Category: Moving Forward
Posted on March 22, 2015
by MJ
Leave a Comment
I am trying to put meaning to my circumstances as they intensify, and they are intensifying. Every day is an adventure and not a good one. I don’t know what’s going to happen next with my husband, and each of my daughters has had… Continue Reading “Applying Meaning”
Category: abuse in families, encouragement, Moving Forward, relationships, therapy, Truth, Women's IssuesTags: applying meaning to suffering, differentiation, encouragement, preventing parental alienation, self-care, therapy, truth, women's identities
Posted on March 10, 2015
by MJ
2 Comments
Where does resiliency come from? I don’t know. I’ve read that it comes from a sense of being loved. Early in life, if a child senses that they are loved by at least one person, then they will have some kind of resiliency in… Continue Reading “Prayer and Resiliency”
Category: encouragement, Faith, God, Healing, Moving Forward, prayerTags: encouragement, God, personal God, prayer, Psalms, resiliency
Posted on January 11, 2015
by MJ
Leave a Comment
What’s it like to read the same story over and over again and know the ending? Children seem to love this. My daughters each had a favorite story that they insisted I read them repeatedly. Each time I read it they were wide-eyed with… Continue Reading “Three Days”
Category: Christianity, encouragement, Faith, God, Healing, Jesus, Moving Forward, RedemptionTags: Christianity, Faith, feeling abandoned, God, grief, healing process, journeying with God, personal God, restoration
Posted on January 10, 2015
by MJ
Leave a Comment
I have learned something about getting on with life. There’s no easy way to do it, and there’s no good time to do it. What’s more, there is absolutely no pain-free way to do it either. Hollywood has played a bigger role in our… Continue Reading “Magical Thinking”
Category: abuse in families, Christianity, encouragement, Faith, God, Healing, Moving Forward, relationshipsTags: "happy ever after" mentality, Christianity, encouragement, God, healing process, judgment in the church, magical thinking, personal responsiblity, religion, suffering
Posted on December 31, 2014
by MJ
Leave a Comment
There must be a strange connection between my need for assertiveness practice and ordering drinks. It’s always the drinks! I just wrote a post on assertiveness yesterday and how helpful grumpy baristas can be in our assertiveness practice; and, last night it happened again–the… Continue Reading “An Assertiveness Serendipity”
Posted on December 5, 2014
by MJ
8 Comments
I don’t know how many people are familiar with the idea of “generational sin”. There are many ministries in different streams of the Christian faith today that deal with myriad flavors of this idea. The foundation of this notion is that we are affected in… Continue Reading “Origin Stories”
Category: encouragement, Healing, Judaism, Moving Forward, RedemptionTags: a more powerful narrative, Conversos, Crypto-Jews, encouragement, Faith, healing, Jews of Iberian Peninsula, Judaism, narrative, origin stories, Sephardim, thriving
Posted on October 30, 2014
by MJ
8 Comments
I feel compelled to write this out, but I want to write it carefully. I don’t want to trigger anyone. I don’t often write explicitly about my past sexual abuse largely because I identify less and less with it. I have aggressively and relentlessly… Continue Reading “The Burden of WHY”
Category: abuse in families, anxiety, encouragement, Healing, Moving Forward, Sexual AbuseTags: encouragement, flashbacks, healing process, PTSD, recovering from sexual abuse, sexual abuse, trauma, wanting to know why
Posted on September 17, 2014
by MJ
2 Comments
Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the… Continue Reading “What if”
Posted on May 26, 2014
by MJ
9 Comments
I recently spoke with a beloved friend experiencing emotional pain due to a family interaction. Her sentiments were familiar. This interaction was similar to an older one, and it brought forth latent feelings of ontological insignificance. “I don’t matter.” Isn’t this something we can… Continue Reading “You are the Masterpiece”
Category: encouragement, Healing, mental health, Moving Forward, Recovery, TruthTags: art therapy, encouragement, healing process, lost Van Gogh painting recovered, ontological significance, Recovery, restoration, safe people, truth
Posted on March 25, 2014
by MJ
6 Comments
This isn’t an equipping post or an inspirational post. It’s just me, remembering something. Most of the time I simply sweep the past behind me because most of it has been so thoroughly examined and consecrated that it no longer has a sting. But… Continue Reading “A Star Is Born”
Category: Borderline Personality Disorder, emotional abuse, encouragement, forgiveness, Healing, Mothers, Moving Forward, Personality DisordersTags: adult children of borderline parents, borderline mothers, Borderline Personality Disorder, healing of memories, the narrative approach
Out of the Mire 