Sally Hanan's Blog, page 10

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the difference between faith and hope. Faith is what you have when you can see the outcome in your mind and you believe it will happen.

Hope is what you have when you see an optimal outcome in your mind but you don’t believe it will happen. You just hope it will.

But Paul talks about faith, hope, and love, and he seems to imply that neither belief of an outcome nor the hope of one is what matters most.

Love plays the trump card.

“Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Cor. 13:13 Berean Study Bible

And that’s because both faith and hope are focused on the remaining years of our lives and how circumstances will affect us, whereas love is our investment in the lives of others in such a way that through us they are given hope and faith.

The post Faith and Hope appeared first on Pick Your Life.

There are two chief kinds of letdowns, and one is far more heartbreaking than the other.















Disappointment in people you thought or expected more of.
Disappointment in circumstances not changing.

We see #1 letdowns all over social media, and there are so many people offering great advice and support that I’d only be adding to the choir if I was to say that sometimes people suck but we can forgive and let go or forgive but suffer on and stay close, believing in the best possibly outcome down the road … but that person might never change. Bouncing back and staying cheerful in #1 is impossibly early on unless you’re made of stone. We all need time to grieve and process, and that can take a long time. Eventually life returns to a new normal and we start choosing joy again.

Letdown #2 is easier to come back from, IMHO, because the heart is less involved. Yes, maybe you didn’t get that job or that car or that house or that big move to the beach house in Antigua, but your heart isn’t ripped to shreds because you didn’t expect that thing to make your heart feel whole in the way you expect relationships to. And because life is filled with decades of possibilities, the possibilities of the years to come are wide open.

This is where hope comes in.

Your ability to bounce back depends on how much hope you have for the circumstances to change in the future and how much of that hope you can pin on other regular-Joe stories of people making new decisions and forging new paths to accomplish the things they wanted earlier but for some reason didn’t get.

It’s been oft repeated that you lose some opportunities because something better is on its way. That’s bullshit most of the time. You’ve lost something. Maybe you’ll never get that one particular thing again. But nothing is ever wasted. Each time you lost something you wanted, you’ve come closer to knowing exactly what you do want and what you’re willing to settle for.

But there are so many “things” in the world! So many lovely, good things are possible when we make new plans, new decisions, wait a little longer, save a little more.

Some people wait decades. But all those things are still possible.

They just involve work and hope and patience and some occasional pixie dust or Jesus juice and kind people. And at some point, all those things converge into that beautiful moment when that thing is yours, and you look back years from that moment and you know it was worth all the frustration and sadness and loss because you are in the place in life you knew was worth fighting for.

Back to the original question — you never have to be cheerful, but choosing joy is always a more enjoyable, brighter way to live than skulking around in a dreary world because that is all you choose to see when you think you’ve lost the only thing worth living for.

The post How Do You Bounce Back When Life Gets Hard? appeared first on Pick Your Life.

When you’ve done something terrible, shame will never give you the freedom you’re looking for. You can pile on the self-loathing and inflict as much punishment on yourself you can think up, but it will never be enough to take the weight off your spirit. It will merely push you into a dark place and slowly suffocate you.

This is why forgiveness is so important, especially forgiveness of self. There are those who would say they don’t deserve it, that they still don’t believe they could have done something so awful and they must suffer for it, but the truth is that we are all capable of awful things.

The sadder reality is that we are far quicker to forgive others than we are ourselves, because we thought more of ourselves. We were better than that.

But we’re not.

We’re all equal in both our ability to love and cause pain, and the sooner we can accept that, the sooner we can sit down our ego and start being normal. It’s a very peaceful place to live from.

And yes, you’re still just as likely to mess up in the future, and that’s because you’re normal too. But the more you accept yourself, the more whole you become, the less likely you are to do awful things.

So here’s to self-acceptance and telling shame where it can go.

The post When You’ve Done Something Terrible appeared first on Pick Your Life.

You want to keep cutting and hide it from Mom? Here are a few possible reasons as to why you cut and why you don’t want to quit cold turkey.

Cutting into your skin until you feel pain and draw blood helps you believe that you can actually feel something, anything.
Doing it gives you a measure of control of how much pain you will allow yourself to feel.
Watching a cut heal gives you some sort of hope that if a cut can heal, so can your pain, however small that healing may be.
Picking at the scab as it heals leaves a scar that reminds you of who you think you are.

Naturally, I might be way off on every single one of these, but

It’s not your cutting that’s the problem. It’s the way you have chosen to deal with your pain.

Perhaps you feel you are the ice queen or you are this vast, dark emptiness inside that feels nothing, but cutting proves you are alive and can feel and heal. So you already have proof. But needing to cut to prove it to yourself over and over means you don’t really believe it’s true. Worse, it’s always a temporary relief.

Eventually you can learn how to feel again in a healthy way that doesn’t make you want to fall apart. Ask your mom if you can see a counselor so you can talk about what happened to shut down your emotions and pain in the first place. Or talk to the school counselor.

I never cut, but I’ve hurt big time. As soon as I talked myself into being willing to feel my pain, it suddenly became less powerful. Every time I had a painful thought, I’d hold out my hands and whisper, “I embrace the pain,” and it would die down. It’s very freeing.

We usually shut down because people hurt us. They’re being their douchey jack-ass selves and will stay that way, so along with the embracing thing, I’d also say, “I give you permission to be your jack-ass self.” My shutting down would never change them, but I still had the power to choose freedom for myself. now I’m (mostly) free but they’re still douchey jack-asses.

Seriously, find someone who can help, and if they end up being a DJA as well, keep moving forward until you find someone who is a decent, helpful human being who can walk you through all of these messy emotions and come out the other side. because there is another side.

This is not the end of your story. It’s the beginning of a much better one, and something tells me you have it in you to work through this and find out how much of a bad-ass you really are.

The post How Can I Hide Cuts on My Arms and Wrists from My Mom? appeared first on Pick Your Life.

People talk about playing their part or doing their part, but

I think the way that we can do the most with our lives is by being our part.

What I mean by this is that if we focus on who we are and on living from the way we were designed, and from the Source we were designed by — with the life of the Spirit that gave us breath from day one — then we would fit perfectly into God’s plan for the world.

And we wouldn’t need to be validated by anything or anyone. We’d know we are enough, and the doing and the functioning would all be an overflow of being centered in the One who is our all in all, our beginning and our end.

The post Doing Your Part appeared first on Pick Your Life.

“There is a nahar (river), the streams whereof shall make glad the Ir Elohim, the Kedosh Mishkenei Elyon (the holy dwelling of the Most High). Elohim is in the midst of it [i.e., the Ir Elohim}; it shall not be moved.” — Psalm 46:4-5 OJB

You are the holy dwelling of God. The streams of his Holy Spirit are flowing through you, making you glad.

He is in your midst.

You shall not be moved from that wholeness.

The post There Is a River appeared first on Pick Your Life.

The valley is Psalms 23 is only the valley of the SHADOW of death. All fear and lies are shadows of things that MIGHT happen but probably won’t.

You see the huge shadows when you stand with your back to the sun, but

If you face the sun and walk forward in light and truth, the shadows will remain at your back to eventually disappear.

All the devil has to pull you away from living in light and truth is fear and lies. You can choose which way to face.

The post The Shadow of Death appeared first on Pick Your Life.

I’ve been begging God for weeks now to let me in on his plans for our lives.

Do we move?

When? 

Where?

If we stay here, where’s the work?

What is the work?

Are we really in the middle of your will right now? 

Stuff like that.

I’d open my Bible and scan the pages for a verse, just one verse that would let me know what’s coming up next. I’d worship and hope for an illustrious vision to open up the answers. I’d write down my dreams and search them for insight. I’d listen for words people prayed over us to see if, perhaps, there’s a glint of divulgence in them.

But there I was, in my bedroom, about to begin yet another begging session with the Almighty, when it occurred to me that I’d been going about this all wrong. A husband doesn’t bug his wife every evening about what she’s going to serve up for dinner. A wife doesn’t bug her husband about exactly how he’s going to mow the grass and exactly what time it will be done. A child doesn’t bug her parents about every minute of time that’s coming up over the weekend. Things happen naturally.

I understand that sometimes God does let us in on his secrets. He gives us details about the timing of things; he tells us where to go, what to do and how to do it. We are powered up and ready, excited because we know what’s what on our end of the deal.

But sometimes God doesn’t work this way. Sometimes he gives us a little hint that something might be about to change, but we have no idea as to the what, where, who, how and why. All we know is that shift happens. And so we wait and listen and whine because we don’t have a clue as to what any of the shift looks like. All we know is that God’s got our back and we don’t need to worry. But wait! I do need to, um . . . never mind.

What if:

we only wanted to see his face?

we only wanted to worship him?

we only wanted to enjoy his company?

Wouldn’t things look a little different then? A child can pester his dad all through December, but deep down he knows that the most he’ll get out of his dad is perhaps a few clues, and maybe they’ll be bad ones, at that. His dad wants the gift to be a surprise. Maybe in this season of change, God wants the newness of it all, when it does arrive, to be a surprise. Maybe he wants our mouths to open wide in stunned shock at how good he is. Maybe he knows that if we have details we’ll try and control the outcome and take all the fun out of the giving.

So I tried this yesterday. I tried just talking, listening, worshiping. It was hard to refocus on him, because, truth to tell, I’ve been more focused on what’s he’s bringing my way. It was hazy, but I do believe that by the end I arrived back at his heart.

Which is where I could have been all along.

The post God’s Plans for Our Lives appeared first on Pick Your Life.

What if the sword in Jesus’s mouth is to speak such truth in love that all hopelessness, lies, judgement and pain are washed away in whoever hears his words?

What if the fire in his eyes is to touch the soul and spirit so deeply with love that all brokenness is healed in whoever looks into his eyes?

What if we were really capable of being just like Jesus and the swords in our mouths and the fire in our eyes did the same thing?

I honestly don’t think we can do this.

at all.

unless we step into Jesus and live from his heart.

I think this is what “he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus” means — real living is about being fully alive in Christ, being one with him, united with him, which is the same as living in the heavenly realms.

Heaven on earth. Let’s practice really living.

The post Swords and Fire appeared first on Pick Your Life.

Focusing on everything negative all the time–what you don’t have, what seems impossible, the obstacles, the lack, the pain, the betrayal–is like standing in front of the evil queen/witch (in the Snow White story) every day, accepting the poisoned apple from her outstretched hand, and biting into it.

You’re choosing to feed yourself poison every day and slowly dying.

Change your diet.

The post Focusing on Everything Negative appeared first on Pick Your Life.