“In the end, only three things matter; how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” -Buddha
Tag Archives: grace
Before God Can Use Us, He Must First Break Us
Before God can use a man greatly, He has to hurt him deeply. God is at work in your disappointment and pain- teaching you a lesson of complete dependence on Him. He may cut you down and remove all the strength you have as a way to prepare you to be used by Him. Remember this during times of trial, and be grateful. The greater the need in your life, the greater God’s glory and provision.
Beware of Your Strengths
Beware of your strengths because those are the places you are most likely to forget God.
God doesn’t want to put your talents on display, because that won’t help anybody. He wants to put His power on display through your weaknesses. If dependence is the objective, than weakness is the advantage.
Where has God made you weak?
Where is God in Suffering?
A year ago, my world fell apart as the ground on which I stood was snatched from beneath me. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the ground taken from underneath you, but I pray that you do.
When you lose the ground you stand upon, you find the Rock that you can rest upon. The only true solid ground that exists. And you experience His grace in ways you never thought imaginable.
It takes a while to see it from this perspective, and you may never totally understand His ways but I can assure you, you’re suffering is not in vain. God’s calling you to know Him more, while a million other things are trying to distract you. But if the goal is to know Him, to really experience Him, then whatever it takes to get your full attention is worth it. Even if it’s painful, and my God is it painful…
4 Principles to Help You Restore Your Confidence
We all have days (often weeks, months, or years) where our confidence falters. I recently received an email with a link to a Huffington Post article entitled, “4 Habits of Superbly Confident People” by Agapi Stassinopoulos. I have included an excerpt from this article below. I hope you find it as helpful as I do!
1. Affirm that you are not alone. What that means, is that we often abandon ourselves, and that creates a feeling of tremendous insecurity. You are the one who has got to have your back and heart. There are three factors to knowing you are not alone: you reach within and you grab hold of your core self; you reach outward and you ask for help; and you reach to others and offer help.
2. Move into radical self-acceptance. Start appreciating every little thing about you, reinforce the positive, and refrain from focusing on lack. When you are feeling insecure, tell yourself, “I can’t afford the luxury of indulging in my own insecurities.” I often play the Bruno Mars song “Just the Way You Are,” which energizes me (and I wonder if Bruno wrote it for me).
3. Don’t wait to be perfect before you take action. You are always going to be a work in progress. Don’t wait for perfect circumstances. We put conditions on our happiness and well-being that distract us from being open to the opportunities that are in front of us.
4. Your presence is required. Call your heart energy present as you are living your daily life. Bring it present in your conversations and all your interactions. Do not disconnect from your heart. It is what brings fulfillment in your day.
Let’s get into that sweet spot of really accepting and cherishing our vulnerabilities, our humanness and ourselves! Let’s embrace the whole package, the things we are good at and the things we are not so good at, because that is how we find our confidence and how we make the ground we walk on not only steady, but sacred.
Related articles
- 4 Habits of Superbly Confident People (allowinglove.wordpress.com)
- 4 Habits of Superbly Confident People (wonderfultips.wordpress.com)
God’s Grace
“God’s grace has a drenching about it. A wildness about it. A white-water, riptide, turn-you-upside-downness about it. Grace comes after you. It rewires you. From insecure to God secure. From regret riddled to better-because-of-it. From afraid to die to ready to fly.
Grace is the voice that calls us to change and then gives us the power to pull it off.” -Max Lucado
So true about Grief
“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp…” -Anne Lamott
Love The One You’re With
“He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.”
― Bob Marley
The Man Box and Marriage
Men are taught for 20 years to “be a man” and control their emotions. Then we marry one and expect him to learn how to show his emotions over night. Be patient with your man. Undoing something that is 20 years in the making, takes time.
Workaholics
I am an admitted workaholic. My drive to succeed is relentless, compulsory, and at times unnerving. I have noticed that I am never satisfied. And I don’t think that I ever will be. As soon as one goal is accomplished there is instantly another higher goal in its place. By work alone, I will never be satisfied, I realize. While this focus and drive is perhaps a strength of mine, it is also by far my greatest weakness. Work can be a distraction from the Real Satisfier if we aren’t careful. For the workaholics among us, may we always aim not to worship our work but to instead use our work as worship.