Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.
What is everything to you? Is it your marriage? Friendships? Career? Children? Health? House? Is it your faith?
How do you treat others when you’ve reached the peak of your mountaintop? How do you feel about yourself in the void of these things? That is what develops your character.
One of the most fearless things you can do is to live free from your feelings. Keeping the peace regardless of your circumstance takes guts.
You might have a fear of failure and that’s why you won’t take the leap into something you’re passionate about.
Maybe it’s turmoil in a relationship or a setback in your finances, the trick of the enemy is to let it bother you. That’s how he deceives. He makes you believe you have to dwell on the hurt.
When you do the right thing but the wrong thing is happening… More than ever, protect your heart.
Draw a line in the sand and trust God regardless of your emotions.
Whatever you constantly think about is what you put on the throne. Stop thinking about what someone did or said to you. As long as you give them the focus, you’ll continue to live upset.
Take that circumstance off the throne and put God back on it.
God will make the wrongs right. Keep what God promised you in His Word close to your heart. Keep a heart of expectancy. Extinguish the sparks of negative thinking. Stay focused on your goals.
Here’s a tip to keeping your peace: Don’t ask for the details. That’s where fear gets a foothold.
Assume everyone loves you and live out of that whole, confident, secure place.
A garden of many thorns can be a beautiful thing.
So often we focus on the ugliness of a thorn or the pain it causes, but have you ever noticed that thorns are found in a sea of beautiful things?
You won’t find a thorn on dead things.
I want to encourage you with this thought: whatever has become a thorn in your side or has you suffering, surrender. Let your weakness lean on His strength.
Blossoms are evidence of growth and life in a thorny patch.
Where there are many thorns, there are beautiful things.
In the bible, Paul describes his thorn as “harassment” from the enemy. Yet, he trusted in the grace and power of the Almighty that through the affliction Paul’s weakness would shine all the more glory on God’s strength.
“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Second Corinthians 12:7-10
##
Want to wake up to more thoughts like these in your email? Join the family! Sign up by subscribing on the homepage. Just share your email address and look for me in your inbox.
Know someone who would benefit from this message? Share it through social media or use the link to send it straight to their email.
When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure. – Victor Frankl
Donald Miller shared this wonderful quote in his book, Scary Close. It’s such a profound statement, I want to unravel a couple threads about pleasure and how we find meaning.
Man isn’t seeking pleasure as much as he was seeking a deep sense of meaning. If man has no meaning, he will numb himself with pleasure.
The problem is pleasure isn’t lasting; it satisfies the moment until we wake up without a purpose again. Give man meaning and he will stop chasing the distractions.
One way is to be honest about the brokenness. When we hide our affliction, flaws, and failures, we miss out on the power of the gospel.
This isn’t oversharing to seek attention. It’s a “me too”, honest approach to helping others. You’ll know the difference when you examine your motive for sharing. If your story points back to you as the source of strength, then you’ve taken away any power accessible to those who aren’t you. 
My life is a mess and I don’t have it figured out, but my hope rests in the mercy of a loving Father.
##
Want to wake up to more thoughts like these in your email? Join the family! Sign up by subscribing on the homepage. Just share your email address and look for me in your inbox.
Know someone who would benefit from this message? Share it through social media or use the link to send it straight to their email.
Guess what? December 31 is just around the corner! That means the last quarter of this year is quickly approaching and I don’t think we should let 2015 get away without leaving one more lasting impression to close out the chapter.
Let’s take the next ten days to plan for the last 90. Write it down. Think of goals for your relationships, faith, health, career, etc.
I bet there’s something that makes the pen in your hand tremble as you think about the impossibility of it. Don’t hold back the boldness of your faith. Let that ink flow. If you try and it doesn’t work, you’re another step closer to getting it right.
The year is gonna end in a bang regardless of what we do. But the higher we climb, the closer we get, the more glorious those lights are. Yes, it’s gonna get louder. It will be dangerous. And it should instinctively spark the fear of God in our timid hearts! Oh, but the anticipation of it all is worth trying. And can you imagine the sound, the smell, the reflection of those colorful explosions sparkling in the eyes of one took a chance on the climb.
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. Albert Einstein
##
Want to wake up to more thoughts like these in your email? Join the family! Sign up by subscribing on the homepage. Just share your email address and look for me in your inbox.
Know someone who would benefit from this message? Share it through social media or use the link to send it straight to their email.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
You have the beautiful ability to influence someone just the way you are. Without your uniqueness, the world is missing out on a glimmering gift that God gave to you. He crafted only one of ‘you’.
Who you are reflects a piece of Him that no one else can replicate. You were the only one made. Please don’t give us a second rate version of someone else when you are a marvelous, first class design.
We hunger for God’s mystery to be revealed and it requires you, to be you, to reflect that part of Him.
I love you.
##
Want to wake up to more thoughts like these in your email? Join the family! Sign up by subscribing on the homepage. Just share your email address and look for me in your inbox.
Know someone who would benefit from this message? Share it through social media or use the link to send it straight to their email.
If you could set up a living space that met your needs today, what would the rooms look like?
I remember the excitement moving in and working with the furniture to make room for gatherings, sleep overs and dinner parties.
Two years later, I’m feeling disappointed that life hasn’t opened more opportunities for lovely faces to enjoy these beautiful spaces. I’m frustrated when I sit in my ‘family’ room without a family. My soul is sad the gift of a guest room feels wasted.
I wrestle with what is because I’ve been living in what if.
The unsettling today comes from building on a false foundation of tomorrow.
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. Proverbs 27:1
Plan for the present. This is all we’re promised.
So I dreamed a dream for the walls wrapped around my life presently.
Big beds deserve a big room. Bedrooms are the best with great windows. And football has me falling asleep in front of the t.v. I concluded what I’m sure you just did.
That ‘great’ room just got greater!
Like a child building a blanket fort, I couldn’t stop giggling as I bent the bed mattress around door frames and shimmied the queen into a room now reflecting a woman of royalty.
Since I’m super crazy about cupping my ‘wine of the bean’ first thing in the morning, it made sense to put a Keurig pot next to the bed and set on a timer.
As a writer, it is out of convenience to also carve out a corner for my desk just a few feet from the bed; sometimes the Spirit prompts me in the middle of a night.
Mirrors and chandeliers. It’s a little girl’s fairy tale and a grown woman’s fantasy suite. And that’s why I converted my former bedroom into a dreamy dressing room, with floor space to twirl in fancy dresses and lounging chairs to kick up my heels when this happy heart just needs to soak in the moment.
Now that you want to stay in my place, you can have the master bedroom. I’ve kept the guest room just the way it is because this bachelorette still needs space in her life for others.
My heart to heart takeaway here is that I had built walls around a life that wasn’t mine to be living. The space I stepped into every day was reminding my disappointed soul of what I didn’t have.
The stage where I wanted to stand was holding my heart hostage from experiencing the set of something spectacular in the place that God was holding me.
What was stopping me from living today to its fullest potential was my own desire to live for tomorrow.
You need to let go of tomorrow so you can live fully in today.
You may not be single forever. Seize the chance to travel, try new things and look fear in the face.
Children grow up. Take time to notice and laugh. Let them know they are loved.
Friends don’t always stay. Be intentional with those moments you share.
We are all just a breath away from change.
My hope is that you don’t wait two years to experience what you were meant to live in today.
Exchange ‘what if’ for the power of ‘what is’. It unlocks potential to exceed your dreams.
##
Want to wake up to more thoughts like these in your email? Join the family! Sign up by subscribing on the homepage. Just share your email address and look for me in your inbox.
Know someone who would benefit from this message? Share it through social media or use the link to send it straight to their email.
Hug someone today. Hold a hand and let them know they are loved. This is God’s cure for a sick heart. I love you. I’m thinking of you. Release your affections. It has an antibiotic effect on the infection of negativity and the poisonous thoughts that prevent a mind from living in pure joy. Take the time to have a heart-to-heart exchange. Your own soul will be thankful for it later.
##
Want to wake up to more thoughts like these in your email? Join the family! Sign up by subscribing on the homepage. Just share your email address and look for me in your inbox.
Know someone who would benefit from this message? Share it through social media or use the link to send it straight to their email.
The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all.
Forget yesterday, it has already forgotten you. And for heaven’s sake, don’t sweat the tomorrow you haven’t even met yet.
We only have one life to live, and the time is going to pass, regardless of whether or not you step out in faith and reach for those dreams.
