Articles
Bible Verses for Overeating Disorder
Is overeating a struggle for you? Many of us face this struggle daily in our abundant culture, where food is tempting and readily available. However, the Bible can help you have better health by reminding you to curb your overeating habits. When you use specific verses of God’s Word to prepare yourself, you can fight back with confidence when you are tempted to overeat. Jesus used Scripture to fight temptation at a time when he was very hungry (Matt. 4:1-11). If he did this to overcome Satan, we can do the same thing to gain spiritual victory. The following verses are [...]
What is OCD and Do I Have It?
Have you ever wondered, “What is OCD and do I have it?” Perhaps thoughts like these sound familiar: “Did I turn the stove off before I left for work?” “I need to make sure the locks are secure one last time or something bad will happen to my family.” “My hands feel dirty even after five times washing.” “If I don’t follow through with [this compulsion], I may be responsible for a loved one’s death.” Do these or similar thoughts occupy your mind each day? Do you find yourself spending too much time ruminating on thoughts you didn’t choose to reflect [...]
Faith and Healing for the Emotionally Unavailable Heart
Some relationships look fine on the surface, but something essential is missing on the inside. The conversations happen, and plans are made, but life keeps moving, and the emotional connection that should anchor it feels out of reach. It could be a partner, a parent, or an emotionally unavailable sibling, leaving a person questioning their worth, their perception, and their faith. The desire to be truly known and to matter to someone is not something to be considered prideful. It is, in fact, a human desire for genuine connection that has been wired into us from the beginning. God created us with [...]
PTSD and Relationships: How You Can Find Hope by Healing Together
Trauma doesn’t stay contained to one person. PTSD and relationships are often intertwined because of the effects of post-traumatic stress. This ripples out and touches the people closest to you. Partners, friends, and family members often navigate the unfamiliar territory of emotional distance and protective walls within these relationships. The person they love has built barriers that feel impossible to cross because of trauma. This isn’t about understanding what PTSD is. The challenge involves recognizing how the trauma will reshape how you connect, trust, and feel safe with others around you. The result is complex, where the survivor and their loved ones [...]
Divorce and Children: What Your Kids Want You to Know About Their Emotional Needs
No one plans on getting divorced when they say, “I do.” But life happens. Previous family-of-origin cultural norms and communication styles can tend to stand at the forefront of unresolved issues. Circumstances change, and people can grow apart, with unresolved resentment and unforgiveness. When people begin to only exist in their marriage, interactions and healthy communication will become difficult, and sometimes divorce may become unavoidable. While divorce can be a trauma for the adults going through it, it can have an even bigger impact on the children involved. Depending on the age of the child, normally they do not have the [...]
When Comfort Can Kill: The Dangers of Emotional Eating
We cannot take emotions lightly, yet they are hard to define. How do you explain to someone what love feels like? Or grief? Or sadness? Feelings can overtake us and even cause physical ailments. Have you ever been so worried about something that it made you sick to your stomach or gave you an excruciating headache? Some people seek solace and comfort in food. It can start innocently enough: Choosing to celebrate accomplishments with dinners out or soothing a heartache with pints of ice cream. Unfortunately, the mind decides this is a rewarding behavior and releases a cascade of feel-good chemicals. [...]
Teen Drug Abuse: What to Know and How to Help
In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, substance abuse among adolescents has been at lower levels than before the pandemic. It’s not entirely certain what has contributed to this, but the National Institute on Drug Abuse has indicated that the reported use of alcohol, nicotine vaping, and cannabis in the twelve months before the survey found levels of use have “generally declined from or held steady” compared with previous years. This is undoubtedly good news, with the survey indicating, for instance, that alcohol use declined among 10th graders, with a reported use of 26.1% in the past twelve months (compared to [...]
Emotional Attachment: Emotional Dumping or Vulnerability?
You’ve probably experienced it. Maybe you were on the receiving end. A friend stops by, and before you can even get past the niceties, they dump a month’s worth of their tears and fears at your feet. Or maybe it was you. Something built up inside of you all day, all week, maybe all month, and the moment someone asked, “How are you?” it all spilled out of your mouth in one unfiltered, jarringly authentic rush. That’s what has become popularly known as “emotional dumping.” You’ve probably heard about it on social media. There, it’s praised as equal to being vulnerable, [...]
Finding God in the Middle of Mental Exhaustion and Chronic Fatigue
Sometimes we experience a specific kind of tiredness that sleep doesn’t fix. We try to lie down at the end of the day in hopes of waking up the next morning feeling refreshed. But we’re disappointed when we wake up feeling just as depleted as we were when we closed our eyes. Mental exhaustion and chronic fatigue are more complicated than we think. Chronic fatigue or mental exhaustion is not just a temporary condition, and a good night’s rest or a long weekend does not resolve it. It is a persistent experience that seeps into our thoughts and emotions in the [...]