IBC Blog

Hope & Healing

Voices in My Head

I struggle deeply with not being enough, with body image, and with internal critical words toward myself. I can help others through their similar struggles, sharing all the good that God has for them, but it has always felt indulgent for me to believe the same things for myself.

Hope & Healing

Sacrificial Love

During this month of February where we focus our attention on those we love, I have often asked myself what sacrificial love should really look like. Having experienced loss, trauma, and abuse, sacrificial love for me tends to cross over into what looks more like codependency than the love Christ offers us. This often leaves me asking how I am to love myself while I’m loving others.

Hope & Healing

A Gaslighter's Secret Strategies

If you've been in close relationship with a narcissist, you probably have experienced something mental health experts call “gaslighting”. Gaslighting is a manipulation strategy used to gain power over someone for a variety of reasons.

Hope & Healing

The Lucy Syndrome

My name should have been Lucy. You know, the 1950’s sitcom about the crazy redhead married to Ricky Ricardo. She and Ethel were always getting into some kind of trouble or crazy situation.

Hope & Healing

Realistic Optimism

I used to think I could define myself by what our pastor Barry would call a “realistic optimist.” I think those of us who are believers really should live in that space; seeing things as they really are yet being optimistic that God is at work and we have hope. It took walking through some particularly dark times to realize that I’d been living according to the wrong definition of this term my entire life.

Formed

Agreements and Vows

Lately I’ve been reading through John Eldredge’s Restoration Year devotional. I had saved it for a whole year and a half. I did want to get through my other morning readings first before I started this one. But it was almost as if I sensed I wasn’t ready for restoration. Or maybe I was thinking it might be too much work. But as I’ve gone through each day, I’ve realized I started it in just the right year.

This year has required us to sequester in our homes due to Covid-19. It’s given me time to reflect, to pray deeply, to journal more. Of course, I have to choose that over binge-watching Little Fires Everywhere, or Dead to Me. But when I have made the choice,