Stepping Into Failure

Stepping into Failure

Helping someone who is struggling with a nagging sense of failure can be difficult. Failure wants to quickly scribe an identity on to a person without giving them more than a second glance. And in order to truly help someone, it takes more than a simple thirty second conversation.

Remember this first before jumping in to serve: People’s reactions to failures reveal much about them. Most people don’t breakdown and cry unless they are facing something that is too big for them to handle. Observe everything you can before approaching their struggles. Verbally recognize their pain and in humility ask if they’d be willing to share it with you. Always think of this as a blessing, that someone is willing to trust you enough to share their burdens with you.

Speaking & Teaching

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Courage in the Midst of Grief and Sadness

Courage in the Face of Grief and Sadness

Courage is the ability to do something frightening; having strength to face pain or grief. Ambrose Redmoon says “courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.” Courage, therefore, only takes place when fear is actually present. Being brave is going face to face with fear, feeling scared to do something, but choosing to do it anyway.

How Depression is Different for a Christian.

How Depression is Different for a CHristain

Depression tends to have a say in our lives. While everyone feels reasonably sad from time to time, depression’s influence is unreasonable and often merciless. Depression wants to convince us of a different narrative, a narrative that contains distortions of truth about ourselves and the world around us. Its grasp refuses to let us go.

Some days it has more in common with a domestic abuser, a drunken and abusive spouse, than it does with feelings of mere sadness. Even when its presence is distant, its narrative has more control over us than we’d like to admit. Pretending it isn’t there, drowning its influence through our addictions of choice, or simply giving in to its power sometimes feels like our only response. Fortunately, for the Christian, there is more to the story.

Marriage Is Not A Competition

By Jennifer Stuckert, MA MFT, LPC & Jonathan Stuckert MA, M Phil (candidate)

There are many places in life where competition is welcome, celebrated, encouraged and even helpful. But, marriage is not one of them. When competition becomes one of your key outlooks on marriage you will unknowingly trade it for safety and security. This may not seem like a big deal at first. But, an enduring Godly marriage requires these qualities. Across time a healthy couple bestows these things to one another but, that is not possible if there is a spirit of competition.

When one partner sets themselves against the other, even in jest, the end result is typically scrutiny, uncertainty, and criticism. These are not very positive words. Sometimes this starts from a good place when a couple wants to be playful and tease one another. Then by all means be playful, but encourage one another’s strengths. However, be careful not to one up the other person.