Tag: Healing
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Tea Time with Mandy: The Quiet Between Words
The room was quiet, but not peaceful. It was the kind of quiet that settles in slowly, almost unnoticed at first, until you realize it is not absence… but restraint. Three of us sat at the small round table near the window, the late afternoon light stretching long across the polished wood floor. The tea…
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Help and Hope: Learning to Stand After the Storm
When Life Doesn’t Pause After the Storm The storm ends… but life doesn’t slow down. That may be one of the most disorienting parts of walking through a difficult season, because somewhere in us, we expect a pause. We expect a moment to sit, to breathe, to gather ourselves before stepping forward again. But life…
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Theo Talk: The God of the Storm
There is a question that does not get asked nearly enough. Who commands the wind? We tend to think of storms as natural things—patterns of weather, collisions of pressure, movements of air that follow predictable laws. And in many ways, that is true. The world we live in is structured, ordered, and governed by systems…
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Caregivers Cozy Corner: Rest Is Not Betrayal
The Small Mercies That Keep Us Going There is a kind of weariness that settles into a caregiver long before anyone else notices it. It does not always announce itself loudly. More often, it comes quietly — in the ache behind the eyes, in the heaviness of the body, in the way even a simple…
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Peace in the Storm: When Grief Is Complicated
People can look at a woman lying quietly beneath the trees and assume she is resting, when in truth she may be trying not to come apart. Amanda Sherrell There is a certain kind of grief that does not come dressed the way people expect it to. Sometimes grief comes as panic. Then sometimes it…
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The Country Girl Who Really Did Go City
Caregiving Between Two Worlds When I first started writing under the name Country Girl Gone City, I meant it in a lighthearted way. A girl raised with mountain air in her lungs and dirt roads under her feet suddenly learning to navigate city streets, hospital corridors, and airport terminals. A country soul learning the language…
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The Healing Arts: Painting What I Couldn’t Pray
The Healing Arts Series #1 There are some wounds that do not loosen their grip through conversation. Some grief does not untangle itself through explanation. There are losses that sit too deep for tidy prayers. I did not paint this piece to decorate a wall. I painted it because I could no longer carry the…
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Tea Time with Mandy: Trusting God With the Outcome
Before we begin, let’s slow the moment. Put the kettle on and make yourself a cozy cup of tea. I recommend Twinings Orange & Cinnamon Spice, mixed with a bit of English Breakfast for warmth and a gentle lift. If you can, slice a piece of warm lemon cake or prepare a small snack, then…
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Peace in the Storm: When the World Feels Too Loud to Choose
There is a kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from doing too much, but from holding too much inside. It lives in the chest, tight and unmoving, formed by thoughts that never quite find words and decisions that never feel safe enough to make. For many young adults today, the world does not feel short…
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Tea Time with Mandy: When Avoidance Looks Like Strength
Elizabeth Hunt had learned that grief did not always arrive with warning. At times it settled into her body before she had time to prepare, like those moments in the driver’s seat when the door was closed and the world waited just beyond reach. Her hands would rest on the steering wheel, fingers tightening just…
Country Girl Gone City 