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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
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
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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

The Pressure of Doing Everyday Life

The Pressure of Doing Everyday Life

Do you ever feel the pressure of living out your calling, and wonder how you are going to be what everyone needs or wants you to be? How are you going to raise these kids? How are you going to preach on Sunday? How are you going to show up to a marriage which requires so much? How are you going to do one more day in a menial, thankless job that barely pays the bills? How are you going to love a person in your life who keeps responding in bitterness? How are you going to listen to the question of an aging parent and answer with patience for the hundredth time today?

Trying to Play God in the Circumstances of Life

Trying to Play God in the Circumstances of Life

A few days ago, I got caught in the funk of the “always” and “never” statements in my life. I started thinking that I would always be in this place, and circumstances will never be change. It is pretty discouraging when you start thinking this way, and often we don’t realize we are trying to play God in our own lives.

Because He First Loved Us

Because He First Loved Us

I don’t know about you, but I often forget the incredible pursuit of the love of God. I forget that He reached out to us while we hated Him, while we were sinners—our filthy rags of “righteousness” and of outright rebellion all mixed together in a mess and even still He did not turn away. He walked right into that mess and declared Himself victor as He willingly laid down His Life.

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.

Recognizing the Flowers and Giving Thanks

Recognizing the Flowers and Giving Thanks

We did a birthday party for my son this last weekend. A bunch of his friends came over and did a Nerf gun war in the backyard in childhood bliss. I was talking with my son later that night and he totally shocked me by leaning over for a hug and saying, “Thanks for the fun party, Mom.” More often than not, my kids complain about what they don’t have rather than being thankful for what they do. And (who am I kidding here?) so do I.

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.

Floating not Drowning

Floating not Drowning

Sometimes it feels like drowning.Like the abyss is swallowing you up.Sometimes your feet find no foundationAnd your mind wanders in frantic search.The waves threaten to cover youLeaving no trace of life behindThe fear seems to choke youAs you wait for a rescue that seems far away.

Recognizing God in the Struggles of Life

Recognizing God in the Struggles of Life

My friend and mentor Mike Wells used to talk about recognizing God in everything a lot. He probably taught it often because all of us needed the reminder constantly. When things happen in our lives that seem bad, it’s really hard to recognize God in them. We want to get an answer to why circumstances are the way they are, and usually we want to lash out at God for allowing the particular problem. Or even to doubt His existence because we don’t see His hand in caring for us in the midst of the suffering.

When God Seems Silent

When God Seems Silent

Do you ever feel that you are the only one who endures days, weeks or months of what feels like silence from God? The valley of the shadow of death stretches long in front of you, and it looks like a tumultuous relationship, or anxiety, or unemployment or just the mundaneness of it all making you feel insignificant and unimportant. And it seems God has taken a lunch break and is unavailable, or worse has decided to punish you for something while He remains aloof?

Unacceptable

Unacceptable

I can often feel unacceptable. I feel I haven’t met the standards to be accepted. I’m not funny enough, kind enough, pretty enough or whatever the standard in my head is. I measure myself by so many standards I’ve set up and always find myself lacking. It is an exercise in futility—work so hard to perform right and be what you have deemed as acceptable, and yet constantly fail and feel as though you can’t measure up.

How Do You Measure Success?

How Do You Measure Success?

Do you ever feel that life is a constant comparison of your efforts with the standard, and you are found wanting? It’s like piling the measures of your life on your chest, one after another, hoping that at least one of them will read “Success” and you can feel like you made it. What is the measure of your life?

How Do You Find the Strength for Today?

How Do You Find the Strength for Today?

This morning, so many people woke up and couldn’t dream up the strength to get out of bed.  I can think of ones who face chronic pain and illness, ones who woke to support loved ones at yet another doctor’s appointment, ones who see an uncertain future for a rocky relationship, ones who approach what seems like an insurmountable obstacle.

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.

Waiting for Revelation from God

Waiting for Revelation from God

As most of you know, we are expecting our first baby in June (this is a republishing of a post I wrote in 2011).  Although my pregnancy has not been bad at all, there is a certain amount of impatience that seems to develop as we wait for the baby to be born.  I love to feel him kick and wonder what he will look like, but I’d really like to just have him out and be able to hold him and watch him grow.

The Dark Days of Waiting

The Dark Days of Waiting

I love happy endings. I really can’t stand it when I watch a movie or read a book, and the ending just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. In fact, I actually rewrote several book endings when I was a kid because I didn’t like the original version. (Because, you know, they’re only timeless classics celebrated for their incredible stories but I thought I could do better!)

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus