Good morning... At age 92, Betty Skinner is living Betty Skinner very, very well. Yet, as The Hidden Life Awakened by Dr. Cathy Snapp and Kitty Crenshaw creatively chronicles, for many years Betty stayed stifled beneath her smiling, southern role, silencing her special, sacred soul. With God hiding my updated edition somewhere in my home, I am coaxed to climb [...]
Good morning... Somewhere at some point within this past week, I ran across this quote hanging on someone's wall: "Our deepest roots are not touched by the frost." Our deepest roots have been growing since God first brought us to mind, and disaster and depression and even death deepen us down to our sturdiest roots. Jesus whispers, "I have [...]
Good morning... Scary feelings. Scattered thoughts. Struggles strangle. We are overwhelmed. Too many needs. Too many options. Too many expectations. We are overwhelmed. Difficult decisions. Demanding deadlines. Depression descends. We are overwhelmed. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you (1 Peter 5:7, NIV). But God is invisible and God does not talk like us and God [...]
Good morning… One line lingers in my mind from the passage I shared in yesterday's post. Jesus answered, “You don’t really know what I am doing, but later you will understand” (John 13:7, CEV). In so many confusing ways we "don't really know" what God is doing. We "don't really know" why some people are plagued by disease or [...]
“You don’t really know what I am doing,” Jesus says to his disciples, “but later you will understand” John 13:7 (CEV). In so many confusing ways we don't really know what God is doing. We don't really know why some people are plagued by disease or depression, infertility or dementia, physical handicaps or gender identity struggles. We don't [...]
Good morning... Betty Skinner walked slowly from the rugged valley of clinical depression up toward the mountaintop of joyful oneness with God. How did she do it? Betty took one healing step at a time. Solitude. Silence. Contemplative prayer. Eating well. Journaling thoughts. Creating art and poetry. Focusing on life's positives. Talking honestly with others. Enjoying long walks outside [...]
Good morning... Did I tell you that in January God brought a dog walker-whisperer into our Tuesday afternoon Bible study? Let me paint you the picture. We got our 8-week old puppy last June from Adopt-a-Golden Rescue and, when I began hosting daily classes in my home in September, Tate's puppy-ness was full-blown. She was an all-out-crazy bundle of [...]
Good morning… If you know me, you know I love the first edition of Crenshaw and Snapp's The Hidden Life, an inspiring book chronicling Betty Skinner's holy journey from the depths of debilitating depression, which landed her in a psychiatric ward in the 1960's, to the joy of being reshaped, recreated, reborn, surrendered daily to God's transformational power. Aside [...]
Monday was a dud of a day for me. It began with me feeling self-consciously down after a phone call that activated the critics in my head. It continued with news of another teen suicide, a sudden death of a beloved father, and an awareness that hard anniversaries for grieving friends are just around the corner. Then unrest in [...]
Good morning... After reading a post about me living on after the life of my dreams was severed, she wrote: "Dear Sue, tears are pouring down my face as I am reading this. I am certainly no stranger to deep dark depressions as I have suffered from these most of my life, but God has chosen to prune me [...]
