Is grace happening to you?
Is grace happening in you?
Is grace happening through you?

I’ve been stuck emotionally and spiritually more than I’d like to admit. Raise your hand if you can relate? Okay, we’re all “not alone.” But, let’s not stay stuck!

Looking to take a step forward in your life?

Want your actions to more closely match your intentions?

Me too!

Each of the themes below links to a previous mysilentscream post that has been helpful to readers looking to make a change. 1

Love – Tired of empty expressions of “love”?

Sometimes it’s a challenging to feel safe enough to share our true feelings with others.

We fear the rejection, the judgment of others.

Sharing our feelings helps us.

When we share positive feelings we increase our positive self-regard. When we share our heavy feelings we often decrease the emotional weight we had been carrying alone. Sharing our feelings also helps us to build deeper relationships with people you care about and people who care about you.

In my experience connecting with God has been transformative.

“We may not be directly to blame for the sufferings of others, but we cannot ignore the connections,” wrote Christopher Wright.

Wright, the author of The God I Don’t Understand challenges us to see our deep connection to the pain, suffering and impact of evil in our world.

“Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

When I was little I wondered what it would be like to be blind. I didn’t know anyone blind, but I did read Daredevil comic books.

While reading Daredevil comic books I learned that main character Matt Murdoch was blinded as a boy, but remarkably his other senses were heightened to compensate for his blindness.

Later I learned that not all people who lose their sight have such benefits.

God inspired Jesus Christ’s close friend John to recorded the following story about a blind man. “As Jesus walked along, he saw a man who had been blind since birth. Jesus’ disciples asked, “Teacher, why was this man born blind? Was it because he or his parents sinned?”

Yesterday as Josh Groban walked toward me I smiled and thought to myself, I wonder if he’ll pause look around the room and ask, “Whose writing all those mysilentscream posts about my songs?”

If you missed those posts, here they are:
Hidden Away
Our Hiding
Secrets & Hiding
Secrets: As If.

Josh Groban and TreeHouse
False Alarms by Josh Groban
Brave by Josh Groban
War At Home by Josh Groban
If I Walk Away by Josh Groban

Human Trafficking and The Prayer by Josh Groban
Believe by Josh Groban
You Raise Me Up by Josh Groban
You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up) by Josh Groban

Reader JenniferMacLeod[~= @JenMacAtlGA82 recommended that Josh Groban’s “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)” be included in this series.

I had forgotten about the song, and when I watched the video I fought back tears.

Watch You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up) here. (Lyrics below)

I cannot begin to tell you how accurately this song describes what I have experienced at TreeHouse since 1989.
– Teens lost, lonely, and screaming-longingly to feel heard.
– Parents seeking, searching, and silently-longing to be encouraged.
– Friends hoping, hurting, and helping their friends limp along.
– Youth ministers, teachers, counselors, politicians and police officers looking for solutions.
Every week I see the looks on people’s faces when they feel heard and find hope.

I’m not cool, and I’m cool with that.

I wasted a lot of energy when I was younger worrying about being cool. It’s way more fun to forget about that, and just be yourself.

(Tears filled my eyes as I typed that.)

The less I cared about being cool and the more I decide to become the kind of person I admired the more I like myself.

“Grace is God walking into your world with a sparkle in his eye and an offer that’s hard to resist. ‘Sit still for a bit. I can do wonders with this mess of yours.’ ” 1

Life and the challenges we face can leave us perplexed. This “mess” can bring distress. Rather than rush into action, or sit in sullen solitude God calls us to pray.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” 2

All us us have to cope with the challenges of peer pressure. When we face peer pressure situations it helps to understand our motives.

Often we don’t let down the internal pressure because we feel that the expectations of others don’t let us — or at least that’s what we think.

We assume “making people happy” is a sign of being a good friend, when it really drives us to a dangerous place and perpetuates unreasonable expectations.

You have choices.
I have choices.

Choices

We have choices, more choices than we let ourselves see.

Last night as I sat in a TreeHouse support group I sat in awe.

There surrounded by junior high teens I found myself grateful for their patient listening, gracious sharing and genuine compassion.

Most of the teens in my small group had been part of TreeHouse only a few weeks, yet directly and indirectly each teen reminded the other that “this is a safe place.”

Safe places are too few and far between. Those safe places, cared for and nurtured by safe people are safe harbors for the strong and the able, the weak and the wounded, and the lost and the wandering.