I’m Going On An Adventure!

6 March, 20195 March, 2019Marissa

So … I’m going to France this fall.

If you’re reading that and staring at the screen like this 😮 you’re not alone; I’m pretty shocked, too.

My family has always traveled for Sukkot/Feast of Tabernacles. It’s an 8-day festival and there are groups meeting to celebrate it all over the world, so that’s a perfect time to travel. This year, though, my parents are meeting with a local group and my sister suggested we take off with our brother for a more distant location than usual.

Considering the farthest from home I’ve been up until this point is Rapid City, South Dakota the Mediterranean coast of France is quite a bit more adventurous. Both my siblings will have visited Europe before by the time we leave for France, but this will be my first trip overseas and only my second trip in an airplane.

On a side note, I now want to re-read The Hobbit after picking Bilbo’s words for the title of this post title. Not planning on facing any dragons while in France, but a girl can always dream.

I’m really excited about this trip. Truly I am. I’m fascinated by European history and French is one of the very few languages I’ve put any effort into learning. We’ll get to do things like visit a museum housed in a 12-century church and go horseback riding along the Mediterranean coast. It’s a dream come true! Several, in fact.

But I’m also experiencing some mild panic. It’s not the most prudent financial decision I’ve ever made. I don’t like committing to things this far in advance, even though I do like to plan ahead. And the wide variety of first experiences and unknowns provide plenty of fuel to power my anxious imagination.

So one of my main goals in prepping for this trip over the next several months is to not panic. There’s no reason my imagination has to get stuck on all the terrifying “what if?” questions. I’ve used my mind to come up with whole fantasy worlds and people who exist nowhere else but my imagination the printed page. Surely I can use it to imagine all the good things that can (and will) happen on a trip to France with my brother and sister.

Do any of my readers who deal with anxiety have travel tips you’d like to share?

7 Fictional Characters That You’ll Relate to If You’re An ENFP

4 March, 201920 September, 2019Marissa

What fictional characters do you relate to as an ENFP?

Just as we can describe real people using the Myers-Briggs® typology system, we can also use the system to type well-written fictional characters. Some of fiction’s most iconic and intriguing characters are ENFPs, and today we’re going to talk about seven of them that I think real-life ENFPs will find relatable.

Another great thing about looking at character personality types is that it helps us to better understand people who have different types than we do. Fictional ENFPs can serve as examples for what real-life ENFPs might be like, and also show how much variation can exist between individuals with the same type.

Ahsoka Tano

Ahsoka is one of my favorite Star Wars characters, and she’s one of three who I type as an ENFP (Qui-Gon Jin and Ezra Bridger are the other). Like others of this type, Ahsoka leads with Extroverted Intuition, which Personality Hacker nicknames “Exploration” because for NPs “the best pattern recognition system for the outer world is to mess with everything that can be messed with, and to explore.” Read more →

What Does It Mean For Each of Us That God Is A Family?

2 March, 20198 October, 2019Marissa

“See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God!” You can feel the excitement and awe about this fact in John’s words. It’s an incredible thing to realize that “now we are the children of God” and in the future “we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is” (1 John 3:1-2, WEB).

One of the greatest truths we can realize about the nature of God and the Christian faith is that God is a family and He is inviting us to become part of that family. God’s most-used analogies for how He relates to us are family-based, focusing on marriage and children. Both the Father and Son deeply desire a relationship with us and to make us part of Their family. In fact, as far as we can tell, that’s the main reason They created people in the first place.

Unity and Oneness

People ask me on this blog and also in-person why I don’t use the word “Trinity” to describe the nature of God. It’s not a description God uses for Himself and I think “God-family” is a more scripture-based phrase, so that’s why. I think we should stick as close as possible to using the analogies and descriptions that God uses to reveal Himself when we’re talking about who He is and how He relates to us. Read more →

Feeling Is A Rational Function, and Other Things You Might Not Know About Thinking and Feeling in Myers-Briggs®

25 February, 201924 February, 2019Marissa

In the Myers-Briggs® typology system, a preference for Feeling (F) or Thinking (T) shows up as the third letter in your personality type. But what does it actually mean to use Thinking over Feeling, or vice versa?

You’ve probably heard that Thinking types tend to be more rational and cerebral than Feeling types, who are typically more emotional. There’s a lot more to it than that, though, and the stereotype isn’t entirely accurate. Keep reading to learn 5 things you might not have known about the Thinking and Feeling processes.

They’re Both Judging Functions

Thinking and Feeling are both what we call “Judging” functions. They’re used to describe the psychological process you use most often when making decisions. If you have an F in your four-letter type code, then you use Feeling to make decisions. If you have a T in your type, then you use Thinking.

If you’re a Judging (J) type, then that means you use your judging function to interact with the outer world. A TJ type uses Extroverted Thinking and an FJ type uses Extroverted Feeling as their most comfortable way of making decisions. If you’re a Perceiving (P) type you still have a judging function, but it’s oriented to your inner world. A TP type uses Introverted Thinking and an FP type uses Introverted Feeling.

To learn more about how functions work check out my post The Simplest Guide To Myers-Briggs® Functions Ever.

Both Thinking Are Feeling Are Rational

One of the biggest surprises when I started diving deeper into research on psychological types is that Feeling and Thinking are both considered rational processes. Read more →

Learning To Appreciate God’s Patience and Cultivate Godly Patience In Our Own Lives

23 February, 201922 February, 2019Marissa

What do you think of when you think of patience? Google dictionary defines it as, “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” Synonyms include forbearance, self-restraint, and the KJV’s preferred translation of longsuffering.

In the Bible, patience and/or longsuffering in both the Old and New Testament is translated from a combination of two words. In Greek, it’s makros (G3117, “long”) and thumos (G2372, “breath/anger/passion”). In Hebrew, it’s arek (H750, “long”) and aph (H639, “breath/anger/passion”). In both languages, patience is about waiting a long time before displaying your passionate emotions or getting all worked up about something. There’s a strong element of self-restraint implied in these phrases. You have the power to get angry, passionate, heated, etc. about something but you choose not to do so quickly or without good cause.

Patient self-restraint is a character trait of our heavenly Father, which means it’s a trait we should cultivate as well. It’s no wonder, then, that makrothumia (G3115) is one aspect of the fruit of the spirit. I’ve been studying the fruit of the spirit because I’m working on a Bible study resource I’ll be sharing here on this blog soon, and I found it fascinating that both the Greek and Hebrew concept of patience parallel each other so well.

Our God Is Slow To Anger

Back in Exodus, God revealed key attributes of His character when He proclaimed His name before Moses. We talked about this in the loving kindness posts, and it’s relevant here as well. Read more →