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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

patience

Slow Walking

Slow Walking

I don’t know about you, but walking slowly kills me. Whether it be the zoo, the mall or the museum, there is lots of walking slowly while looking at things. I can walk quickly or run, but the slow walking makes me hurt in ways I never expect. Sometimes I feel like that’s how so much of life is—slow-walking through another problem, another dilemma, another decision. We can’t run through whatever it is, but have to maintain a slow, even pace.

I want the big moves! The big changes! The times when everything flips and you are dealing with a brand new thing. But often, we are called to the slow, steady pursuit of what God has put in front of us.

The beautiful news about this is that God has not abandoned us to do it alone. He never said we were supposed to be able to fulfill all the promises of God by ourselves, or that we should do all the good because we’ve generated enough willpower to make it through. Instead, He promises to be the power within us to walk the slow walk when it’s called for, to keep holding on when everything in us wants to quit or run.

Questions and Doubts

Questions and Doubts

I watched a show the other day in which a character was having a crisis of faith. All the things she believed about God came crashing down around her as she battled through an emotional trauma which started the whole thing. The questions sometimes seem to rise up with enough force to crush us. I talk to people often who are dealing with the same thing—questions, doubt, discontent with what God is doing or not doing.

The Condemnation and Freedom of the Love Passage: A Different Perspective on 1 Corinthians 13

The Condemnation and Freedom of the Love Passage: A Different Perspective on 1 Corinthians 13

I remember the reading of 1 Corinthians 13 in church or elsewhere as the one that made me feel most wanting. Here are all the things you are supposed to do to be loving, and I could see my failures in every place. I’m not patient. I’m not kind. I keep records of wrongs. I’m jealous. I don’t believe the best about people. I’m irritated. I’m offended. I delight in wrong sometimes. I give up on people.

Choosing to Remember the Truth That Sets Us Free

Choosing to Remember the Truth That Sets Us Free

Who am I? Apart from Christ, no more than a broken woman with no special powers or intelligence. A mother who gets impatient with her kids and lives in regret often over the reactions. A wife who loves imperfectly and sometimes focuses on the flaws rather than the good. A person who beats herself up often for all the lack, forgetting to remember the Source for any good thing.

Living in the Tension

Living in the Tension

I think we are geared as humans to try to find a way out of circumstances that don’t feel good. We want to find freedom from the tight rope of walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And yet, often it seems God asks us to stay the course and hold the tension while He provides what we need for that walking.

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus