Category: Cognition and Faith

Time Is a Funny Creature

Time is a strange thing. When I’m writing—really writing—I forget it exists. Hours pass in what feels like moments, and I resurface blinking, surprised the sun has moved. But at 3 a.m., cradling a squirmy puppy and begging her to please go back to sleep? Every minute drips like honey from a spoon. Thick. Slow. Unrelenting.

I’ve been thinking about how time doesn’t move the same for the heart as it does for the clock. When I’m in flow, time speeds up. When I’m in waiting, it slows to a crawl. And somehow, both feel precious.

Maybe time’s not meant to be measured in hours and minutes but in presence. In how deeply we’re living the moment we’re in—whether it’s a burst of creative energy or a quiet, tired vigil with a tiny creature learning the rhythm of the world.

Either way, I’m here. Pondering onward.

—Christine

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What I think, I become.

There’s this little phrase tucked into Proverbs, and I can’t stop ruminating on it: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

It’s simple. Elegant. But let’s be honest—it can be deeply unsettling. Yikes. Some of my thoughts…

Note: it doesn’t say “as a man behaves,” or “as a man is told,” or even “as a man believes.” It says thinks. And not just the passing faux pas—we’re talking about the thoughts you’ve spent more than 10 seconds on. The ones you let sink in and settle. These are the deep beliefs that live beneath our words.

And science? As usual… recently caught up to Scripture.

🧠 Psychology Meets Proverbs

Science has now established that stress can be used to enhance performance, not just inhibit it. Bossard and Gomez (2024) studied something called stress-arousal reappraisal. When people learn that their stress response is actually a good thing—that racing heart, sweaty palms, buzzing nerves—it changes everything. People perform better. They feel stronger. Their body handles stress more efficiently.

And it all hinges on one small shift in belief:
Stress is not danger. Stress is energy.

One sentence. One new story.
That’s it.

Recognizing your stress, however it manifests for you, as poorly dispersed energy, changes how you deal with it. The reason for the stress is less important than what you do with the stress-energy. That’s why going for a walk or a run relieves stress. That’s why eating and then burning calories helps us “feel better.” But those coping mechanisms don’t deal with the stressor—just the energy it created.

And this is where Scripture meets science.

The Bible doesn’t sugarcoat stress or hardship. It doesn’t say we won’t face trials—it says we’ll walk through fire. But what it does say, over and over again, is that how we think about those trials changes who we become.

  • “Count it all joy…” (James 1) isn’t naïve—it’s reframing.
  • “Be anxious for nothing…” (Philippians 4) isn’t denial—it’s surrender through trust.
  • “As you think in your heart…” isn’t just a proverb—it’s a law of spiritual becoming.

Our interpretation is our transformation.
How we choose to cope becomes a mirror to the mind.

🪞 The Mirror of the Mind

So here’s the ponder:
What story are you telling yourself?

Whether you realize it or not, you’re writing your character one thought at a time. If I think I’m weak, I’ll act from weakness. If I think stress is a threat, I’ll respond like I’m under attack. But if I learn—slowly, with grace—that discomfort is growth in disguise?

That joy can be found even in pain.
That worry is waste, but the energy it creates can be redirected into purpose.
That is the beginning of mastering your mind.

You’re not a robot acting out fate.
You’re a soul with a story—and every thought you nurture becomes a sentence in that story.

🙏 God’s Gift: The Reframe

I believe with all my heart that Adonai, our Creator, gave us this ability not just to feel but to frame. Not to avoid pain, but to transform it.
To think differently. To see differently. To live differently.

And that gift—your mind, your story—isn’t meant to trap you.
It’s meant to free you.

🌀 So I Ponder…

Maybe Descartes was close: I think, therefore I am.

But I’ll go further:
I think—and in that thinking, I shape who I am becoming.

Not because I’m powerful, but because I was designed to co-create with a powerful God who invites me into the reframing process.

And if my thoughts have that much power—shouldn’t I pause long enough to wonder if they’re true?

Pondering onward,
Christine

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The Mask Comes Off in the Fire

In ancient times, people viewed the mind through the heart.
Titus Lucretius Carus, Roman poet and philosopher, once wrote:

“Watch a man in times of adversity to discover what kind of man he is;
for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart,
and the mask is torn off.”

This truth still holds.
We don’t find out who we are in our comfort—we find out in the fire.

Not the moment we snap out of exhaustion.
Not the frustration at a coworker
But the moment when everything is on the line.

When the stakes are life and death—what road do we choose?
Do we harm to survive, or find a way to love?
Do we shield our own at the cost of others, or listen for a better way?

I pray I never face that kind of test.
But if I do, I trust that God will lead me.
And I pray I’ll have the wisdom to follow.

✨
What do you believe we carry into those moments?
Where does your strength come from when everything else is stripped away?

🪷 Pondering onward,
Christine

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Forged by Fire, Not Fueled by Rage

Los Angeles is burning again.
Police cars overturned. Flags defaced. Crowds in the streets — not marching in protest, but surging in anger, demanding open borders and shouting down the idea of enforcement as if laws themselves were the enemy.

Watching this unfold, I feel the knot rise in my chest.

And I think of my father.

He came to this country in 1947 — not because he was poor, though he was. Not because he was afraid, though he had every reason to be. He came because the place he was from had been obliterated.

He was German.
He was Jewish.

And in post-war America, that made him suspect from every direction.
Some hated him for being German — the enemy.
Others distrusted him because he was a Jew — even though that identity had nearly cost him his life.

The war may have ended, but the distrust lingered. America was eager to move on, but not yet ready to embrace the displaced — especially not the ones who blurred the lines between categories we find easier to hate.

“Many who sought a safe haven from persecution during the 1930s and 1940s found their efforts thwarted by the United States’ restrictive immigration quotas and the complicated, demanding requirements for obtaining visas. Public opinion in the United States did not favor increased immigration…”
— United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

That was the world my father stepped into.
And it’s the world he had to navigate with quiet strength, resilience, and humility.

He didn’t sneak in.
He didn’t demand to be taken care of.
He secured a sponsor. He filed the paperwork. He paid the fees.
He arrived in New York on the USS Bremen and stood in line at Ellis Island, waiting for this country to say yes.

By 1951, he was wearing a U.S. uniform — a baker in the Korean War — feeding the soldiers of a nation still unsure if it wanted him. That’s the legacy I come from.

So when I see angry mobs insisting that compassion means erasing process, I feel that old ache and a rising frustration. I understand the longing to come here. I really do. America still shines with promise.

But I also understand the cost of doing it right. The patience. The grit. The sacrifice.

My father didn’t demand America bend to him. He bent himself toward her promise.

I believe in compassion. I believe in mercy. But mercy without structure is not mercy. It’s mayhem.

This country needs rules. Because without rules, there is no justice. And without structure, there is no sanctuary.

We owe it to those who came through the fire — not to burn down the country that gave them shelter, but to protect it for those still coming.

Not through entitlement.
Not through rage.
But through honor.

Forged by fire.
Not fueled by rage.

Reference:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Introduction to the Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust

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In My Dreams, I’m Always 25…

Lately, I’ve been pondering something strange but persistent: in my dreams, I’m never my current self.

Not in age. Not in weight. Not in health or hesitation.

I’m always… well, me—but the version of me that feels most like me. No back pain. No fatigue. No awareness of aging. I don’t second-guess what I’m capable of. I just am. Strong, moving, doing, becoming.

It made me wonder—do our brains hold onto some internal image of ourselves, some subconscious blueprint that gets locked in around age 25?

Science has some thoughts on that.

By our mid-20s, our prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, self-awareness, and our sense of identity—is fully developed. After that, the architecture is in place. The rest is refinement. That’s also the season of life when many people settle into who they believe they are and what they’re here to do.

Psychologists call it narrative identity—that invisible thread we use to stitch our life story together. And once we find that thread, we tend to hold onto it. Even if our bodies change. Even if time marches on.

So maybe, when we dream, we return to that version. The most whole version. The one that feels like freedom. Like purpose. Like us at full capacity.

And here’s the deeper layer I’ve been turning over:
What if that version is more than just a psychological default?

What if that’s our soul’s imprint?

What if that “ideal self” we return to in dreams—the one without limits or fear or fatigue—is a glimpse of who we really are, eternally? The version Heaven holds. Not in vanity, but in essence. Whole. Restored. As we were meant to be before time and gravity got their say.

Maybe the reason I always dream as my younger, healthier self isn’t just nostalgia.
Maybe it’s memory. Soul-memory. A whisper from eternity that says: This is still you.

Because even as our bodies age, something inside us never does. Something eternal remembers.

And when the world fades—when these earthly bodies fall away—maybe that’s the version of us that remains. The soul, shaped in love, refined by fire, and finally free.

So I ask you:
If you had to picture your truest self—the one that might walk into Heaven tomorrow—
What would she look like?

What age would she be?

Would she still carry worry? Or would she finally be light?

—

🌀 Just something I’m pondering. Maybe you are too.

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Again

It’s happening again.

The old hatred—dressed in new clothes—marches forward like it never left.

I keep hearing the same hollow justifications, the same twisting of truth, the same whispers turned to shouts.
And this time, it’s not whispered in back rooms.
It’s livestreamed. Painted on walls. Shouted in the streets of major cities.
And worse—justified by people who claim to care about justice.

But you can always tell when something is older than we are.
This isn’t just politics.
It’s spiritual.

It’s the same serpent from Eden. The same spirit behind Pharaoh, Haman, Hitler.
It slithers through time, striking again at the people God chose to bear His name.

Yes—chose.

Not for dominance. Not for perfection.
But for covenant.

The children of Abraham weren’t selected to be untouchable—they were chosen to be a thread. A promise. A light.
And light, by its nature, reveals what darkness tries to hide.

I think of what Adonai said to Abraham:

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you… and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2–3)

That promise wasn’t revoked.
Not with exile.
Not with crucifixion.
Not with conquest.
Not even with genocide.

It still holds.

And I feel the weight of it again—watching history bend toward the same old pattern.
As if we haven’t learned a thing.

We forget the Holocaust while survivors still breathe.
We twist history to fit our hashtags.
We speak of justice, while ignoring the literal blood spilled on synagogue floors.

So what do we do?

We bless.

We stand in that ancient flow and speak what was always meant to be spoken:

May the Lord bless the children of Abraham.
May He guard their hearts and minds.
May He surround them with fire by night and cloud by day.
May He call to the descendants of Isaac, and the scattered ones of Jacob, and those grafted in by grace—
and remind them they are not forgotten.
Not forsaken.
Not alone.

And may we, those watching, never close our eyes.
Not this time.

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