Developing a Healthy Self
Being rooted in Christ is the only way to create a healthy self. Our worth is found in Him and, as His child, our value and worth are established and confirmed. Growing a healthy self is how we are able to connect and attach to one another. Jesus said, “love others as well as you love yourself” (Mark 12:31). The truth is, you will only allow the amount of love in that you have for yourself. I am not talking about a narcissistic, destructive self-love, I am talking about loving yourself so you have the ability to love others and receive the love they have for you.
Life is to be lived by actively responding to God’s invitation to live our own story. We are not designed to passively stand on the outside of ourselves looking in, hoping and waiting for things to change. God wants us to take responsibility for the life He gives us and, with Him, become the healthy person He designed us to be. Becoming a healthy self is when you start living from the inside out. You own your own emotions, behaviors, and attitudes
Read More
Community
Scripture teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves. But did you ever consider that love, empathy, and kindness start with you? Practicing self-empathy, self-kindness, and self-love are foundational for healthy relationships with others. If we can’t receive empathy for ourselves, then we will be incapable of giving it to others.
Another way we can empower our relationships is by getting into community. God wired you for attachment. Adults need attachment as desperately as an infant does. You were never intended to do life alone. That is part of the purpose of relationships. God wanted you to have secure attachments throughout your adult life—individuals who know and love you just as you are—with no shame.
Read More
Making Marriage Great
Ron and I married when we were eighteen years old. We were six months away from having our first son, madly in love were told by my parents that we would never make it. On the first day together as husband and wife, we walked hand in hand on the shores of the Oregon Coast. Eventually we settled on a big piece of sandy driftwood. Listening to the wave’s crash on the shore and the blue-sky melt into the blue water, our hearts calm and warm with the newness of marriage, we openly shared our deep desire not to play games and to love each other well. The safety we felt led us to take personal responsibility for the choices we had made. We wanted to give each other permission to have a fresh start. Holding hands, we asked each other for forgiveness, committed our marriage to the Lord, and prayed together. We asked Him to help two teenagers, who didn’t know the first thing about marriage, how to make a great new one—we wanted to create a marriage that would last.
Read More
