Many of us struggle to keep up with the crazy pace of life’s demands. Our to-do lists are long...commitments, people, and duties seem to insist on having our attention all at once. We are responsible for meeting our own basic needs, like nourishing our bodies and moving in ways that help us thrive. And we often get sucked into a hustle culture that deceives us into believing we must perform and achieve to please God (even when, deep down, we know that isn’t true).

Without realizing it, things become out of balance, broken, and debilitated. We make our best attempts to thrive in chaos while operating at elusive speeds to the point of breakdown.

God adores spending time with us. And while He does desire our best, He knows our best requires rest and time with Him.

Our souls are healed through union with Christ.

“Shalom”, the Hebrew word for peace, means “to bring peace”, “to make things as they should be”, or “to be...

As long as I remember, I’ve struggled with body image, and I believed I was fat. I was constantly comparing myself with others, and finding my value in what I believed *they believed* about me.

As I entered high school, I began to make changes that led me down a path of disordered eating.

In January of 2016, I was hospitalized for anorexia nervosa. I spent 7 weeks in the hospital. During this time, I began counseling, often with my parents present. That started the journey of recovery, but I was mostly unwilling on my part; it was forced by my parents and I only consented as long as it enabled me to do what I wanted to do.

I entered a “mostly recovered” state, which I lived in for a long time. This involved extremely strict rules about food and exercise, and an obsession with performance. It may have been healthier than previous behavior, yet still not a healthy way to live.

I certainly was not walking in freedom.

In the fall of 2022, I...

“Mom, I think I have an eating disorder.”

My daughter knew that I had struggled with an ED as a teen, and she was coming to me for help. I was glad that she told me, yet this hit me hard.

At fourteen, I’d spent nine months of my life in a residential treatment facility behind a door that swung shut and locked when we entered (terrifying!) Hearing that my girl was struggling felt like she was implying that I'd been doing something wrong; maybe she had gotten a message from me that her body needed to be different.

I felt embarrassed and ashamed because I thought I had done a good job of “getting over” my ED; I thought I was setting a good example of how to be “healthy.”

Now I was confused and anxious.

I found a therapist and a dietician for my daughter, and before long, the therapist told us that she'd need an intensive treatment program (partial hospitalization PHP). I fought this tooth & nail; anything to keep her in school for...

Are you grateful?

Most of us would probably answer, “Yes”.  But how grateful are we?

It’s easy to be grateful during good times, when life is going beautifully- relationships are joyful and enriching, we’re productive at work, we’re healthy, and fruitful in our ministry. But are we also grateful when life starts to spiral downward; fractured relationships, health concerns, not feeling needed, or doubting our purpose.

Gratitude is a way of life, not just being thankful when life is going well, then being ungrateful when life is hard.

We must make an intentional choice to be grateful.

This can be challenging when life’s stressors escalate. We need an attitude of gratitude that is not dependent on our circumstances.

So how can we cultivate gratitude?

We need to develop a heart posture of humility; being thankful for the Lord’s provision. He knows exactly what we need and when we need it. He has blessed us far more than we deserve,...

I was 8 years old when I got my first look at pornography. 

It was way before the internet, and at that time, this type of book would either come through the mail in a plain brown wrapper or be purchased at an adult bookshop. I can’t tell you how my parents got them, I know it was easy to find them in their closet.

With a bit of effort, I would climb onto an open drawer and up to the top shelf where the stack of “picture books” were. And on stay-at-home days, if my mom was working and out of the house, this was a ritual, something I anticipated. This was the pattern until I was 19 and accepted the Lord. I actually took them with me when I moved out, and then dumped them in a dumpster, like a sacrifice.

At 8 years old, I had no idea what these feelings were going on in my body as I looked at the pictures, but I did know that when I grew up, I would look just like those beautiful women, with large breasts and curvy hips and make-up and manicured nails.

...

By worldly standards, she isn’t pretty or even cute; the world would say she’s big, awkward, and not smart. I have learned many lessons from my friend “Mary”, a woman I called “sister” for no other reason than we both have April birthdays. She's 3 years older than I am, but developmentally she is closer to the age of 8.

Mary had attended my adapted fitness chair exercise class at a community center for many years. One day, we moved into a room with mirrors across the front wall. I asked the class, “Do you like the mirrors?” And Mary chimed that she loves the mirrors, “I like looking at myself”, and as she said those words, my mind raced and I thought-

“Do I like looking at myself? What makes Mary different? What gives her an attitude of joy, instead of dread to see her reflection?”

Later, I asked everyone to move closer to the edge of their chair, and Mary exclaimed, "I can’t because my butt is too...

It was a busy Saturday. I knew the Thursday before that there was going to be no room for anything else in my schedule. The day started with an 8am doctor appointment, followed by drum lessons, watching a football game, and spending the afternoon helping my son with his English assignment. I knew all this going into the weekend; it was planned out perfectly in my head, down to the fact that I had a brief window at 11am to prepare dinner.

Saturday came, and it lived true to my expectations. I was moving from the moment I got out of bed, hopping from one task to the next. I was ready for this day; what I wasn't prepared for is how it made me feel.

7pm came. The appointments were done, the essay was written, the family was fed, and the kitchen cleaned up. I should have felt accomplished, and yet I felt empty.

I stepped outside to take a minute for myself, and the tears began to flow. Why? Exhaustion. I had worked hard. This pain was deeper, though.

As I pondered my tears, I...

“Eleutheria.”

That's the transliteration of the Greek word for “freedom”, used in the FINDINGbalance key verse Galatians 5:1, which says "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (ESV) In context, this verse is actually about whether we should be living under the Mosaic law and thereby be saved by it (impossible!), or whether we should be saved by Christ and see Him as the fulfillment of the law.

There are so many implications of the freedom talked about in this verse; the point of freedom is not just about what we are saved from. It is about what we are set free for.

We are set free to live for Christ; to live the life He calls each of us to.

Before discussing this freedom, I want to share an anecdotal thought. It seems to me that different people can be prone to having insecurities about specific parts of their bodies. For me, I can find myself struggling with my thighs. Some...

Am I going nuts?

Am I losing my mind?

Why doesn't anyone understand what I’m talking about?

There’s a war going on in my head, and everyone smiles and says, “That’s normal.”

What’s going on here?!

These were the questions that ran through my head daily. I felt so misunderstood, so alone and ashamed of my struggles. Nobody in my world felt the intensity of my struggle. I knew I wasn’t okay and just wished I could go into hiding.

Then a friend introduced me to FINDINGbalance, their Lasting Freedom course, and their prayer groups. I viewed the Lasting Freedom course, and for the first time, people put words to the war inside my head; better yet, they spoke about it with HOPE! They had been where I was and there was a way out! 

In the prayer group, I was nervous to speak about my struggle because these were live people. What would they think of me? To my surprise, they were nodding in agreement as I spoke, and saying “Me,...

I remember well the back-to-school mix of emotions that would fall upon me as summer wound down; I remember the anxiety of seeing people for the first time in months, feeling dread in having to abandon the summer routines I had created for myself, and the discouragement that my summer hadn’t panned out in the perfect way social media portrayed others. 

One summer that sticks out is the one before my senior year of college. I had spent the majority of that summer working hard at recovery and I spent some time in a partial hospitalization program after having already taken off a semester for residential treatment.

In my bubble of that "safe" and recovery-focused world, I felt good. I was proud of the progress I had made and I was excited for the school year to come…until I stepped back on campus. At my dorm, I was greeted with silent reminders that my break hadn’t looked like others'. I was faced with the challenges of living in recovery while...