There's More To The Story

Finally, after 40 long years, the Israelites are ready to cross the Jordan River and enter the land that God promised to give to Abraham. This was an act of faith, because the Jordan River was at flood stage. God was going to have to do something miraculous if the people were able to cross.  And he did. When the feet of the priests hit the water, the water parted. The people would learn once again...

Joshua chapter two takes us to the home of Rahab the prostitute. Joshua sent to spies to Jericho. They would certainly have been captured except that Rahab hid the men and saved their lives. And because she was sure that the spies served the one true God, she asked that they spare her life when they took the land.  Her courage saved her and her entire family. And she would go on to marry an Israel...

Are you feeling stuck, paralyzed by the challenges of the future or weighed down by the baggage of the past? When we look back at our history, we see things we can't change--hurt, grief, addictions, and shame. When we look forward, we see overwhelming responsibilities and relationships that seem impossible to handle. The result is that we often do nothing at all.  In this episode Amber dives into...

Do not waste a second of what you've been through. Once you've been through something hard (hell), you get to help the people who are still in the thick of it.  You don't think you want to go back? You'd rather stay far, far from the pain? Those people who came alongside you when you were in the madness were your lifeline. You get to be that for someone else who is trying to get through each day. ...

This isn't the end of our time together. Hopefully, it's the beginning of a friendship that continues. Keep in touch. Sending a hug, Amber

Now that we've been through the yuck, we want to learn to be stronger, so we don't easily break again. That means being teachable, and learning the lessons the hard times taught us. It also means choosing different paths the next time, so we don't get hurt again.  And while life in this sinful world guarantees we will get hurt, we can minimize the damage, and utilize the tools we have to heal quic...

It's hard to heal when we can't put a finger on what is wrong. All too often we are labeling everything depression, instead of what we're really feeling: worthless, overlooked, judged. Once we name what we're really feeling, and the way they made us feel, we can go to God's Word and replace the enemy's lie with truth.  Then, using the apostle Paul's words in Philippians 4:8, we'll come up with a n...

Join me in Milwaukee, WI August 14-15 for the Get Moving Women's Event for a shot of inspiration to do all that God has called you to do. And if you're ready to go abroad, join me in Italy next spring and experience Tuscany while studying the book of Ecclesiastes. And/or consider joining me on a river cruise down the Danube to see Medieval fortresses, amazing cathedrals, and as we near the end of...

A big part of healing is learning what to embrace and what needs to go. Maybe the hardest thing to do is to forgive yourself for being there, for not realizing how bad it was going to get, for trusting people who turned out to be far from trustworthy.  Although most of us would love to get rid of our scars, the truth is, they aren't going anywhere. Even Jesus had scars when he rose from the dead....

God gave us survival mode for a reason. It is the place we need to be when everything is chaos, but we don't want to live there forever. Ideally, we get to a place of safety so our body can relax and function the way it is meant to. Triggers are the body's way of alerting us to something that hurt or scared us before, but we don't want to be triggered forever. The trick is to learn to cope, to giv...

People say forgive and forget. That isn't possible. It's so much better to take the situations we've been through, forgive those who have hurt us, and learn to avoid similar situations in the future. Forgiving is not impossible. In fact, it's a key component of healing. 

No one likes a sour attitude. It can poison the people around you. One of the best things you can do to make sure bitterness doesn't creep in is to pray for the people who persecuted you.  After all, you becoming bitter doesn't help anything. In fact, it makes the situation worse. 

You weren't meant to go through the hurt alone. Our friends can get us through the worst. They can encourage and support us and pray for us. Their faith can bring prayers to the Father that we aren't strong enough to pray. If you don't have godly Christian friends, start praying God brings them into your life. 

It's normal and totally OK to grieve what you lost or the illusion of what you had. But you can't stay there. Once you've grieved, you have to look forward and appreciate what's ahead. 

You need to identify what is broken before you begin to put it back together. You need to identify the hurt so you can combat it and work to eliminate it. 

There's a tendency to focus on what they did to hurt us. Trust me, we'll get to that. But Jesus told us to first take the plank out of our own eye before worrying about the speck in the other person's eye. Let's start by dealing with our shame and the things we could have done better. Once we embrace a posture of repentance then we'll be ready to face the hurt they inflicted without it poisoning u...

My story isn't all that interesting, but it does reveal patterns. If you want to get past the past, you have to learn from the past. That's the only way to make sure you do something different next time. Break the patterns. Make different choices so you have a different outcome. 

Too many of us have been stuck in the past for too long. It's time to get serious about moving forward. This is me reaching out to you, inviting you on a journey of hope. Hugs, Amber