Posts tagged relationship with Jesus
Becoming Unstuck

Before we dive in, I think we need to understand the perspectives we have on making room in our lives. Some of us may hear the words “make room” and become overwhelmed by a list of all the things we need to get rid of, while others hear an opportunity to start fresh. I don’t think one is right while the other is wrong, but instead believe we should partner these perspectives if we desire to do the things we want to do, rather than constantly feeling stuck in what we have to do. In order to make room in our lives, we must first begin learning about ourselves and our perspectives.

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Criticism is Key

If there’s one thing I have let myself believe I have the ability to accept and make space for in my life—but I actually shut down, and sometimes fail at accepting—is receiving constructive criticism. Hearing what others think you could do to improve is somehow so tough. Even if they are coming from a place of love and understanding, it does not make it any easier. At least not for me. Over the years, I have learned to justify my mistakes. I like to explain myself, be heard, and then have the advice be retracted.

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How to Find Worth in Ourselves and Others

Many of us struggle to find our worth. We look at our lives and we see all the areas we fall short in, and we wonder how we could ever be of value. Maybe we have days where we accomplish something great or see a quality in ourselves that we like and we think, “Now that is what makes me worthy.” So, we try to do that thing again. We chase that feeling by trying to do more, be more, accomplish more, but in the end, we are left broken and alone. Feeling worthless once again. The problem is not that we aren’t trying hard enough. The problem is that we are looking for our worth in all the wrong places.

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3 Questions to Help You Thrive in Every Season 

Life is filled with seasons. Good seasons, difficult seasons, busy seasons, restful seasons, seasons of gain, and seasons of loss. There is beauty in every season. Unfortunately, we often miss the beauty in our current season because we are too busy either dreaming of the next season or reminiscing and remembering the last season. If we are living in a difficult season, our last season often becomes abnormally good in our minds. We only remember the good parts and often wish we could return, but the reality is, every season has good and bad. We can choose to focus on the good or we can choose to focus on the bad.

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Sister, Now is the Time to Go Deep

GO DEEP and you will find you are not a victim to your circumstances. You do not have to respond in fear and anxiety. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. This season of life has not surprised Him. He is walking with you. He is grieving with you. He is rejoicing with you. GO DEEP and you will find you can choose to set your mind on things above. You can think about things that are lovely and pure. You can choose to walk in Faith. You can have Peace that passes all understanding. GO DEEP and you will find Joy. True joy that is your strength. GO DEEP and you will find that even when the world around you shakes, you will not be shaken.

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Reveal Yourself

This is the mindset getting me through this season. Not the news headlines. Not the change of pace in my day-to-day life, or the fact that I will most certainly go stir crazy considering I won’t be working for the next few weeks. I am not defined by staying home or "not helping to provide” when circumstances are outside of my control. I am defined by what is constant in my life. The unchanging. Since I fully believe accepting Christ as my savior means He lives within my heart and has made me new, I carry Him with me always. So, if the never-changing Father that is God lives within me, He is the consistency that runs through me always.

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Your Power Lies Within

My strength is woven into the threads which have held my 61-year-old life together. I certainly did not feel strong at the time. It is only when I reflect on what I have survived I realize it took strength. We all face adversities. For some, it may be family dysfunction, financial insecurity, employment barriers, illness in your family, or other real life roadblocks that stand in our way. The situations are all different—and so is the strength we need to persevere. Consider this. Your journey is as unique as you and it is your story to tell. Find the strength to give it a happy ending.

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Finding Strength for the Battle

We are in a battle. A war has been waged against us. Our enemy is real, and he doesn’t fight fair. Often, when we are at our lowest, he intensifies the battle. The truth is, our flesh is fragile. Even the strongest person, crumbles quickly. Many times we act tough. We pretend we have it all together. But the truth is, most of us are one phone call, one cruel word, one bad day away from tumbling into the pit of despair. When our lives shatter, we collapse and wonder if we will ever be able to repair the broken pieces. Our human strength, if we even pretend to have any, is a façade. Often, it is built on good days and desirable circumstances, but throw in a bad day, and our strength is nowhere to be found.

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Waiting is Hard

Patience does not come naturally to most people. We see something we want, and we want it now. We live in a culture that is continually getting us the things we want faster. It’s human nature to want to escape difficult seasons. Life gets hard and we wish and hope and pray for the difficult season to end and a new season to begin. We don’t want to wait; and in the moment, we often don’t care if we are missing out on a long-term benefit. We just want the pain to end. We want the inconvenience to be over. 

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From My Heart to My Head

Comparison, feeling anything but content, longing. All of these are pieces of what it means to be envious. This one word scared me so much when I saw it, I didn’t want to write about it. I didn’t want to dig deeper beneath my surface, and I definitely didn’t feel the desire to be transparent on a social platform about it. But there is a deeper need to talk about the many layers behind this word than there is for me to keep to myself. Putting my feelings onto a page used to be a way to release my fears and insecurities—and I lost sight of that.

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The Key to Overcoming Envy

It can be tempting for us to wish the other person wouldn’t succeed. We might even wish they would fail. We might also be tempted to compare ourselves to other people, find their flaws, and justify why we would have been a better choice to receive that blessing. However, if we allow envy to settle in our hearts, it will destroy us from the inside out! What should we do when we feel that tug in our heart that wants what someone else has? I think at our core, most of us want to be happy when other people succeed. We want to share in their excitement when they receive the reward.

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Courage in the Face of Grief

I quickly fell face down on the floor weeping, and my sister was on the couch, crying the words, “I’m only 14.” My cousin, with her hand on my back, whispered, “I’m so sorry.” As a 16-year-old, the first words out of my mouth after just being told my dad had died were, “We can’t be sorry for what was a part of God’s plan.” Looking back, I am still shocked I said that, as a young girl, in the midst of the greatest grief I had encountered yet. This brings me to think courage can be hard for us to comprehend sometimes. We’re often told to have courage without truly understanding its meaning.

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Be a Flower that Blooms

Having Courage is very important. We often need to be courageous in situations we feel are impossible. Having courage does not necessarily mean you are going to win every battle or defeat every enemy, but it does mean you’re going to try—and with God by your side, you can go in face first and show Satan who he’s dealing with. With God, anything and everything is possible! One song that reminds me to have courage is called, “Surrounded” by Michael W. Smith. In the song it says, “This is how I fight my battles.” It talks about how we need to fight our battles by worshipping God. 

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Girl, You ARE Courage

In this pit of weakness and pain, in the place where we feel most vulnerable and least successful, that’s where courage lies. In the hardest moments, and in the dark places we hope to never return, we find the warrior in us. Courage isn’t something we earn. It’s not a badge pinned on after we fill our punch card of strife. Courage is buried at the heart of us. Courage is a bottomless well that finds its home with the holy spirit in us. Courage creeps up on us like a warm blanket in the midst of frigid realities. Some of us may spring up in a battle cry as it surrounds, while others simply keep their eyes open for the sun.

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What if One Smile Could Change the World?

Life is hard. We are all fighting some kind of battle. A hard battle. It is easy to feel overwhelmed with the weight of responsibilities and expectations. We have families to care for, bills to pay, and deadlines to meet. We walk around with broken relationships and broken hearts. We experience loss, rejection, disappointment, and abandonment. We have been victimized and offended. We feel alone and forgotten. We can feel like we are drowning in the worries and cares of this world. But there is hope! Jesus came to rescue us from the weight of this world. He wants to carry our burdens for us. He wants to give us the courage to keep pressing on. 

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The Necessity of Being Still

At the beginning of the year, God whispered two words to my heart, “Be still.” I didn’t really know how He wanted me to apply those words to my life in this season, but I wanted to take Him seriously. So, I did all the things I knew to do. I prayed God would teach me to “be still.” I thought about those words and how they might apply to my life. I bought the “Be Still” artwork from the local Christian bookstore to hang above my desk so I would be reminded of God’s words. And then, I continued living my life as is. I have had seasons in my life when God has been silent. The beginning of this year was one of those seasons.

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Prayers to Pray When You Need Stillness

Being still is very important. Taking a step back to realize what’s going on can truly make a difference. It’s so important to take a day of the week to have as your rest day, just like God did. Six days of work and the seventh use as a rest to day to cleanse your spirit and focus that day on God—a day to be still in the moment. It’s OK to slow down sometimes, to take a step back and be still for a minute so you can assess what’s going on. You can gain so much wisdom from taking a moment to be still with God and focus in on Him. It’s so important to stay aware of what’s going on so you can always have a clear understanding of things. Take your time to relax and be still!

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Love is a Choice

Love. We all want to feel loved. We want that feeling of joy and acceptance when someone else chooses us and wants to spend time with us. We want the tingles and the goosebumps of new love. We want the steadiness and the consistency of old love. We want love to be easy. We want to wake up in the morning and FEEL loved. It is one thing to FEEL loved, but it is another thing to KNOW you are loved. I KNOW, in my head, God loves me. I have been told it over and over and over since the day I was born. But, sometimes, I don’t FEEL loved. Things happen in life that cause me to FEEL unloved and forgotten.

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The Process of Living Loved

Normally, I approach these topics by revealing how I have overcome something that once hindered me. I am transparent, but only in showing where I have come from, more so than, where I am at currently. But, when I finally got myself to sit down and think on what it means to “live loved” I was stumped. I tried to think of an instance where I fully stepped into who I am, believing in God’s will for my life and who HE has called me to be. The issue is I am bad at receiving. When it comes to being drenched in the love of Christ, I am like the driest desert you can think of amidst the first rainfall it’s ever experienced.

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Remembering to Live Loved

It’s so important to live loved and to realize you are not comparable to anyone else. No one will ever compare to you. In fact, from birth to death, your entire life, there is nobody in this world who could ever compare to you. You are so unique and loved. Don’t put yourself through the hardship of comparison. God loves every one of us the exact same. I don’t want anyone to experience the pain of feeling like they’re not good enough and loved less than others. Because it’s not true! God loves you so much. There is no one He loves more than you! 

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