All posts tagged: driven by guilt

Credit: Nicholas D./Flickr/Creative Commons

Women need to set boundaries

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I believe many Christian women find themselves feeling guilty about things that they think they ’should’ be doing. We do not have a clear understanding about what it means to live a happy, wholesome life. We seem to operate mostly  from guilt and ‘should have’s’. Gerri Scezzarro, author of The Emotionally Healthy Woman, says that we have  a wrong perception of a good, loving Christian woman. She states that most women believe this is how they need to live: “They never say ‘no’.  They have an active social calendar.  They juggle many things and never complain.  They get things done and put others before themselves I fell into this trap and started my Christian experience with this popular phrase as my cornerstone, JOY.   Alas, JOY, (Jesus first, others second and lastly you) did not work for me as I continually sacrificed my own and family’s wants and needs to help others.  I ended up being a joyless Christian women trying to carry my cross and save the whole world. It was not a pretty picture! …

Credit: Chris Campbell/Flickr/Creative Commons

Are you self harming?

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Whenever I heard the word ‘self-love,’ it made me cringe as I immediately thought of ‘selfishness’. I was pretty sure this was not the Christian way. In my mind, self-love and selfishness were the same thing. But as I pressed into my journey to wholeness — physically, emotionally and spiritually — the idea of needing to love yourself kept coming up. I wasn’t sure how Biblical this was but thought I needed to find out if it was or wasn’t. It seemed that to heal from past issues and recent traumas that constantly triggered me, I was being pointed in the direction of ‘self-love’. What was I getting myself into? And how did this fit with the verse, “deny yourself and take up your cross and follow after me?” Jesus shed His blood on the cross to save the world and it started to feel like I was doing the same thing, making personal sacrifices for others. But were these the sacrifices that God was asking me to make? Was I being motivated by love …

Choosing the right path. Credit: Bertie Mabootoo/Flickr/Creative Commons

Veering off the path

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Psychologists believe that many of the health issues women experience today stem from our fear-based emotions and false beliefs about ourselves. Like ‘I am not good enough, I don’t have enough money to be successful , I am too fat etc. As I look back over a few of the more dramatic or traumatic events in my life, there were signs leading up to them. Signals, a sense of something not right. Really, it was a whisper of the soul and sometimes they were from Jesus as the Lord will speak to us: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” (John 10:27} And I realize now that as time went on and I ignored this voice, clearer and louder messages followed. But deep down I knew that something was up and I didn’t really know what to do because fear was there too. And as I continued to ignore these warning signs I was  hit by what some call “a cosmic 2×4.” I like how Stacey Martino puts it, …

All tangled up

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“Let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so easily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us,  and  let us run with patient and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1 AMP) Sin tangles us up and keeps us off course from our purpose. It trips us up and we need to be aware of what it really is and how it affects our life and our purpose. Recently, I got myself all tangled up and without my husband’s help I would have continued to trip over my feet every time I stood up! I was overdoing it when it came to taking care of my parents.  It wasn’t really necessary that I did as much I was. I kept telling myself to slow down and stop running over to see them every other day as they are fine and well taken care of in their present retirement home. But what was driving me to do this? …