Hannah Morrell

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    Why Should I Be Afraid? — Broken & Hopeful

    I was watching a show the other day that follows a free diver, aptly named Ocean Ramsey, as she dives with sharks and promotes a different perspective on these animals. One of the marine biologists who commented on her advocacy said that Ramsey jumped into the ocean and asked a question—why should I

    4 min read
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    A New Perspective — Broken & Hopeful

    One of the things I’ve always loved about traveling is how my perspective shifts. I get outside my comfort zone and walk in someone else’s path—not their shoes, but at least I see a different way of living or thinking. I don’t want to lose that willingness to shift perspective and listen long enough

    4 min read
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    Will You Jump? — Broken & Hopeful

    Our dreams as children of being athletes, astronauts, doctors, superheroes or princesses seem to hit a giant wall somewhere in adolescence as we are told they are impossible, require too much money, require too much school or aren’t going to lead us to a successful life (whatever that is defined by

    5 min read
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    Be Still — Broken & Hopeful

    When the world is spinning and feels like you are in a tornado, When the stress ramps up and starts to choke you. When the pain of loss and grief threatens to drown you in tears. When the overwhelm and anxiety threaten stagnate you in everything today. Be still. Know that I am God. When I can’t fi

    3 min read
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    God's Great Reversals — Broken & Hopeful

    What do we do with pain? I really believe we only have two options, although the way these present can look different. The first option is to allow it to control us, whether by trying to deny or ignore it, or by focusing on it entirely and allowing it to tell us who we are. The second option is to a

    4 min read
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    A Posture of Receiving — Broken & Hopeful

    Many times in circles of Christ-followers, we obsess on what we are doing “for” God and how much we are producing, trying desperately to make Him happy with us. I find this stems from an incorrect concept of God, one who is angry and sets unrealistic standards for us, waiting to punish us when we do

    5 min read
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    Bringing Fear to the Light — Broken & Hopeful

    I have been reading a book recently that has made me think deeply about my greatest fears. (It’s Living Fearless by Jamie Winship in case you want to read it. I highly recommend!) Most of the time in the past, I try to push fear away, just telling myself to deny it and move on anyway. I think it’s

    5 min read
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    The Life-altering Truth of Identity in Christ — Broken & Hopeful

    Sometimes people question my slight obsession with teaching people to differentiate between lies and truth when it comes to identity messages. I am, indeed, very focused on doing this because I believe it makes such a difference in how you live life. I think most of the identity messages we have r

    4 min read
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    Imagination — Broken & Hopeful

    Sometimes we treat our imaginations as if they are bad and evil, instead of recognizing they are part of the transformation to a new creation and new Life in Christ the same as every other part of us. I think this leads us to shunning the very creativity and amazingness that God has created us to ha

    4 min read
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    An Invitation to Relationship — Broken & Hopeful

    Many people tell me that they aren’t doing enough for God, which really means they don’t think they are working hard enough to make Him happy. I find this so demoralizing and discouraging, as everyone also has a different standard for what “enough” really looks like. We get weary, burned out and fru

    3 min read
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    The Greatest Rabbi — Broken & Hopeful

    I have many teachers in my life, and I know I will have many more. I’ve had great teachers, terrible ones, and many who were somewhere in between the extremities. I think it’s interesting that some of the most impacting teachers in my life are people that many not even consider themselves teachers.

    4 min read
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    Hope is a Warrior — Broken & Hopeful

    “People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.” (I read this great quote on Instagram th

    3 min read
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    God of the Messy — Broken & Hopeful

    God of the messy and the inconsistent, God of the distracted and ashamed, God of the broken-hearted and grieving, God of the discouraged and anxious— Thank you as we start the year afresh, We do not fear our own weakness or lack. That we don’t have to pretend with you, For you already kno

    3 min read
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    Out With the Old, In With the New — Broken & Hopeful

    In the work I do with pastoral counseling, we discuss the past and the way it has shaped our view of ourselves today, as well as our views of God. I do believe there is validity in doing this analysis to a degree, as it allows us to know why we do what we do presently, and also how to do something d

    4 min read
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    Praise and Anxiety — Broken & Hopeful

    I have been intrigued by David and his life quite a lot this year, and have loved watching his emotion be expressed in so many of his psalms. He is angry, sad, depressed, confused—so many emotions we tend to stuff and pretend God doesn’t want to hear about. David is very honest about all of them, an

    3 min read
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    Praise and Anxiety — Broken & Hopeful

    I have been intrigued by David and his life quite a lot this year, and have loved watching his emotion be expressed in so many of his psalms. He is angry, sad, depressed, confused—so many emotions we tend to stuff and pretend God doesn’t want to hear about. David is very honest about all of them, an

    3 min read
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    Faithfulness Even Still — Broken & Hopeful

    My friends in Haiti are isolated from the world again after the gangs fired on a commercial plane and the airport was closed this week. They were ousted from their homes for over a year while fighting raged around them and they went into hiding. They have shown up for teen and preteen kids who are w

    3 min read
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    The Wilderness — Broken & Hopeful

    Several years ago, my husband and I were camping in Moab, Utah with our one-year-old son. Camping is probably a generous term—we did have a pop-up camper and weren’t really roughing it. We did, however, drive about half an hour outside of town on a dirt road to the middle of nowhere, and then parked

    4 min read
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    Why I Choose Jesus — Broken & Hopeful

    I get questions a lot of times about why I love and serve God even when He doesn’t always give me what I want. A lot of people wonder why I continue to pursue relationship with Jesus, and consider it old-fashioned or burdensome. So, I wanted to write a post about why I choose Jesus. It’s definitely

    5 min read
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    Walking Like a Superhero — Broken & Hopeful

    There’s a little boy I see every morning when I’m dropping my daughter off at school. He comes to help drop off his older brother, and always shows up in his Superman pajamas complete with cape. The thing that always strikes me as hilarious is how he walks next to his dad. He’s this tiny little man,

    3 min read
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    Cry of the Broken-Hearted — Broken & Hopeful

    We cry out from a broken heart, Shards lying all around us on the ground. Our tears pour out— It feels like they will never end. The pain explodes from within us, Our chests feeling like they will break apart. Lying face down on the ground, Our desperate plea for help and rescue escaping our lips.

    2 min readPoems
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    The Powerful Force of Hope — Broken & Hopeful

    Hope is often viewed as a destination—like saying we hope for the future, and believing we get the hope when we arrive at the future we are expecting or creating in our minds. We believe that our lives should “normalize” or the tough stuff should stop happening at some point, and that’s the point wh

    4 min readHopeArticles
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    Joy in Times of Trouble — Broken & Hopeful

    I have noticed in my own life that I will look at circumstances as “bad” or “good” depending on the outcome and how I feel about it. Especially recently, though, I have been challenged to look for the good in every situation—to find God in it. This doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily happy or comforta

    4 min readJoyHopeEncouragement
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    The Cocoon — Broken & Hopeful

    One of the most fascinating things I’ve learned in the last few years is the process of a caterpillar in a cocoon. I had always thought of the couple of weeks a caterpillar spends there as a little nap while their body sprouts wings, and that is the furthest thing from the truth. After eating copio

    3 min readBrokennessHopeArticles
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    Dismissing Distractions — Broken & Hopeful

    Every day a thousand things clamor for our attention, yelling to us about how important they are. Almost everyone in our lives are happy to tell us what should matter to us, what our focus should be. We can so easily live distracted, which also means we live exhausted as we get judged from every sid

    4 min readHopeBrokennessHealing
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    Doing the Hard Thing — Broken & Hopeful

    Watching my kids play sports has been so educational for me. I am incredibly proud of them for working through failure, for staying humble and for showing up again and again when they really don’t feel like it. It’s hard to watch them deal with frustration and disappointment, but I realize it’s also

    4 min readHardshipsDecision Making
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    Birds and Pavers — Broken & Hopeful

    One of my favorite parts of summer mornings is sitting out on our back patio with my coffee before my kids get up, enjoying the bird songs and the smell of the flowers as they bloom. This particular morning, however, was a bit different because they had decided to repave the street that runs behind

    3 min readArticlesThe Presence of God
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    God's Love — Broken & Hopeful

    God loves you. That phrase has gotten trite and feels shallow sometimes. And yet, it is anything but trite and shallow. While we hated, mocked, spat on Him, God loves us. While we ran from Him and fought any call of His to come to Him, God loves us. While we rebelled and invited more and more darkne

    3 min readThe Love of GodArticles
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    Breathe & Rest — Broken & Hopeful

    You don’t have to keep running. You don’t have to keep fighting. You don’t have to keep searching for the “cure.” You don’t have to keep trying. I know you are tired, And ache for something more. I know you just want to sit down, Letting the weight you’re carrying fall. The idea that you will get

    2 min readPoems
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    Deep Roots — Broken & Hopeful

    When we look to the world and the circumstances around us, we can easily get discouraged and frustrated. It may seem like we are alone in trusting God, and it’s quite ludicrous to do so. I also get discouraged in trying find something to do to change the circumstances, as I feel that’s often quite l

    4 min readBrokennessHopeTrust God
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    Simple & Humble — Broken & Hopeful

    So many things over the last few months have felt complicated, stressful and downright scary. I find some humor in the fact that the answers God keeps giving me about each of these situations is very similar—keep it simple. I’m grateful He doesn’t add the “stupid” as some do, but He does remind me r

    4 min readBrokennessHopeHumility
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    God's Promises — Broken & Hopeful

    Do you ever have days where you feel like everything gets really heavy and hard? You might go from feeling like you are totally in step with Jesus and taking on the world, and suddenly you slam into a wall of your inadequacy, your unbelief or your questions. It happened so quickly you have whiplash

    3 min readThe Promise of God
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    Owning Others' Emotions — Broken & Hopeful

    A common theme in counseling these days is learning to not take responsibility for other’s emotions. I think we often believe that we are actually supposed to try to keep everyone around us happy, and that we are failing if we don’t. We blame their anger, sadness or disappointment on ourselves, thin

    4 min readEmotions
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    Birds and Worries — Broken & Hopeful

    I was walking my dog the other day through our neighborhood park, allowing him to run around and sniff every blade of grass for evidence of other animals. My eyes were on my feet, which is a common occurrence so that I don’t trip as often! My mind, however, was consumed with all the negative news of

    3 min read
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    Yielding Over Performance — Broken & Hopeful

    C.S. Lewis said that Christians are the best and worst examples of Christianity, and I find that to be true so often in the way we portray God. On one hand, we claim that He died for us because of our inability to save ourselves. On the other hand, we claim that we are to do more in order to please

    5 min readChristiansJournals
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    Divine Strength — Broken & Hopeful

    Honestly, I am not always excited when God brings the theme of the coming year for me as I pray on it in December. It is almost never something I expect (or frankly, want) and I sometimes get a bit nervous about how He’s going to bring it forth over the next year. So, with the upcoming year when th

    6 min readDevotionalsGraceSuffering
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    Peace & Courage — Broken & Hopeful

    We talk about peace a lot around Christmas. The Bible mentions peace even more often. Jesus is called the Prince of Peace. Peace is something that Jesus leaves with us. Peace is something that might not make sense as it surpasses all understanding. “I leave the gift of peace with you—my peace. Not

    4 min readCourageDevotionalsPeace
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    Love Does Not Shame — Broken & Hopeful

    Out of the blue the other day, my 8-year-old daughter piped up from the back seat of the car and said she was really upset that someone in a movie had said, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” I don’t even remember the movie or what it was in reference to, but I thought it was an interesting observ

    5 min readArticlesLoveShame
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    God the Gardener — Broken & Hopeful

    I’ve been thinking a lot about how God gardens. I have a little garden in my backyard that I enjoy, and I’ve written about it before. I’ve read somewhere that the greatest optimists in the world are gardeners in the spring, as the sky is the limit in the harvest that is planned and expected. Even if

    5 min readArticlesRelationship with God
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    God's Loving Pursuit — Broken & Hopeful

    One of the tenderest ways I see God love us is in His pursuit of us, never giving up even when we run away with all our might. This isn’t an aggressive pursuit to push us into doing something, but rather He waits for us to be at a point to receive His love. He is always close, waiting for us to yiel

    3 min readArticlesThe Love of God
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    I Lift My Eyes Up — Broken & Hopeful

    I lift my eyes up, because sometimes it seems all help is gone. I lift my eyes up in a desperate search for stable ground. I lift my eyes up, wanting something to be my rock and fortress. I lift my eyes up, seeking out answers, or explanation or something real. My help doesn’t come from the mountai

    2 min readFaithPoemsPsalms
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    Rising Above the Fray — Broken & Hopeful

    Sometimes the world around seems like constant distractions. Everyone is yelling at you about what they think you should consider to be important, or the “right” viewpoint, or the way you should feel. My prayer often in this year especially has been that I would not be distracted by anything that is

    4 min readArticlesThe Love of God
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    Never Surrender! — Broken & Hopeful

    I always find it interesting to read about the battles where one side is overwhelmed with unimaginable odds, and yet chooses not to surrender. Growing up in Texas, the Alamo was one of those we heard about a lot. In this tiny mission-turned-fortress, about 200 soldiers fighting for independent Texas

    4 min readArticlesFearHope
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    Rebellious Hope — Broken & Hopeful

    Some days you wake up and it seems the whole world is on fire. And you haven’t even turned on the news! The financial strain looks like it will push you into a place you never imagined yourself or your family. The health prognosis gives you pain on top of pain, and no good treatment or way ahead. Or

    3 min readArticlesHope
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    Hiding Place — Broken & Hopeful

    Some days I need a place to hide. A place that is safe and always accessible, no matter what is going on around me. I am not denying the bad stuff—it’s definitely everywhere. But I can also experience a place in my spirit that rises above everything else, allowing me to rest. It seems like an oxymor

    3 min readArticlesFaithGoodness of God
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    The Peace of Belonging — Broken & Hopeful

    I’ve been stewing on the concept of belonging for a few weeks now. You know when it feels like everything you read or listen to talks about the same thing, and you realize God is trying to tell you something? That’s how it’s been with this concept of belonging for me. How does belonging change the

    3 min readArticlesThe Love of God
  • Blue Monday — Broken & Hopeful

    I heard on the radio the other day that the third Monday of January is called Blue Monday. Apparently, many people are struggling with being done with a fun time of year at Christmas while still having the bills, the failed New Year’s resolutions and the cold weather. Whether you call it seasonal af

    4 min readArticlesHopeTrust God
  • Present Hope — Broken & Hopeful

    So often we live with hope for the future or the events we hope will be in the future. We look forward to the time when the problem is solved, the pain is healed, the crisis is averted. I’m not going to argue that, but I wonder if sometimes we miss the fact that hope is current, not just future. It’

    4 min readArticlesHopeResurrection
  • I Will Trust You — Broken & Hopeful

    I will trust You when the future looks uncertain. I will trust You when logic tells me I shouldn’t. I will trust You even if I don’t get what I want. I will trust You to give me what brings me close to You. I will trust You to lead me to places I never dreamed. I will trust You to provide enough,

    2 min readUncategorized
  • Choosing Busy or Rest — Broken & Hopeful

    Have you asked someone how they are doing and had the common response “busy”? I know I’ve given it myself, and it’s supposed to imply that you are important and productive. Except we forget that just because we are busy doesn’t mean we are doing what God has called us to do. That’s a tough one to ad

    4 min readUncategorized
  • The Sacrifice of Praise — Broken & Hopeful

    I don’t often equate the idea of praise with sacrifice. I think more of singing worship music or thanking God when things go the way I wanted them to. I can praise Him often that way. But this isn’t what Hebrews 13 is talking about when it says God doesn’t want you to keep sacrificing lambs (as in t

    4 min readUncategorized
  • Choosing Your Choices — Broken & Hopeful

    So, someone around here (that would be me) thought it would be a fun idea to get a puppy after our sweet old dog died this year. And don’t get me wrong, he is a cute little bugger. Right now, though, after several nights of sleep deprivation trying to get him housetrained, I am questioning most of m

    4 min readArticlesBrokennessHope
  • Beauty From Ashes — Broken & Hopeful

    Walking through the burn scar of a recent forest fire in the mountains of Colorado is an eerie thing. It sort of feels like a ghost town, abandoned and barren. Charred remnants of trees lay blackened and oddly shaped all around. I felt overwhelmed by sadness to see all the once proud trees cut down

    4 min readDevotionalsHope
  • Weakness as a Portal — Broken & Hopeful

    I spoke to a woman the other day who told me she couldn’t be good enough to make God happy. And I told her I couldn’t either! I am happy to tell people about my failings and missteps because I don’t believe we are loved by God because we have a pretty image or façade. I also don’t believe that God i

    4 min readBibleBrokennessHopeSermons
  • Abiding Life — Broken & Hopeful

    So, you accept that Jesus is the way and you invite Him into your life, accepting the complete forgiveness He’s already given for all the ways you’ve tried to do life on your own, and recognizing He makes your spirit alive. In this acceptance, you emerge a new person with access to all the power of

    6 min readArticlesRelationship with God
  • Your Hiding Place — Broken & Hopeful

    When Joshua and the Israelites had conquered the land for seven years, they set up the place of worship to God at Shiloh. It had been a crazy time, watching miracles of waters parted, major enemies defeated by the power of God, and some pretty rough losses as well when they didn’t do things as God h

    4 min readBibleBrokennessHopeSermons
  • Loving Without Agenda — Broken & Hopeful

    One of the most important things that Mike Wells ever told me was that success or failure wasn’t up to me, so I shouldn’t wear it. Every year that goes by, more and more of what that means is revealed to me. Most recently, I have realized that whenever I get weary with my work, it is because I have

    4 min readArticlesGod's Calling
  • You Are Precious — Broken & Hopeful

    Beloved. Friend. Son or daughter. Not just someone to be used for a need He has. Perhaps we can’t understand who we are until we start to see what He has given us. What He sees when He looks at us. He sees someone for whom He sacrificed everything because He considered us worth having relationship

    5 min readArticlesGoodness of God
  • Friend of God — Broken & Hopeful

    Friendship is one of those things that can be the source of much frustration, and also much encouragement. I have had friends betray me and turn their back on our relationship, and it hurts. I also have friends who stick with me through thick and thin, who show up consistently and who make life more

    7 min readArticlesThe Presence of God