The Years the Locusts Ate

In Joel 2:25, Adonai promises that He will restore all that was destroyed in Israel. He promised to build Israel back up and He promised that they would never again be shamed. His only condition was that they turn from their wickedness and seek after Him once again. He promised them abundant life and that He would dwell among them. They would be His people and He their God. They would regain what they had lost and so much more. What a beautiful promise that was.

When we go through trying times and we feel as if our pain may never end, it can feel like the years the locusts ate. We may feel as if we have lost so much of our lives, or wasted it, and then we feel the pain from the grief of those losses. When we watch someone we love go through this, it is equally as painful. The locusts spread to our lives too, because it is very difficult to be happy and enjoy our own lives when someone we love so much is suffering. It is difficult to enjoy the good things that happen, because we want good things to happen to the person we love. We want that person to have all the joy and happiness in life that they can possibly have and when you do not see that happening for that person, it is hard to feel joy ourselves.

For me, the locusts have devoured much for someone I love. This person is finding it hard to hope, because she has not felt hope, or joy, in a very long time. This passage in Joel gives me encouragement though. Rather than thinking about that which the locusts ate, I look forward to the restoration coming. I know that God has a purpose for this person I love. She is special, so very special. He loves her with an everlasting love, more than I could ever love her and I love her more than life itself. So in her struggle and as we grieve for the years the locusts ate, God is working on us both.

In this painful time, God is teaching me patience and He is showing me how He wants us to wait on Him. He knows what each of us needs in order to become the people He wants us to be. Sometimes, becoming the best versions of ourselves requires trials. Trials refine us as fire refines silver. Just as the fire burns away all of the impurities in the metal, so do the trials we face in life, because those trials force us to learn and grow. I claim in advance that God is doing this work in the one I love and He will bring that work to its completion.

I thank the Lord in advance that He will restore the years the locusts ate. He will give back and rebuild the one I love. She will prosper and she will grow and thrive. She will be a testimony of God’s great wisdom and mercy. She will be a model for God’s love. This time of famine and drought is preparing her for the work she has yet to do. She will be a mighty woman of God! Yes, I claim this. My hope is in the Lord and I thank Him that all of this will be done. I will not allow the locusts to steal anymore from us, because I know God will give back what we have lost and much more. He is our God and we are His children.

If you feel grief stricken because of the years the locusts ate in your life, please know that God is able to restore you and rebuild your life. Allow His presence in your life. His love is everlasting and overflowing for you. He wants to see you live abundantly in joy and peace. Whatever it is that you are going through, please know it will all turn for your good if you allow yourself to be refined like silver. This pain is only temporary. Your joy is coming. Believe it! Claim it! I claim it for you. I will stand in the gap for you until you can claim it yourself. May God abundantly bless you and keep you.

Dare to Hope

There is a very important person in my life who is struggling emotionally. One of her problems is that she is afraid to let herself hope, because the thought of being disappointed is more than she can bear. She is so afraid of failure that she will not even allow herself to try. She basically thinks about all the "what if's" and she thinks herself right into a state of paralysis. I cannot express how difficult and heart-wrenching it is for me to watch helplessly and not be able to really help her. I realize that I must let go, let her go through her process and allow God to do His work in her life. I told her that even if she cannot seem to find a way to hope, I will hope enough for the both of us.

There are so many people who struggle with this chronic pessimism and fear. Hope is so elusive because, in their minds, things do not seem to work out for them. What they fail to realize is they have a negative filter through which they are viewing their lives. When you do not allow yourself to see the good, you will not see it, no matter what others tell you. Those with this negative filter keep themselves imprisoned in a constant state of fear, depression, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, and hopelessness. If this resonates with you, please believe me when I tell you that freedom exists and hope is the key to that freedom.

So now you may be asking, "how do I find this hope?" The first step is to allow yourself to dare to hope, in spite of your fears. Once you make the decision, and yes, it is a decision, then you must act. It takes effort to change the way you think and view the world. Changing your negative filter to a positive, more optimistic one takes courage and work, but it is worth it. Let us look at it this way. Right now, you are depressed, sad and lonely. Does it not take up every bit of your emotional energy to live this way? If you have been able to withstand the pain of inaction, surely you can dare to hope and risk disappointment.

If you cannot seem to muster up the hope in your own strength, there is good news. You can look to your Creator to find it. As it says in Lamentations 3:21-23, "But in my mind I keep returning to something, something that gives me hope-that the grace of Adonai is not exhausted, that His compassion has not ended. On the contrary, they are new every morning!" Please let that register with you. His mercy is new EVERY MORNING! That means that every day, you have a fresh start afforded to you. You have another day to learn and grow. If you fail or are disappointed one day, you have a do-over the very next day!

If you take nothing else from this blog post, please grab hold of this. You need not fear failure. Failure is simply another opportunity to learn. Then , the next day, you have another chance to implement what you have learned. You need not fear disappointment. Disappointments are only temporary, but remember, God's mercies are PERMANENT! It is my hope and prayer that those who are suffering in the prisons of their fear learn that God will never leave them or forsake them and He will lift their heads up high (Psalm 3:3) when they cannot find it in their strength to dare to hope. He is our hope when we feel hope is absent. Today, right now, I challenge you-DARE TO HOPE! God bless!

Come Meet Me in the Gray!

In cognitive therapy, we address a person’s faulty thinking patterns. Faulty thinking can lead to distress. One type of faulty thinking patter is called “dichotomous thinking” or “black and white thinking.” This type of thinking leads one to think in one extreme or the other. It is an “all or nothing” mentality in which gray areas simply do not and can not exist. These types of thinkers have very rigid and inflexible perceptions and ways of viewing the world. They think in absolute terms. People who think in this way often find themselves in a perpetual state of distress.

It seems extreme thinkers are often the cause of conflict and strife. We can see examples of these types of people in our social media conversations. I know I have experienced people who have berated me because I would not agree with their extreme positions 100%. For me, objectivity is paramount. I am able to see the gray areas of various situations, but extreme thinkers cannot join me in the gray areas. Rather than simply agreeing to disagree, extreme thinkers like this tend to react with extreme anger. Unfortunately, they carry this anger around with them and are often easily triggered.

Perceiving through an absolute lens makes life very difficult, because conflict can be found in even the most common situations. I worked with a client, whom I will refer to as Donna. Donna constantly walked around in a state of “righteous” anger. She was very unforgiving and managed to alienate a lot of her family members as a result.  She was an extreme thinker who thought in very morally absolute terms. When those in her life did not live up to her moral absolutes, she would create a conflict with them and then cut them out of her life.

Our work together involved restructuring her thinking in a way that allowed for “gray areas.” She slowly learned that no one is all good or all bad (good and bad being subjective terms, of course). She slowly understood that one can be simultaneously “good” and “bad”. Our tedious work together also involved her understanding that her definitions of “good” and “bad” were not necessarily absolute and that what she saw as moral or good, others may see differently, but that did not make them wrong or immoral. She finally learned that in the gray area, or the middle ground, was peace and harmony. In the gray area, she could accept that when those in her life disagreed with her, they were not necessarily bad people who were unworthy of her time and effort. She learned to love them while agreeing to disagree. She learned to accept them for who they were and love even the parts of them that did not line up with her moral absolutes.

Does Donna’s story resonate with you? Would you consider yourself to be a black and white thinker? If you are not sure, consider these questions. Do you feel angry much of the time? Do you find that you cannot have a debate or disagreement with someone without becoming angry? Are you quick to cut people out of your life? Do you find that you are frequently in conflict with others, whether they are family, colleagues, co-workers or acquaintances? Is it difficult for you to consider that you may be wrong at times? Is it difficult for you to see things from another’s perspective? If you have answered yes to even a few of these questions, you may need to accept the fact that you are a black and white thinker.

There is nothing wrong with living by moral codes. There is nothing wrong with having a set of ethics and values and not wanting to deviate from those. However, the trouble comes when you think that your view of the world is the only correct view there is. Your experiences may have defined your view of the world, but other people have had different experiences and their views are every bit as valid as you believe yours to be. It is not about who is right or who is wrong. It is about realizing that people have different perspectives. Peace and harmony can be achieved only when we are willing to find the middle ground and co-exist in the gray areas of life. Nothing is really absolute; that is a distorted view of reality. There are always different ways of viewing things. Once you can accept this, then you will free yourself from the rigidity that may now hold you captive. So, will you meet me in the gray? God bless!

Finding Your Purpose: You ARE Worthy!

I see so many people struggling. After all, I would not have a private practice if people did not struggle. A common theme I see among those who suffer with depression is the belief that they have no purpose in this life. They feel useless, worthless and without hope.


I am here to tell whomever is reading this that every person has a purpose in this life! One of my favorite scriptures is Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know what plans I have in mind for you,’ says Adonai,‘plans for well-being, not for bad things; so that you can have hope and a future.'" That is so encouraging to me and I rest in that promise. You can too. God created us all, each of us, so lovingly and uniquely. Once you know who you are in Him and how precious you are in His sight, there is no way you can feel worthless.


It is time to start changing the messages that you tell yourself in your mind. It is time to gain control of your thoughts. When I describe uncontrolled thoughts, I like to use the analogy of the wild horse. When you allow your thoughts to continually run those negative and self-deprecating messages, it is like a wild horse that has taken off, with you being dragged behind as you tenuously grasp the reins. You need to take control of that horse. Get in that saddle and grab those reins with confidence. Teach that horse to ride the way you want it to ride. In other words, you can stop that negative thought cycle and replace the messages with positive, self-affirming thoughts.


I am not talking about simply giving yourself a pep talk. I am talking about grounding your thoughts in reality and reframing the way you think. We tell ourselves lies, lies about the way we look, lies about how people see us, lies about our contributions to this life. It is so easy to focus on all of the negatives. We dwell in past mistakes and day dream about what we could have done differently. We look in the mirror and focus in on all of our flaws, real or imagined. When someone behaves in a hurtful way, we personalize their behavior, as if it has something to do with us.


If you allow your thoughts to control you and your emotions, you are destined for depression. It is time to put on an attitude of gratefulness and start looking for the blessings in your life. Even if you have not yet found your purpose, do not despair. We can all contribute. I truly believe that all of our experiences, the good, the bad and the ugly, make us who we are. If we allow ourselves to learn from our mistakes, then we gain wisdom. We then take that wisdom and use it to help others through their struggles. To me, that is one of the most important purposes for which God put us on this earth. That is a purpose we all share.


Today, right now, I challenge you to put on a new attitude of gratitude. Start telling yourself "I am worthy!". Stop lamenting about a past that is gone, learn from your mistakes and then go and help others. Take the reins of that wild horse and get it under control. Instead of focusing on your flaws, tell yourself how kind you are. Thank God that you have a healthy body to do good things. Remind yourself that when someone acts in a hurtful way, they are responsible for their own behavior, not you. Start changing the messages and I promise you that your mood will improve. The more it does, the more you will realize your worth. Once you realize your worth, your purpose will make itself known to you. You are worthy! Now have a blessed day!

Know your W.O.R.T.H. (Women, Overcoming, Rotten, Thinking, Hallelujah) in GOD!

It's my pity party and I'll cry if I want to!

I have suffered with chronic pain issues most of my adult life. In 1997, I was in a major car accident that caused nerve damage, bone spurs and osteoarthritis in my neck. In 2000, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which causes me pain and fatigue. I have learned to live with these things without the use of pain medication. In the first place, I work too much and I cannot afford to be dopey from pain medication. In the second place, I could not take it even if I wanted to, because the meds cause me to become very nauseated. So I deal with it through various things, such as icing, exercise and hubby's massages. Recently, I developed rheumatoid arthritis in my hands. It came on fairly suddenly. Truth be told, that pushed me over the edge and set me off into a major pity party.

About a week after the major symptoms of pain and finger swelling hit me, I had a massive meltdown, a full-fledged pity party of gigantic proportions. I wallowed in self-pity, crying and asking why is this happening to me and declaring that I was too young to have to be dealing with this. That was on a Sunday. On the following Monday after I returned to work at the cancer center, I realized the pity party must end, I repented to God for my temporary questioning of His purpose in my life, and I thanked Him for my many blessings. I realized, yes my hands hurt and my fingers are a little bigger than they were, but they still work. Heck, I still have my hands. I also reminded myself that I have always had a high pain tolerance and otherwise, I am extremely fit and healthy. I knew I could handle it and that God would continue to be my Rock and my strength.

Just yesterday, my coworker and I were talking about this. She is a cancer survivor herself. When I said to her, "Even though I wake up every morning in pain and can barely move my fingers, eventually I can and my hands still work." She added, "and you wake up every morning." Coming from her, the meaning of that statement was very deep, because she very nearly did not have the chance to continue to wake up every morning.

Some of the patients with whom I work have very few mornings to wake left. Just yesterday, I sat with the sister of a patient who has stage 4 lung cancer that has spread to her brain. We were discussing the best means of transportation, as she can no longer walk. I see, almost daily, once vibrant people slowly decaying from the inside out, not just physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. Those reminders keep me from staying in my pity party for too long.

So, what is the point of this blog post, you may be asking. I would like to convey the following. We are human. We are always going to have a reaction to bad things that happen to us. That is normal. We are allowed to feel angry, sad, or scared when we are dealing with adverse events. It would be weird if we did not. We have to make room for processing these emotions, because ignoring them or suppressing them do not make them go away. Doing either only creates more problems, because emotions find their way out some how and not always in the best ways if they are not dealt with directly. So, even though I repented for my pity party, I know God has forgiven me and He also knows that we humans are imperfect beings. We both have gotten over my little meltdown.

I also want to convey that although it is necessary to allow yourself your pity party, it is equally important to not stay in the pity party for too long. It is far too easy to cross the line from the normal processing of negative emotions to becoming stuck in the negativity. There will always be trials and tribulations. That is one of the things we can all pretty much count on in life, but there will also be blessings, lots and lots of blessings. These blessings can easily be missed if you remain at your pity party too long. I would have missed the blessing of still having my awesome coworker around had I chosen to prolong my pity party. If you find that you cannot leave the pity party on your own, please seek the help of a trained professional to guide you out of it. Just remember, without pain, we may not ever know the joy and blessings we have or will have. Pain is a great teacher and character builder, if we allow ourselves to emerge from the pity party. So cry if you want to, but not for too long! God bless!

Love Your Enemies

The concept of loving our enemies is a very difficult one. I am going to bear my soul now and tell you that it is very difficult for me. I come from a culture of people who have a long history of being persecuted. I can point to specific groups of people who have participated in the destruction of my ancestors. When I hear people spew the type of ideology that led to evil that was perpetrated against my ancestors, my very blood boils within me. I hate evil and I hate injustice. However, I am not supposed to hate the bearers of that evil. This is where my humanness trips me up and has the potential to lead me astray. I am confessing this to anyone reading this with the hope that God works on me and helps me to love my enemies in a way that He wants me to.

We humans can rationalize and justify the hate and anger we feel towards those who hurt us. I did not always understand how evil people could be forgiven. Many years ago, I met a Holocaust survivor who shared her story with my congregation. She said it took her many years, but she could say definitively that she has forgiven the Nazi soldiers that killed her family and brutalized her. I remember thinking, “How on Earth can she forgive those monsters? Why should she?!” The anger I felt filled me to the point where I felt myself shaking. I realized that to hold on to that type of anger would be completely destructive. She needed to forgive so she could let that destructive anger go.

It is one thing to forgive our enemies, but loving them is quite a different story. This is precisely what God wants us to do. It is instructed from the Old Testament through the New Testament. The message has never changed. For example, in Proverbs 25:21-22 it says, “If someone who hates you is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For you will heap fiery coals [of shame] on his head.” Yeshua (Jesus) continued to teach this message when he said, “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). It sounds as if it should be easy, but it is not. In our righteous indignation, we hold onto hate as if it somehow hurts the other person or punishes them, but all it does it hurt us.

I continue to grapple with this. My human side wants to continue to hate the people who hurt other people. That is how I feel about injustices. However, the side that is devoted to my creator knows I cannot hate the evil bearer. I have prayed about this issue. I have discussed this with my soul sister Linda, who always strives to love all people. I have searched in various places for examples of those who have overcome their hate and I came across this quote from Martin Luther King, “When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.” Linda always reminds me to understand that when a person does evil, it is the spirit, not the person, who is evil. This quote from Dr. King reminds me that ideology can be evil, but the person caught up in that ideology is just a person, a broken, flawed and sinful person, but a person who God can still redeem if He wants to, and we know He wants to redeem all of His children.

So, I will continue to pray that God helps me separate the person from the spirit and the person from the ideology. I will try to remember to pray for those who hate me, or who hurt others. I have met people in the past who have had a complete transformation because of God’s love. These were people who were white supremacists, former criminals, and former religious extremists who targeted specific groups of people. If I had met them before their transformations, I might have wanted to hate them, but I met them afterwards and I gave the glory to God for redeeming them. He did not give up on them and He does not want us to either. So, I pray that God does not give up on me and that He forgives me for allowing my humanness to get in the way of what He wants me to do. I continue on my quest to love my enemies and pray for their redemption.

"Stop trying to change me!"

A very common cause of unhappiness within a relationship is the expectation the other person will eventually change. Think about the folly of this for a second. You are not accepting a person for who he or she is. That begs the question; what about this person did you love in the first place? Did you really love the person, or did you love an image of who you wanted the person to be? Unfortunately, so many people fall into the trap of the latter. People see characteristics within a person that they know they do not like, but they convince themselves that they can “change” or “fix” the other. Conversely, people see things in others that simply are not there, or they project onto the other traits they want to see in the other, but are simply non-existent. In either case, this inevitably leads to anger, frustration, and disappointment. This relationship may have been doomed from the very start.

This discussion is directed towards those of you who are constantly trying to change the people you love, whether that is a spouse, a friend, or a family member. Let me save you a lot of time and aggravation. You cannot change another person. All you can do is focus on yourself and what needs to change within you. Oh, you did not realize that you too may need some tweaking? So you thought you were perfect? Well, you are not perfect. None of us are. We all learn and grow until we die, so I am now challenging you to stop focusing on the other person’s faults and shift that focus on to your own.

This is not always easy. It is very difficult to admit to ourselves that we may be contributing to a relationship problem just as much as the other person. One of the best ways to discover what you need to address within yourself is to ask God for help. In Psalm 139:23-24 it says, “Examine me, God, and know my heart, test me, and know my thoughts. See if there is in me any hurtful way, and lead me along the eternal way.” We have to be willing to accept that we have parts of ourselves that may not be all that admirable and we must be willing to do something about it. We have to openly admit our faults and then actively do something to improve ourselves.

Once we do this, our perspective begins to change. We start to realize that perhaps we were focusing too much on the negative and not giving the other person credit for the positives. Married couples often fall into the trap of focusing on the negatives. I worked with a couple that faced this issue. The wife was constantly complaining about all the things her husband was not doing that she believed he should be doing. She constantly nagged him, which made him pull away from her. This made her feel unloved. Little did she realize that she never gave him credit for all of the great things he did around the house, for her and for their children. She basically just took those things for granted. Coming to therapy was the best thing for them, because the husband was finally able to voice his own hurt and frustration. Furthermore, the wife finally took a pause and realized that she was taking him for granted. She eventually admitted that when she gave him positive feedback about the things he did for the family, the other issues corrected themselves over time. It is amazing what feeling appreciated does for a person!

So the main point I want to make is this. You cannot directly change a person. If you love a person, you must accept him or her for who he or she is, warts and all. You can, however, change yourself. Look at how you may be contributing to the relationship issues. Be willing to admit your mistakes and work to correct them. I have said this before and I will say it again. You must be the change you would like to see. You may be able to indirectly affect the way others behave if you show patience, kindness, and love and if you actually communicate in a more positive way. I am not suggesting we must lower our expectations for someone else’s behavior. We all deserve respect, but I am suggesting that your own negative behavior may be exacerbating the other’s negative behavior. Therefore, conversely, your positive behavior can indirectly motivate the other to be more positive. Be willing to admit your own mistakes and the other will feel safer to admit his or hers. Here is the final piece of the puzzle. Forgive the other person for not living up to your “shoulds” and forgive yourself for imposing unfair expectations on the other. Remember, as it says in 1 Corinthians 13:5, "love keeps no record of wrongs." Change starts with you! God Bless!