Posted on by She Who Rises

Beware. This is war.

Sometimes I forget that I’m in a war.

Life moves along at its own pace and my attention to that war waxes and wanes depending on what’s happening day to day.

When things are running smoothly, I often forget about it altogether. But when an area of life blows up, I am astonished, wondering what happened to my peaceful reverie, if I’m not offended by the disruption altogether.

But the truth is that the war is on-going. Like a frog in an increasingly warm pot of water, I’m right in the thick of it, even if I don’t realize it at the time. Whether I’m paying attention or not, there are plans being made and implemented with the goal of taking me out. 

Why? Because I have an enemy. Not an enemy dressed up in a red suit and horns. But an enemy who stealthily finds their way into the events of my life and tries to use them against me.

The tactics may differ. It might come through a tempting scenario – something I have qualms about, but kind of want to do anyway. Or it might be suffering through an illness, a deep reaching hurt inflicted by another or even an accomplishment that blows my head up.

Anything that makes me take my eyes off of the goodness of God and the path forward.

It’s treacherous territory. Because no matter what it looks like on the surface, best believe that the design is always to pull me away from God, in whatever way that works – pleasure, pain, pride, you name it. Because then, more than any other time, I’m truly vulnerable.

But thank God for the Holy Spirit and praying friends, because throughout the trials of the past month, I’ve been reminded that not only am I in a war, but that I’ve got weapons. Here’s some big ones:

1. God’s Name

Call God by his names that fit with what you need in prayer. Remind God of his track record in situations like this (there’s about 100 names, but here’s a few):
– Jehovah Jireh (God my provider)
– Jehovah Shalom (God my peace)
– El Nathan Naqamah (God who avenges me)
– Jehovah Gibbor (The Lord strong and mighty)
– Jehovah Sabaoth (God of Angel Armies)
– Jehovah Shammah (God who is here)
– Jehovah Rapha (God who heals)
– El Roi (God who sees me)
– Jehovah Metsudhathi (God my fortress)
For a reference, try “The Ultimate Guide to The Names of God” by Elmer Towns

2. Your voice and God’s word

Speak God’s word about the specific problem OUT LOUD. Volume doesn’t matter. It could be a shout or a whisper, but say it. There’s power in your words, so use it.
– The Lord has declared that he will restore me to health and heal all my wounds (Jeremiah 30:17)
– Though the enemy comes against me one way, he will flee from me in seven ways (Deuteronomy 28:7)
– The Lord forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases (Psalm 103:3)
– The Lord has given me the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16)
– The Lords heals my broken heart and binds up my wounds (Psalm 147:3) – God didn’t give me a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7) – If God be for me, who can be against me? (Roman’s 8:31)
– Psalm 91 is about God’s protection and help in battle. It’s a perfect add-on to any prayer

For a reference, try “The Secret Power of Speaking God’s Word” by Joyce Meyer. This little book is filled with scripture verses organized into categories that relate to life’s situations.

3. Worship

Who praises when facing trouble? People who know that help is on the way, that’s who.

Let God know how much of your heart he has and that you remember what he’s done for you before. Here’s a few songs for your rotation:
– Love you that much By: Mary Mary
– Still By: Mali Music
– My Everything By: Bri Babineaux
– The Worship Medley By: Ty Tribbett
– Stay Here By: The Belonging Co.
– Sweet Spirit By: God’s Property
– My Refuge By: Rivers and Robots
– Holy Spirit By: Jesus Culture
– Insatiable By: Kim Walker-Smith
– Do It Again By: Anthony Evans or Elevation Collective
– There’s Nothing By: Amanda Cook
– You don’t miss a thing By: Bethel Music & Amanda Cook – Open Space By: Housefires
– Highest Praise By: Amanda Cook
– Oxygen By: Steffany Gretzinger
– You’re Not Finished Yet By: The Belonging Co.
– Eyes on You By: Mosaic MSC

4. Repeat daily

You Got This. ❤

Posted on by She Who Rises

Looking for hope?

There’s a song filling every corner of my brain lately. It’s soft and somber, yet Gravity swells with emotion.

It paints a picture of us individually, worried, and stressed out over the details of life. Whether frivolous or meaningful, beautiful, or devastatingly painful, together they create an enormous weight, distracting us from what really matters and wearing us out day to day.

But what really matters?

Hope.

Not in things or changing circumstances. But, hope in a promise. And a hope that promises are kept by those who make them. Really, one person in particular. But back to the song.

Seeing all of your stress and struggle, God says, “Come up here with me. I want to show you something.” And clasping your raised hand, pulls you upward, from the ground through the atmosphere and beyond space and time, to the peaceful spot at his side. Sitting high above it all with your creator, you see what God sees.

High above the joy and the pain, you see beauty and order and process. And you realize that there’s more to all of this than you can see from your small corner of your world.

There are whole galaxies and universes upon universes being formed from nothing, stretched, destroyed, and re-formed anew. There’s an unknowable number of creatures, big and small, traveling carefully plotted paths that still, somehow, include a million options for them each to consider.

Complicated, yet there is a distinct order to what looks like chaos from down below. And it’s managed by one person, the one holding your hand right now.

… Sovereign … you are …

This part of the song stays on replay in my quiet moments.

Sovereign is a word that I know but rarely use. So I had to hit the dictionary to refresh my memory on its meaning and, among its definitions, found that it means: to possess supreme or ultimate power.

As in, one who has ALL of the power.

As in, the buck stops here. ✋🏾

It’s something to remember when you turn your attention back to the details of life. It’s something God has demonstrated in all manner of ways: here on Earth, in the heavens, in the Bible, and likely, in your life too.

That power, that reason for hope, is in these simple promises, from the only one who can always keep them:

I got this. And I see you.
I got this. And I’m with you.
Believe. Don’t doubt me.

Posted on by She Who Rises

Just keep going…

The last few weeks have been a lot. I’ve been under some stress that just kept building and building until, before I knew it, I was well into a depressive episode. For some reason, they usually take me by surprise.

I was having migraines every day, almost all day, for two weeks, not eating, doing the bare minimum at home and work, and withdrawing from everyone in my life before I recognized what had happened. I thought I was treading water. But in reality, the water was 100 feet above my head.

Have you ever had an experience where everything just seems to fall apart all at once?

Remember that workplace trauma I told you about? A really difficult relationship with a colleague and a reluctance to address it by leadership triggered the hell out of me. The details were different, but it felt all too familiar. And the more they dragged it out, month after month, the less safe I felt. It felt like I was being attacked, rejected, and abandoned all over again.

And I thought, “how could I be going through all of this again? Is it me? What am I doing wrong here?” And then, once I remembered that I’m not responsible for the way other people behave, including when I ask for help, I just felt alone, yet in the same place, again.

But I couldn’t just go forward like it didn’t matter. Something in my spirit wouldn’t let me. So, I set a boundary. I told leadership that I couldn’t, wouldn’t, interact with this person until they addressed the issue. Eventually, they at least had a conversation. But the sense that it wasn’t enough wouldn’t allow the burden to lift.

Around the same time, the new relationship I had developed with a tenderhearted man was beginning to shake. We were unequally yoked  – two people who wanted to be together, but were walking at two entirely different paces and not always in the same direction faith-wise. I had known from the very the beginning that this was a possibility, a certainty really, but I went forward anyway. And as the relationship crumbled around us, the painful rejection I felt was compounded by my own lack of wisdom in the first place.

A week or two later, I would find myself in the middle of another break-up. It was the end of my time with my out-of-state EMDR therapist, a person whose work with me had been truly transformational. There was no blow up, no drama, the rules just wouldn’t allow it anymore.  So, though we knew the end was coming, it didn’t make saying goodbye any easier. Up to that point I had been filled with dread, but it turned to grief when everything was said and done.  

And finally, a dinner with an old colleague and his wife that I had hoped would have been an enjoyable experience, ended up being the exact opposite. Instead of laughing and cracking jokes with the man who regularly checked-in with me, I found myself constantly dodging questions about why I wasn’t married or had a boyfriend from his wife. And in the wake of my recent breakup, I wasn’t ready for any of it. The dinner had only been an hour and a half, but when we parted, I felt like I had spent hours being judged and had come up short.

It was A LOT to endure all at once. I thought I was maintaining  – treading water. But the pain of each scenario pushed me further and further below the water’s surface. And when I finally opened my eyes and looked around, I saw that I was in a familiar place. I was failing at life  – again  – and that made it worse.  More tired than anything else, I just wanted to give up on everything, including life itself.

Before I decided to follow Jesus, I thought that being a believer would take those negative feelings away forever. I thought I would never experience pain, make mistakes, or feel alone ever again. But in the years since, I’ve learned that isn’t true. I wish I could say that I pushed my way through the despair that I felt or that Jesus suddenly washed it all away. But neither would be true.

What I did was cry a lot, get angry with myself and God, repent and do it all over again. But there’s one thing that made the difference.  When I accepted Jesus, I also accepted his spirit, the Holy Spirit, and invited them into my heart and my life. The Holy Spirit leads us in ways that we can’t always see at the time. Moment by moment the Holy Spirit directs us to the things that will comfort and restore us, even as we struggle.

It can start with something as simple as a glass of water. That bit of hydration can give us the clarity to take a shower, then lotion our bodies, have a little food, or take a nap.  Bit by bit, he leads us to just keep going, one thing, one step at a time. And slowly, over time, you notice the despair lifting.  It’s not a “suddenly” kind of thing, at least, it hasn’t been for me.

Posted on by She Who Rises

Just Stay … please?

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but…

You are not alone.


You are seen.


You belong.


You are needed.


You are no accident.


You were made with intention, regardless of what’s happened since.


You have a purpose, despite all the pain.


So, stick around a little while longer to see what it will be.


Decide to stick around for one more day.

Just one – one day at a time.

Every day.

And I promise you will get there, love.

Because, for real, you really are loved.

If you need a virtual ear, hit me up @ creatorskind@gmail.com 💜

Posted on by She Who Rises

Seeing the big picture

Have you ever found yourself faced with a challenge that is so big and so overwhelming that you can’t tell whether you’re winning or losing?

Maybe you get sick or hurt and need to undergo a medical procedure. Thankfully, you have insurance, so you’re not responsible for most of the cost to address it. So, you use some savings, take out a loan or save your pennies to pay your deductible and co-pays.

You go to the doctor and work out a plan to fix the problem. You take test after test and exam after exam. You find yourself naked in the company of so many specialists that you wonder whether you should adjust your body count.

All of this takes a while, but eventually, you find yourself checking in at the hospital. And then, you wait. Before you know it, it’s over. You’re at home and recovering. Crisis over.

But now, as you make your way back to life as normal, something unexpected happens. You find new bills in your mailbox. Bills for this test, that exam, this specialist, and those medications. New bills arrive even as you pay the latest ones. You’re in a whirlwind, overloaded with bills for something that you thought was over and done with; something you thought was covered. And in confusion and frustration, you wonder, “Am I wasting my time? Will this ever stop?”

This is how the random flashbacks and intrusive thoughts of PTSD feel to me. No matter how much progress I think I’ve made, those two symptoms remind me that it’s not over. It’s a problem that refuses to go away, and certainly, not without a fight.

My way of fighting is to go to therapy, get enough sleep, stay on top of my medicine, workout, do things I enjoy, have alone time and time with people I love, eat well, journal and talk to God. These are the practices that have made a difference for me. But those moments when I am catapulted back into the original moment of pain feel like a setback. A big one. Beyond confusing and exhausting, it ticks me off.

It makes me angry at the people who caused the trauma. Angry at the person or situation that now reminds me of that trauma. Angry at the world for being so jacked up. Angry with myself for not being past this already. And, if I’m honest, a little angry at God too. Why? “Because I’m doing my part, aren’t I? Where is God?”

My anger temporarily blinds me to God’s many fingerprints that cover my story. Fingerprints that show up in the supports I have that are helping me heal, like therapy and friendships. But this blinding anger is a feeling that arises from some hidden bitter place in my heart, though I know better. My back and forth with PTSD makes me feel like I’m failing. And that makes me angry.

I have a friend that I appreciate and admire so very much. She’s a single mom and is working hard to raise her child to be a responsible and independent person with good character. Day in and day out, she invests every resource she has into this simple, but challenging goal. Yet, understandably, she sometimes gets overwhelmed and frustrated when the same mistakes and setbacks continue to happen again and again. Sometimes, she feels like she’s in this all alone. Sometimes, she feels like she’s failing.

One day, we were talking about a recent episode that brought those negative feelings back to the surface. And I saw something in her situation that I now see is true for me too. There’s a saying that describes it well. It says, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” In other words, she’s in the weeds.

When I look at her child, I see a person who is smart, funny, kind, considerate and well-rounded. In him, I see the totality of her efforts in a singularly beautiful form. I see it all blending and working together in even the simplest things. But I am on the outside, watching her strategic parenting from afar. And she’s too close to the details, too close to every decision, to see the effects they have on the big picture. She doesn’t see that she’s winning.

I realize that it’s true for me and PTSD too. Where I am now with PTSD is not where I was 4 years ago or even last year. Though the uninvited symptoms still show their ugly faces, in the big picture, they have less of a hold on me now than before.

Today, there are fewer episodes with intrusive thoughts. Fewer random flashbacks. Less insomnia. Little to no nightmares. Less anxiety. Less crying myself to sleep. Less stress. Less hopelessness. Less need to be hypervigilant. More confidence. More peace.

In the big picture, where I am now is progress, even if it doesn’t always look like it in the moment. And as difficult as this fight has been, it is exactly because it has been so hard that nothing could ever make me believe that I did any of that fighting on my own. When I take a step back and look at the big picture, I see that I’m winning too, with God’s help.

What about you? What problem has you unable to see the forest for the trees?

©2022 Creatorskind