Blog: Overcoming Stuggles
Posted: February 18, 2018
It happens so fast we don’t recognize it. You’re sitting with a group of friends having your favourite coffee and tea, and then it starts. All politicians are horrible, everyone you know has cancer, and all hair dyes or cough syrups will give you cancer or a stroke. You can’t trust anyone; all foods have too many contaminants and then it starts on the topic of GMO’s. Oh boy, it’s time to shut it down. The conversation is spiralling into darkness and you’ll walk away feeling defeated, negative and grumpy with words swirling around your head: This world is going to hell in a hand basket. Something happens within us when we focus or obsess over something. Like a magnifying glass, that thing, gets bigger and bigger. Many of our friends and families are going through difficult seasons of grief, disappointments and other tough hardships. I am not saying…
Posted in: circumstances, Hope, Jesus, Lord, Making Wise Choices, Overcoming Stuggles, power of words, praise, thanksgiving, worship
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Posted: October 15, 2010
We live in a daily tension filled reality. Do we believe we have been created for something magnificent and that God has a glorious purpose for our lives, or the reality of seeing our pitiful, fatigued selves in the mirror and feeling the pain of our unsatisfying and sometimes painful circumstances? When we fully believe that we have been called to a specific task, purpose or calling-that we have used our best five strengths and boldly unleashed the gifts God has given us and then all doors are slammed shut. Someone must have been lying. Instead of answered prayers, reconciliation, plans moving forward and open doors, the future says: NO VACANCY, DO NOT DISTURB, CLOSED FOR THE SEASON, OUT OF BUSINESS, NO TRESPASSING. Right now I am dodging the bullets of doubt and hanging on by my fingernails to the reality of my abundant life and God inspired purpose. It’s…
Posted in: Expectations, False Belief Systems, Making Wise Choices, Overcoming Stuggles, Uncategorized
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Posted: September 11, 2010
You ask your teenage daughter to clean her room. When you walk in the house you are amazed that she also cleaned the entire house and you smell the garlic and basil of an Italian dinner. The bathtub is filled with hot water, and a plush thick towel is laid out so you can enjoy your leisurely spa bath. Your husband tells you he will wash your car. Then you find out that he also vacuumed the inside of the car, cleaned out the trunk, polished all your black shoes and folded your laundry that’s been sitting in the dryer for three days. That is BEYOND your wildest expectations of what you dared to ever ask or dream of. Yet, that is what God promises for us. “Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish more that we would ever…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Encouragement, Making Wise Choices, Overcoming Stuggles
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Posted: August 20, 2010
The deadly 3 “D’s”. It starts with discouragement, catapults into despair and may end up in depression. For some unknown reason you ventured into a dark cave and found there was no light to guide you out. Your aching body feels heavy and fatigued. Your mind is ruminating, you can’t focus and you keep chewing over the scene of your mess, failure or loss. I know every one of you reading this has experienced at least one of the deadly “D’s”. It’s a horrible place to be in, and we need help getting out. That’s where you come in. Yes YOU! We all need to take part in being God’s hands and feet on earth to lift up those going through one of the 3 “D’s”. If you are the one going through one of the “D”s right now, I pray that someone reading this blog will jump in…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Encouragement, Friendship, Making Wise Choices, Overcoming Stuggles
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Posted: August 7, 2010
Pause, and envision the future. I own a greeting card that says, “The biggest fear in my life is that this is not just PMS but my real personality.” Whenever I read this out in front of an audience, I hear a loud gasp and chuckle. Then a few women lower their heads-I imagine with some embarrassment. Those words probably hit a nerve a little too close to home. Women are the most exquisite, fragile, influential confusing creations on planet earth. We have to be aware and guard those exquisite sensations and eruptions so that our life is not about one week of emotions, and three weeks of apologizing. God has given us our feelings to help us navigate through life with wisdom and power. Our feelings can be like a red flag that warns us of danger, or guides us with gut intuitions on the choices we make. They…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Making Wise Choices, Overcoming Stuggles
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Posted: May 21, 2010
“Why would you try; you might fail and end up looking stupid.” Those words have the potential to be burned into our subconscious like a non-writeable dvd. Each morning when our feet hit the ground, the power button gets turned on and the brain kicks into action, taunting us by whispering ancient, crusted worthless lies. One thing we battle almost every day is a powerful, invisible false belief system that is steering us off course for what God designed for our life. This false belief system is a deeply ingrained habit of seeing the world through a set of lenses that was formed by our perception and interpretation of external events and words. These influences came from our parents, neighbors, siblings, teachers and other people that were part of our day to day activities. They are false because most of them are manmade rules and perceptions and they don’t line…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Beauty through Boldness, Overcoming Stuggles, Uncategorized
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Posted: April 27, 2010
Why do we talk like t his? “I could never decorate my home the way you do.” “I could never possibly walk into a room and speak to strangers.” “I could never pray like you.” I could never……….” (you fill in the blanks). With shoulders hunched and eyes lowered, we succumb to the subtle menacing foe of intimidation. Dr. Dobson of Focus on the Family, says that the biggest struggle for women is their lack of self worth. Countless women battle intimidation-an enemy that is actually camouflaged as fear of indequacy. We cower because we are afraid that we are not enough for this world. “Surely, we say, “everyone must be smarter, prettier, more accomplished than I am.” I love the poem “Return to Love” by Marianne Williamson”… …”You are a child of God, Your playing small does not serve the World. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Beauty through Boldness, Overcoming Stuggles
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Posted: October 18, 2009
There is a story about a man who ran across the United States – from coast to coast. At the end of his historic journey he was surrounded by the media and they bombarded him with these questions: “What were some the greatest obstacles you faced as you ran day after day. What is the extreme heat or cold?” The man replied, “No.” “Was is the fatigue and the constant pounding of your feet against the ground?” Again, the man replied, “No.” “Was it the loneliness and same routine day after day?” Again the man replied, “No, that wasn’t it? Puzzled, the media asked one last question, “Well, what was it?” The man replied, “It was the sand in my shoes.” I can certainly relate to what this man was talking about. Each us can find ways to overcome those huge obstacles in our life – we pray, plan, or share our struggles with our friends….
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Overcoming Stuggles
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