However, there are definitely some verses that I keep logged in my memory bank—or hidden in my heart, if you will. These verses help me in times of distress and emotional unrest. These verses keep me focused on God’s promises rather than my problems. I would encourage you to also memorize these. Keep them close to you. Put them on your phone background screen. Write them on sticky notes and hang them on your mirror so you can see them first thing in the morning. I pray they encourage your heart and lift your head today!

A read a lot of books on my healing journey. Some of them great, and some of them not-so-great. Here are my top choices. Hope this helps you on your own healing journey.

I believe the principle of the Sabbath — perhaps more than any other principle that governs our household — has accelerated that process for us. Not to mention it has revolutionized our mental, emotional, and even physical health. If you’re not familiar with the concept of the Sabbath and/or you don’t practice a weekly Sabbath, I would highly recommend you familiarizing yourself with the concept of Sabbath Rest and implementing it into your life and weekly rhythms. Below are a couple links to resources that may help you get started:

Suffering has a way of intruding. It isn’t respectful. It doesn’t ask for permission. Though it also isn’t biased. It causes the just and the unjust, the good and the evil, to take a step back and reorient their lives. It shoves it’s way into our daily rhythms and forces us to ask questions of ourselves we never wished to entertain before. However it’s subtle and sly in the way it does so. It doesn’t hold a proverbial gun to our head and force us to drink from a cup we weren’t already holding. It reveals and exposes what was already in our hearts -- the cup that was already in our hands. In the face of suffering some drink out of the cup of coping mechanisms, while others drink from the cup that conquers.

November.

It has been a month in which I’ve experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows that life could throw at you. It is a month full of life-altering milestones both tragically and triumphantly. Year over year, more than just the turning of the leaves and the transition from Summer into Winter, November always seems to bring significant change to my life.

My dad asked me the other day how this time of year makes me feel. The truth is, when I hear even the word November, thousands of tiny synapses fire through my nerves. It would be impossible to properly describe to you how this time of year truly makes me feel.

But I’ll try . . .

The world our daughters face everyday is perilous. The only hope for our kids is showing them the love of Jesus early and that their value and worth stems from what He feels about them. I’m learning that providing a safe, secure, validating, and warm environment in our home and in my relationship with Natalia is the key to helping her make better decisions later.