What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
The most important thing I can carry with me at all times is peace.
But peace can be hard to come by in a culture that is full of chaos, in people who are full of flaws, and certainly in a self that can be up and down like a yo yo.
Material possessions can come and go. This world cannot be counted in for my security.
People whom you thought were dependable can let you down, both intentionally and not.
Family and friends are wonderful, but they are still people, still human.
They’re not meant to be my stability.
Anything of this world can fail tomorrow. Nothing is truly perfect or reliable.
But I have found One.
There is One who is ever faithful, ever dependable, and ever stable in all His ways.
Jesus.
Some hate Him. Some love Him. Some choose not to know Him.
But I have found He is all I need.
He has peace beyond our imagination that will surpass our circumstances.
He has love that is unconditional and will sustain us in spite of ourselves.
He has joy beyond our emotions that will consume us regardless of our environment.
And all that He has is free. It costs nothing. It requires no work. It demands no sacrifice.
All we have to do is believe.
…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of theLord shall be saved.”
Romans 10:9-13
You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
There are probably several strategies I use to maintain my health and well-being and many more that I truly need to implement.
Like exercise and eating right. I need to do better in these categories. Eating is alright, and my saving grace is most likely that I do eat a lot of salads, try to make sure I’m getting good fiber, making better choices throughout the weeks, and I eat one big meal most days (lunch) and a protein bar at the other two meals. So, better than some, not as good as others.
However, I’d say the thing I work hardest at is keeping the right mental attitude, and that contributes to a ton of my well being.
Avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ for a good and prosperous life!
I am naturally introspective, and because I’m a reviewer (there are doers, dreamers and reviewers in life), I tend to automatically see what will go wrong in a given situation. Over the years, with the help of my “optimistic-big picture,-always seeing what can go right-amazing leader” husband, I have learned to not only see the problem but to also work hard to see the solution, too.
So, that’s what I do.
I strive to look at the good, the solutions and the HOPE in any given situation. I don’t always get it right, but I can proudly claim I am light years ahead of where I was 25 years ago.
A couple of things that help me do this:
1. Daily Scripture reading. Yeah. I read the Bible. For some, you’re already tuning me out because you think I’m going to get all religious on you. However, hold just a second, please, and just read a few more lines to see what I’m talking about…
I have found that the Bible is a great big story of incredibly amazing people, and it’s beyond interesting. It has mind-boggling miracles and mysteries, intriguing family dynamics and dysfunctions, and all kinds of battles and victories. It’s a great history book as well. And it’s certainly led me to a greater level of understanding, knowledge and insight. So, beyond the soul refreshing relationship I’ve found through knowing and talking to the ultimate Hero of the Book, it’s an incredible piece of literature. And it’s no wonder it’s been the #1 Best Seller for centuries. (I challenge you to just try reading it sometime.)
Then, the added bonus for my reliance of daily Scripture reading is that I find it gives me peace of mind, restores my joy, and fills me with more love than I could ever imagine. So, this would be the first and foremost reason for my daily reading plan of the Bible.
2. I strive to THINK right. Too many people will just let your mind wander all over the place, or maybe be consumed with so much reasoning that it lends itself to confusion, or even allow yourself to be so overwhelmed with thoughts of fear, anger, bewilderment or just plain chaos, doubt and confusion that you never have a clear thought about anything.
There’s another great book I’ve come across that has helped me learn to think right: Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer. She teaches you how to retrain your mind to have the right thoughts, no matter how messed up it might be right now. It’s a really good book! I highly recommend it.
3. I’ve learned to forgive and forgive again. This is huge. Unforgiveness can eat away at your health and well being before you know it. And when you’ve let unforgiveness fester so long that it’s turned into bitterness, it can literally destroy you!
I read an article once that talked about the scientific benefits and dangers of unforgiveness and negative thoughts. It described how these cause neurons, atoms (or something?… it’s been a while since I read it. Lol) or something in your brain to actually develop little spikes on them. And because your brain is the communication to the rest of the body, these little spikes start poking and prodding the various areas of your body and begin creating toxins and miscommunications, which then develop into sicknesses, diseases and even terminal illnesses.
Now, maybe someone wrote that article, and it was more theoretical than proven, I have no idea. And I really don’t care. It makes perfect sense, and it made a huge impact on me. So, I work hard to avoid harboring unforgiveness and negative thoughts.
4. I’ve embraced positivity and try to avoid negativity. (See explanation above.) I’m not always the best at this, but I try, and try, again. Being positive is really good for you mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Plus, it’s so much more enjoyable to be around someone who’s more positive than negative.
Now, this doesn’t mean I always have my head in the clouds and never see anything bad. That’s honestly a dumb way to live, too. And I’m a bit too much of a realist to be that way. But if I can choose positivity, I will work really hard to do so.
5. I don’t do drama. I don’t do OPD (other people’s drama), and I don’t do my own. Drama just works everyone up for nothing. If you’re going to fight a battle, there better be spoils, and good ones. But when everything gets dramatic, and especially when it’s someone else’s problem and solution into which you are inserting yourself, there’s usually absolutely no good pay off. So, why do that to yourself?
6. I strive to keep peace in my heart. This doesn’t mean that there’s never a storm of life that I’m not walking through. It just means that I’ve learned to embrace peace no matter if the circumstances around me are chaotic or not.
And truthfully, I can’t do this in my own strength. None of it. Whether it’s being disciplined to read Scripture, thinking right, being forgiving, being positive, avoiding drama or seeking peace, I really don’t have the ability to maintain all of this by myself. I’m not passionate enough, strong enough or even wise enough to know how to do all that, but I’ve met Someone who works it all in me and through me: my loving Savior, Jesus.
He is truly my Rock, my Shelter, my Peace, my Provider, and my Source for all I need for health and well-being. And often, those who don’t have a relationship with Him will say, “That’s just a crutch.” And I have to admit. Yes. I have found I can’t even walk without holding onto His hand. For when I’m leaning on Him, I can do all things well…
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13
You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.
Isaiah 26:3
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I recently lost my grandmother of 94 years, and I miss her so. She and I were a lot alike in so many ways, and often growing up, she was more like a mother to me than a grandmother.
She taught me how a young lady should carry herself and how to really love your man.
She taught me that a gentle word really can turn away wrath and a loving touch can bring harmony to a chaotic world.
She taught me how to be classy and be okay with tradition, religion and “the way things have always been.”
She taught me that you’re never too old to try new things, as she traveled to Jamaica in a missions trip at 80 years old.
She taught me that if you set your mind to it, you can accomplish just about anything, as she lived by herself for almost 20 years in a great big bay front property after my grandfather’s death.
And the most important thing she ever taught me was that a relationship with Jesus Christ and with the joy of the Lord being your strength, you can live out your days with laughter and peacefulness, no matter what the storms of life might bring.
I am thankful for the heritage she offered, and I will gladly pick up the mantle she left. She may not have always done everything right, and she’d have never wanted you to call her the picture of perfection.
But if I can live my life with as much dignity, class, integrity, charm, joy, love and peace as she had, I will call myself a blessed woman.
What heritage are you grasping hold of today?
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
Proverbs 31:30-31
She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.
Proverbs 31:25
She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”
Too often, people blame their circumstances for their behavior.
They blame someone else for their poor choice.
They blame their upbringing for their bad response.
They blame this one or that one for their own failure.
Tragedy comes to all us in one way, shape, form or another.
Trauma befalls every individual on the planet.
(If it hasn’t hit you yet, just keep on living.)
It’s not the events that matter.
As much as, it’s what you do with it.
It’s what choices you make to get out of it, to keep fighting, to win.
A champion never wins by staying on the mat when he’s knocked down.
A hurdle jumper never sees success by remaining on the asphalt on top of the broken hurdle.
A rower never receives the medal by flailing in the water once knocked out of the boat.
We’re not promised good fortune simply because of what family line, nation, or skin color we have.
Our modern society claims if you’re born into the right circumstances, you will always win.
And those same people claim if your birth brings you into the wrong heritage, wrong race, or wrong town, you’ll never achieve more.
Lies. All lies. Never embrace those fallacies.
Show me a person who cannot succeed when effort is made.
Show me a person who cannot achieve when sacrifices are made.
Show me a person who cannot triumph when the passion is deep within.
Does it mean some have it easier than others?
Sure. That’s the life we live.
But never hate someone for the blessings she has been given.
You never know the cost that has been paid.
Never curse someone for the accolades he is presented.
You never know the hell he had to live before you saw the crown.
Stay focused on your purpose.
Stay tuned in to your faults.
Grasp the convictions needed.
Stay fixed on your goals.
Your success never depends on them.
It depends on the determination within.
And sometimes, you’re no longer winning because you’ve lost the two vital ingredients to score:
Coaching and support.
Everyone needs someone better in their corner. Let them refine you.
Everyone needs someone to cheer them in the darkness. Let them soothe you.
But never let them coddle, pacify, or justify your resignation.
Fight to win.
Win to testify it can be done.
Extend a hand to someone else.
For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.
2 Timothy 1:12
The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men.
Desires can thrust you into success or throw you down in shame.
And what you do with hidden desires will be the difference in honor or humiliation.
Desires have to be pulled out into the sunlight and exposed to verity and axiom.
Desires have to have the magnifying glass of honesty peered over them in full.
Desires have to be broken down with integrity and authenticity all wrapped in accountability.
Otherwise when concealed, neglected, and cloaked with insignificance, those same desires will become a dragon thirsty for flesh.
Those veiled desires throw off their disguises and unleash a furious reckoning that cannot be hinged.
So no matter how wise of a sage you have grown to be,
Those ignored desires will grow to be a beast not easily reconciled or silenced.
No matter the might you believe you posses,
No matter the expertise you trust you’ve acquired,
If those desires are held in secret, they will become your evil demise.
Reveal them to absolute truth and faithfulness, and those demons who seek your soul may be impeded and chained.
…Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
James 4:4
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battlewithin you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
James 4:1-3
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, yousinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
What are you allowing in your life that Christ would urge you not?
What are you coveting that He would have already cast away?
Sometimes, our lives seem to be on hold, and we blame it on circumstances, being held back, and maybe even our own incapacity to overcome a certain handicap in our lives.
Yet, I have found too often, my limitations aren’t due to someone or something around me, but rather it’s from pursuit of something I should have never been chasing in the first place.
When we start chasing God stuff rather than me stuff, we will find success will come on a whole new level.
Ask Him what tables He would flip in your life, and let Him start cleaning house.
It’s a whole better place when He’s in charge and He comes to abide.
Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do,forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
It’s so true that there are many things of which we have no control of our choices.
Decade in which we are born.
Parents. Birth location. Upbringing.
Physical attributes. Talents. IQ.
These things are given to us, and we have no say.
Yet, we do have a say in how we respond, in how we handle, and in how we carry on once we have them.
And this choosing results in our character.
Which is also a choice.
And it also will become our voice.
How we respond to the things we cannot control will determine our promotions, our successes, and our influences.
We are never a victim.
Being a victim is a choice. And that choice brings about our character.
When we choose to hate these things out of our control, or maybe just fight against them in a rage that wounds all those around us, it shows our character as rude, spiteful and selfish.
When we choose to embrace these things out of our control as chains, and we are just a martyr for the cause, or maybe we just can’t do any better because of all that has befallen us, it shows our character as weak, whiny and self centered.
Yet, when we choose to accept these things out of our control, fight against the things that would try to inhibit us, and become overcomers inspite of the pain, the turmoil and the difficulties, it shows our character as bold, courageous and focused.
And when we take this tenacious attitude a step further and begin to show others how to overcome their own obstacles, it shows our character as loving, giving, and outward seeking.
We can be a hero or a zero.
The choice is ours.
What will you choose today?
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
Romans 8:37
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:31
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28
Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
(Deleted GIF because it was corrupted and changing other blogs.)
I saw this little gif today, and it made me think how easily our perspective can change.
NOPE can change to HOPE
With one little shift in a letter.
Something broken can be healed with one little dot of super glue.
A rainy day can become sunny with one little wind surge.
The altered state can seem simple, small, and even insignificant,
But to the NOPE, it becomes HOPE.
To the broken, it becomes mended.
To the drenched, it becomes dry.
To the hopeless, it becomes a tomorrow.
Let your walk be realigned.
Let your vision be refocused.
Let your speech be rearranged.
Let your mind be rallied.
Let your heart be restored.
Love can overwhelm you.
Hope can consume you.
And you’ll never be the same.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
My journey didn’t stop with mere time travel or writing; it led me to become one of the most sought-after empaths, a soulful psychic who reads the hidden depths of the human spirit. I’ve been blessed—or perhaps burdened—with an ability that allows me to feel the emotions of people from every corner of time.
I am a licensed psychologist based in Greece. My love for housekeeping has inspired me to create this blog about home management and family relationships. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing!
Dedicated to movie nerdom, nostalgia, and escape. In the late 90s, I worked at Blockbuster Video where they let me take home two free movies a day. I caught up on the classics and reviewed theatrical releases for Denver 'burbs newspapers and magazines. Today, while raising two young, beautiful daughters with my amazing wife, I look forward to anything rated R and not Bluey. Comments and dialogue encouraged!
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