When you feel like giving up, don’t give up before the miracle happens. When you feel like your inches from letting go, hold on with all the strength you have left. It’s hard to do these things while in a crisis. It seems impossible to do when you feel so hopeless that your sorrow and misery overcome you. Trust me, I know from experience, but ALL things are possible with God. How do I know that? I know because while I was being hospitalized for mental health reasons, I wrote a suicide note. I was very serious about it. I knew that I couldn’t kill myself there, but I knew I would soon. Some how, God pulled me out of that way of thinking and I am still living today. I felt so hopeless that death became the only option in my mind. My misery was starting to become comforting. God can take any depth of brokeness and turn it completely around. He reaches into that pitch black pit where the enemy has you held hostage and breaks down the walls and brings in a flood of light. His love overwhelms you and brings you back to a safe reality. You just have to allow it and let him in. Let him help you. Trust me, you need it more than you can realize right now. Don’t be afraid. God loves you unconditionally forever. There is Hope, fresh Hope that can bless you abundantly. Stay strong my friend.

“My Mind is a Fixer Upper and Still Under Renovation” by Katie Dale
I think of how seldom a conversation with another church member, heck even my own family members, goes beyond the stuff of our plans for the week or our opinions on other people’s choices or our usual complaints and surface conversations. I’d like to know what it’s like to be a true friend to someone else. I can’t keep this front up forever. It’s like applying some white-washed photo filter that lets the light look just perfect and yet there are deeper issues – like inefficient heating and cooling or clogged pipes.