire. Apparently the fireweed is the first plant to grow after a forest fire burns through. The grass that was popping up through the ash was bright green, and gave a colorful contrast and spoke of hope for a new future. None of the beauty minimized the pain of the fire, but it seemed to give it new meaning—calling it forward to new growth.

I talk to so many people who have had a forest fire in their lives, and some have had a few. They feel like their whole worlds lay blackened and reduced to ash. Sometimes they lit the match that started the fire, and other times it was someone else. Regardless of who started the blaze, they now stand in the middle of what seems like a hopeless burn scar.

Your Hiding Place

Your Hiding Place

When Joshua and the Israelites had conquered the land for seven years, they set up the place of worship to God at Shiloh. It had been a crazy time, watching miracles of waters parted, major enemies defeated by the power of God, and some pretty rough losses as well when they didn’t do things as God had directed. Shiloh means whole, sound, quiet, secure, health or abundance. This sounds like a good place to me, especially to get away and just have time with the God who was leading their nation.

I often want this quiet place to get away, and sometimes I get time for it. But what I fail to realize when I focus on a place is that Jesus is our Shiloh now, and I can go anytime I want as He lives within me. I want the place of worship to be external, and sometimes it is. But no one can take that access from me, even if a church is destroyed, circumstances have limited us, or we feel as though we are imprisoned.

Edith Eger wrote about her time in a concentration camp during World War 2 in her book The Choice. What she credits with getting her through this time of horror was something her mother told her before they were imprisoned: Just remember, no one can take away from you what you've put in your own mind. She kept pushing into the internal because she couldn’t find freedom in the external.

Freedom in Knowing Your Worth

Freedom in Knowing Your Worth

People with whom I work are probably sick of hearing me talk about their identities in Christ. But I find it is such a foundational piece of living that it must be discussed often. We also have been so steeped in lies that the truth of who we are in Christ seems laughable. We go about trying to prove we have value and worth through our productivity, our kindness, or some other circumstance or behavior. But this puts things in the wrong order. We do not love others or achieve success (however that is measured) in order to prove we have value—we must first understand we have value, and then we can behave as one who is loved.

Sometimes we try to use circumstances to prove our worth. We look around at what we have achieved, how productive we are, how we define success and if we have achieved some level of it. This is then supposed to help us understand that we have value. But when we place our value on these things, we end up with two problems. One is that we cannot control a lot of our circumstances, and if we struggle with physical health, financial difficulty, or some other external factor, we can end up deciding we have no worth because we cannot perform in our circumstances as we used to. The other problem is that once we attain whatever level of success we have determined will give us value, there is usually another step to take to keep increasing that value. There is no ending point. If we attain education, power, money or status, there is always another level that we have to keep pushing towards.

The Weed of Fear

The Weed of Fear

I have a vine in my backyard that seems to be a parasite that can’t be stopped . I know I talk a lot about The Vine (Jesus in John 15:5), but this isn’t that kind of vine.

I first found evidence of it coming through the fence from my neighbor’s back yard into mine. I just cut off the branches coming through the fence, and thought I had it sorted. I found more a bit further into the yard, and started to wonder. Finally, some popped up right in the middle of my raised garden bed, meaning it had gone through the weed guard and all the soil and come up right in the middle of my vegetables.

This meant war. I started pulling the vine out, and it kept going. And going. I pulled up the weed guard a little to look underneath, and realized there was an immense system of vines growing all under it like it was a comfortable blanket rather than a method of keeping weeds out. I found it clear across on the other side of the yard, which means this vine system is now growing throughout my entire yard, underneath everything and lying in wait for whatever plant it can take over while I’m not watching.

Now, I realize I make it sound quite menacing, but honestly, this plant is trying to take over! But it got me thinking about the small things we allow to grow under the surface of our lives without checking them at the fence, and as they slowly spread and choke the life out of everything we have tended so carefully, we can wonder how they could have gotten there.

Sacred in the Mundane

Sacred in the Mundane

I need the revelation of the sacred in the mundane, the extraordinary in the everyday and the supernatural in the earthly sameness. I forget so easily, and go about my day with crazy drivers and bickering kids and toilets to clean. Maybe for you it’s the emptiness or sadness or stillness rather than the busy.

From Fear to Freedom

From Fear to Freedom

It is amazing to me to look back over my life and see the hand of God at work all throughout to reveal/ uncover Christ in me. Early in my life, I would fight the tools He would use. I still do, but much less often and with less intensity. It’s in those struggles, the very tools that I used to see as the enemy, that I am now seeing the tender invitation of God to a deeper relationship with Him and a life of freedom.

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus