My daughter is learning to self-soothe when she goes to sleep. If she wakes up when we drop her in her crib, or if she wakes in the middle of the night, she tends to cry. But weeks ago, she cried for a long period of time, now she’s starting to only cry for a minute at most. Somehow, she's developing that ability to calm down and go back to sleep.

I remember being a kid and feeling that uneasy feeling of laying awake in your bed and not being able to fall asleep. At some point, I learned at school that Jesus’ name has the power to drive out fear, and I decided to apply it to that creepy feeling that something will come crawling out of the shadows in your dark room. I started to just say aloud, into the darkness the name of Jesus. Even now when that feeling comes over me I do the same thing. And always, without fail, I instantly feel a calm come over me, driving out my fear.

Life can be super discouraging; we all know that first-hand. There are things that we hope for, places we dream of going and things we long to do, and sometimes, things just don’t turn out the way we expect. Hope isn’t something that comes naturally to us. It’s like trust, it needs to be built and exercised. Trying to build trust in a rocky relationship that isn’t necessarily good for you is challenging and usually doesn't work. But when you build trust with someone that genuinely cares about you and your feelings, it becomes a firm relationship that you can rely on.