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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
Posts
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

promises

God's Promises

God's Promises

Do you ever have days where you feel like everything gets really heavy and hard? You might go from feeling like you are totally in step with Jesus and taking on the world, and suddenly you slam into a wall of your inadequacy, your unbelief or your questions. It happened so quickly you have whiplash as you try to steady yourself but can’t seem to find balance.

I was feeling that way last weekend. I felt all the pressures of preparing to share with women at the upcoming retreat, the uncertainty of book publishing, the frustration of not knowing how to help some of the people I was talking to in counseling. It all just compounded into a big, dark cloud that swallowed me up.

Monday morning (after wallowing most of the weekend in all the yuck), I was driving back from dropping my daughter at school. In front of me was a giant wall of dark grey clouds threatening rain and storms to come. And suddenly, I saw the most brilliant rainbow cutting right through the blackest part of the cloud. This rainbow extended from the top of the mountain I could see all the way up through the storm clouds in colors that laughed at the darkness.

Hopelessness to Hope

Hopelessness to Hope

Do you ever have those days when you wake up and feel that it’s all hopeless? You lie awake at night considering all you have going on in your life, and imagine that nothing will ever change and your life will always be this way? Maybe you have tried to break free and to change things, but these attempts have fallen to the ground with no sign of completing their task.

Your heart cries out and aches for relief as you go about your day with a dreary cloud of despair tormenting your every move. The problems seem insurmountable, and you wonder how you will continue to walk forward. Everything ahead of you feels uncertain, or, even worse—the same as it is now.

I was reading the story of Hezekiah in Isaiah, where the powerful king has sent messengers to taunt his people and foretell their defeat by his army. The Assyrian army had destroyed many people and nations at this point, and were greatly feared. Hezekiah takes the message to God, crying out for help. I would imagine that it looked pretty hopeless to him as well. But he poured it all out before God anyway. God’s response through Isaiah was basically--don’t worry, I’m taking care of it.

God's Enoughness

God's Enoughness

What do you need for today? Do you feel like you’ve been waiting so long for something that has yet to come? Do you feel a growing discouragement that it won’t ever come? Do you look at your day and feel it has already become too big for you to handle?

There are many things I have asked God for that He hasn’t brought yet. And there are things He has promised me that He hasn’t yet fulfilled. I was reading Genesis 17, which begins by telling us that Abram is now 99 years old. This man has been waiting on God’s promise of a son who will become a great nation for many, many years. I bet he’s been tempted to quit believing God’s promise many times. 

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus