INSIGHT. GROWTH. COURAGE.
All in one place.
SurrenderedSolutions
Love Like Jesus
Learning how to represent Jesus and love others is difficult when someone’s grievance with you is based on your ethnicity. They hate you not because they know you but because of your skin color.
Build on your desire to love like Jesus despite this foolishness by working on your foundations. Join me in my next workshop series, Foundations for Love. Learn more and register in this post.
Christian Friends Become Enemies
Loving someone you have tension with can be extremely hard to do, particularly if you feel justified and offended. While I do not know the answer to your specific situation, I encourage you to put your situation to serious prayer. Ask God to show you your shortcomings and ask him to guide any reconciliation.
4 Keys to Sharing Your Story of Sexual Abuse
The decision to share your story of sexual abuse for the first time begins with just that – a decision. And who makes the decision? You. You decide.
Telling your story for the first time is a brave and courageous act. If you decide to share, use these four key questions as part of your sharing process, and remember – sharing your story is the first step in the healing process.
The Legacy of Hamartia - Part One
We are created in God’s image. We possess his rational, moral, social, artistic, and spiritual characteristics. We reflect God in our design. We have so much potential in us. Yet, some of us love more of what is not in him than we do what is in him.
Is it a matter of wanting something you cannot have? Or is it something else? I think it is something else, which we know as sin. As we start working through relational healing in 2021, we must realize relational healing requires an understanding of sin and how it works.
This 3-part allegorical story provides the insight we need to understand how sin was born.
Spiritual Life > Diagnosis is Spiritual Depletion: An Answer to What's Going On in the World Today
Some days I find myself looking at title for some media story and asking “what is going on?” SurrenderedPen provides insight to shed light on this timeless question.
The Return of the Servant Leader: A Lesson in Assuming Responsibility Like King David
The story of David doing a census may sound innocent, and the consequence of this act may sound harsh. The truth is what needs to be told.
What is God’s Plan: The 3 Plans Which Lead to an Ultimate Plan
God wanted relationship with us from day one, and he got it until…sin.
Now there are 3 plans which lead to an ultimate plan to connect us back to the loving God.
There's a Hole in My Soul: How to Satisfy the Longing Within You
Something is missing from my life. Maybe you’ve said these words. Maybe you’ve heard someone say them. In either situation, the words sound familiar to us.
First Love Lost: Ask and answer the question of how did you get here.
I’m not alone. We’ve all done it. Left one place and ended up in another with no recollection of how you got to the destination. You barely recall street signs or lights. You don’t remember passing familiar landmarks. Dazed and confused you ask, “How did I get here?”
How to know if you’ve lost your first love
It might be difficult to know what it looks like not to have God as your first love. This article includes a list of indicators that your priority of love may not be for God.
Where did the hole come from?
Everyone has a hole within it’s a longing for something to fill thing, to complete them. Where did this hole come from?.
Do You Recall Your First Love?
Think back to your first love and focus on how it made you feel to love someone this way. Although, today you know you should not have given so much of yourself, recall that you did. Do you remember the feeling?
Feed Your Spirit: Good versus Bad
What are you using to feed your spirit? That was a question for the second poll I once posted. The response I got most was “relationships.”
The survey also suggested that people may use money, books and magazines, news, music, hobbies and games, entertainment, activity and exercise, and even work to feed their spirit. All of these are probably part of someone’s everyday activities, but the one which consumes a significant part of a person’s time will be the primary way they feed their spirit.
Feed Your Spirit with the Attitude of Giving
Two-year-old Bella stood with her plump, bare feet pressed into the carpet. Her hair was a wreck; strands of it pointed in every direction. Her face was contorted with anger. Clenching her hands into two small fists, Bella screamed, “Mine.” This is the attitude many of us have when it comes to giving.
Fuel Your Spirit with the News
Cras justo odio, dapibus ac facilisis in, egestas eget quam. Donec sed odio dui. Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus. Nullam quis risus eget urna mollis ornare vel eu leo.
Why did God allow this to happen to me?
The question important to most adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, Christian or otherwise. It may be asked following the abuse or it may take years to surface.
The question makes us uncomfortable because it feels like we are challenging God. Emotional feelings toward God including anger, disappointment, or perhaps doubt. The hardest part isn’t the question itself, but the answer because it will never be specific enough.