Winter Wonderland + How I Know There’s a God

Hello, friends! I hope you’ve had a wonderful start to the New Year! I know many of us got hit with that massive winter storm that moved across much of the US. We got somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10” of snow in our area. As I get ready to send this out, we’ve still got a ton of snow on the ground, but our roads are clear. I hope if you were impacted by the weather, that you were able to stay safe and warm.

If you missed my email on New Year’s Eve, I shared that I was going to be like the trees…take some time in this winter season to really reflect on the year behind me, and focus on just some basic foundational habits. I’m not getting into anything new just yet. In fact, I’m working on some really basic things because over the past 6 months, I lost a lot of momentum with some of my wellness habits, and in turn, I’ve had a flare of symptoms from some ongoing health issues. I’m just not feeling my best. As such, I’m really having to focus on the basics. I know the exact things that help my body feel better, and I just need to get back into the habit of doing those things. It would be easy for me to make excuses and talk about how hard the past year or so has been for us, and how our lives have been in upheaval, and in a state of temporary everything, but in what also feels like permanent stress. Maybe those things are even true, but the truest thing is that in the midst of all of It, I chose not to prioritize the things that I knew my body needed most in order to be able to deal with all the chaos, and now I’m paying the price with a flare of symptoms. There’s a quote from Maya Angelou that says, “When you know better, you do better.” She’s right – when you know better, you can do better, but what she doesn’t say is that you actually have to choose to do better. You actually have to change the behaviors (or emotions, or beliefs, etc.) and do better.

So right now, I’m choosing to do better for myself. I’ll share some of the specific steps I’m taking to help myself in the coming weeks, but for now I’m continuing to focus on the basics I mentioned in my last email. Having a flare of symptoms has really forced me to get back to the foundational aspects of my health and wellness, and my true foundations are always found in God, The Creator of All Things. Proverbs 17:22 has been a verse that I’ve carried with me since I was nine years old. It is the foundation for everything I believe about healing and health, and it is how I know that a loving Creator God exists.

To be quite honest, I don’t really like sharing the full story of how this verse came to me. The day it all happened was so profound and transformative as I look back on it as an adult, that putting words to it always fails to do it justice. The story isn’t about me. It’s about The Creator of All Things showing up for a nine year old little girl – The Creator of All Things proving to her that God is real. My grandmother on my mother’s side passed away when I was nine. There had been other deaths in my family before, but I was much younger. This time I understood what was happening, and I had a special bond with my grandmother. To be fair, I believe all six of her grandchildren would say that because she made sure each of us felt seen and felt special. Her passing was a defining time in my life, and as you might imagine, we were all incredibly heartbroken. Moments after her funeral, my grandfather had a massive heart attack as we were all exiting the church. He survived the heart attack, but had major surgery and spent days in the hospital. At the time of his heart attack, my dad took me and my brother and sister back to my grandparent’s home. I can remember being at their house, being upset and not really knowing what to do or how to help. I wandered into my grandfather’s office and sat down at his desk. We played in his office quite often, but we weren’t supposed to sit at his desk or mess with anything on it. To this day, I can remember how his office chair felt as I sat down in it. As I sat there, I just scanned over everything on the desk, not knowing what I was even doing. I happened to notice that he had one of those verse of the day calendars on his desk – the kind you tear a sheet off each day, and each day has its own verse. I picked it up, and the verse on the calendar was Proverbs 17:22. I might not have understood a lot at that point, but I knew that verse meant that my grandfather’s heart attack was a broken heart. He missed my grandmother, and everything had been too much for him. I knew at that moment that things in the Bible were real, and God was there with me. I wasn’t alone, and there was a real reason for what we had all just experienced. I may not have truly understood the full weight of this verse – or that moment – then, but I hid it away in my heart at nine years old, and it’s now the foundation for everything I believe about our state of wellness and well-being at any given time in our lives. I believe this verse because I’ve lived this verse. I’ve experienced it for myself and know that it is true. This verse demonstrates for us everything I’ve already talked about, but gives us clear direction and guidelines for how to live and how to find true healing. There was a loving God that led me to that verse.

“A cheerful heart does good like medicine; but a broken spirit makes one sick.” Proverbs 17:22  

This verse means exactly what it says. There’s no hidden meaning, although there are deeper meanings that we’ll get to shortly. The state of our minds and hearts, and all that entails – our thoughts, worries, anxieties, dreams, hopes, traumas, feelings, intent, spiritual life, the list goes on – all of it has a profound effect on our health and well-being. A broken spirit quite literally makes us sick.  

It has become really important to me over the years to understand what scripture is actually saying. The Bible has been re-translated, and books have been added and removed, many times over the course of history. Beyond that, different words have different meanings based on culture, perspective, timing, etc. That said, I like to take scripture and study it in its original language: Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament), so I have a better understanding of what a verse is actually saying. As we move forward, I’m going to be breaking down Proverbs 17:22 in the original language, and sharing my personal takeaways. I’m certainly not a Hebrew expert by any means and I’m relying on other sources for help. I should also be clear that I am not a biblical scholar. I was raised a Christian, and my dad was a preacher for much of my childhood. That said, my current theology and interpretation of the Bible are definitely my own and do not fall in line with any particular religion or christian denomination. Everything I’m going to discuss is my interpretation of what the Bible is telling us based on history, context and the original language it’s written in, and is not based on any religious theology, although areas may overlap. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. I’m just sharing my own takeaways. As always, I point you back to God, the Creator of All Things here. Don’t take my word for any of this. Pray about it and seek discernment for yourself.   

If we’re going to be discussing things in the Hebrew language, then we have to talk about masculine and feminine energy. As we move into discussing the verse, some of the words are masculine and some are feminine in Hebrew. This distinction gives us further insight into the meanings and energies of the words and the verse itself. Masculine and feminine energy is a thing. It’s a real energy that exists. To be fair, they are the opposite ends of an energy spectrum, with levels of each in between. We need both – and to discount, eliminate, or otherwise try to stamp out either one would have serious effects on our individual lives and in our society as a whole. The masculine does not exist without the feminine and vice versa. I’m going to speak in broad terms here, but let’s all agree that there’s nuance to this discussion, that there are ways the feminine and the masculine overlap and ways they are different, but ultimately they need to balance each other out, as each of us carries both masculine and feminine energies to varying degrees. Keep in mind that masculine and feminine isn’t about male or female. Male and female are a biological sex based upon sex organs and chromosomes. Masculine and feminine represent energy states and ways of being. Men have feminine energy characteristics and women have masculine energy characteristics – all to varying degrees. Traditionally, we expect that men will assert more masculine traits, while women embody more feminine traits.

Some masculine energy characteristics include: Being action-oriented, logical and rational, assertive and direct, independent and goal-driven, external and expansive. Feminine energy traits include: Being receptive and intuitive, nurturing and compassionate, creative and flexible, internal and reflective, flowing and dynamic. This list certainly isn’t all inclusive, and again, we all carry masculine and feminine energies with us (this is depicted by the YinYang symbol) – it’s about finding that balance and understanding how to use and harness these energies.

Whew! Okay, that’s a lot of groundwork to lay in order to be able to actually discuss Proverbs 17:22. I really hope that you’ll stick with me through the study of this verse. Spoiler alert: This verse contains a specific word for “cure” that is used only once in the entirety of the Bible and it’s found here. The best part is that this verse tells us exactly what our cure is. This is really powerful stuff, and I look forward to sharing and studying with you more.

Reflection

Are there any specific things you’re working on in this New Year? Are you focusing on the basics or pursuing new habits and goals?  

What are some of your personal spiritual foundations? Have you had a defining moment where God and spiritual truths were revealed to you? How did that moment(s) shape you? How do your spiritual foundations shape the way you approach your health and wellness?  

Take some time to think about masculine and feminine energies and reflect on how they manifest and interplay in your own life. What do you think about masculine and feminine energy? English is an inherently gender-neutral language. Did you know that words in many other languages have masculine and feminine forms that can specifically speak to their meaning?

I’ll be back soon to start sharing more about the deeper meanings in Proverbs 17:22. I’d love to hear from you, and hear any takeaways or reflections you’d like to share. Send me an email or leave a comment on this post.

With gratitude, sending love and blessings,

Kelly