Articles
Achieving Personal Development Goals to Become Who You Want to Be
If you want to accomplish something meaningful, especially if it’s complicated, it takes time, planning, dedication, and a whole lot of effort. Having personal development goals can help you to set a direction for your life; they allow you to know how to apply your energy and talents. You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. – C.S. Lewis If you don't set any goals, that doesn't mean that things won't happen in your life. But it does mean you might be more subject to the whims of circumstance as well as the plans other people [...]
Overcoming the Destruction of Distractions
I'm not sure how it happened. It was a slow drift. The drift of distractions. And I awoke to find myself lost in a sea of useless doing. It wasn't because "life just happened" – it was because my unawareness of distractions happened. Distractions took me away from life; away from that which gives me life. Grabbing this, grabbing that – hoping to find some safety in my desires, all the while, finding myself holding all that I desire not, I found myself in a whirlpool of everything which I could care less, and with a deep undercurrent of feeling unsafe. Distractions [...]
Tips for Getting Over a Breakup
Getting over a breakup is difficult to do. Your heart probably feels crushed with sorrow, anger, rage, and the feeling of defeat. But there is no better time to draw close to God than when you need to heal from something as traumatic as a breakup. Psalm 34:18 tells us that God is close to those who are brokenhearted and crushed in spirit. This is a promise from God because he doesn't want you to feel alone in your suffering. As you draw close to Him in prayer, he will listen to all your hurts and fears, and he will sustain and [...]
What TikTok Self-Diagnosis Gets Wrong About Mental Health
At the time of this writing, TikTok is the most downloaded application on people’s phones. But what TikTok self-diagnosis gets wrong about mental health is a big deal, and here’s why. The Birth of TikTok Self-Diagnosis The short-form video content on Vine was ahead of its time. It took the internet by storm, amassing a large following and number of subscribers in a short amount of time. However, the success of the platform fizzled out as quickly as it caught on. The world wasn’t ready yet, but over the years - as attention spans grow shorter and shorter – it was the [...]
10 Practical Ways to Reduce and Manage Anxiety
Anxiety can present itself in a wide variety of ways. One person may experience insomnia while another tends to pull the covers over their head and sleep all day. One person may tend toward impatient outbursts while another becomes quiet and withdrawn. Even within one person, you can see a variety of manifestations of anxiety, sometimes linked to different situations and sometimes seemingly random. Some level of anxiety can actually be helpful. As a reaction to stress or dangerous situations, anxiety can help warn us so we can make decisions accordingly. However, anxiety that persists or extends beyond an isolated situation isn’t [...]
Common Myths about the Grieving Process
The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you’ll learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler (On Grief and Grieving) Grief is a natural response to the loss of someone or something that’s important to you. Usually, it is associated with the death of a loved one. However, there are other losses in life that can trigger grief [...]
Regaining Peace Through Scriptures About Worry
Worry is a thief. Not only does it rob us of our joy and peace as we think about the various ways things might not go according to plan, but it also robs us of our present. Instead of relishing the present and experiencing each moment in its fullness, we are consumed by what might happen. And when that dreaded future arrives, we find ourselves caught up worrying once again about what comes next. All of us worry. Between our jobs, the health of our family, our finances, and the things happening in the world around us, we have a lot of [...]
Tips for Effective Communication in Marriage
To be able to communicate well is a great asset in any relationship, but particularly in marriage because of the intimacy of the relationship. But however good an aspiration effective communication is, it is also demanding work and often does not come naturally to us. There are many reasons why a couple may be struggling with communication in marriage. We may have grown used to each other and become lazy in our relationship. We may believe our partner ought to know what we are thinking or feeling without telling them. We might think we can’t explain ourselves well enough. We might not [...]
Embracing a Grace-Filled Beauty Routine
In a culture of all things anti-aging. In a culture of all things not pretty enough, not thin enough, not kind enough, not gracious enough, not disciplined enough. As women, this not-enough-ness is enough to destroy our beauty and we aren’t even aware of the destruction. It can be a sad fate to live this life without ever knowing our place and our presence of beauty in the world. Much of this has to do with learning to define beauty differently than mass cultural norms and consumer marketing. It’s time to be smarter and wiser about our beauty and to start growing, [...]