I will be completely straight forward with you...life has beaten down on me a lot as of recently. I feel as if I have no time for anyone in my life anymore and this includes myself. Between working full time and being a full time student I never have time to enjoy life. Or so I thought. I have been afraid of failure. Terrified that I will fail at my job, at school, at the relationships in my life. I had to start asking myself why I was afraid of these things. The answer was quite simple...I wasn't trusting God. I wasn't placing my burdens and worries on Him. I would wake up every morning believing I had to handle everything on my own. This is the reason why life became increasingly difficult. When you feel as if the world is riding on your shoulders and that you have to deal with everything on your own you quickly become unsatisfied, withdrawn, depressed, and afraid. So for the past few months I have been stressing about school and how to pay for this and that, etc. Eventually, finals week rolled around. I thought I failed every class only to realize I passed all of them...3 with A's! Not only that, I had worked more than I normally do and was blessed with a nice paycheck. How did I do this? I didn't. That's the point of this post. God did it. He has been by my side the whole time, helping me, guiding me, protecting me. Without His help I would have failed some classes and probably would not be excelling at my place of work, nor would I be at peace with the relationships in my life. The moment I saw those grades and saw my paycheck a vast amount of peace washed over me. I realized I didn't have to place everything on my own shoulders. God's holding my hand through life and He ultimately controls the outcome. So if He is here with me why be afraid or stressed? If you simply throw all of your faith and trust in Him life becomes increasingly beautiful!
http://www.theunknownbutnothidden.com/everyone-was-warned-not-to-touch-him-but-this-guy-did/ This story right here is something that should tug at everyone's heart and open eyes on how we should love. This cat was abused day in and day out by people, but he never tried to fight back at them. All he wanted was their love. He is the prime example of what unconditional love should be. No matter what others may do to us we must love them. That is how God loves us. We rarely give Him the credit and praise He deserves and yet He still loves us with everything He has. Just like this cat. I believe we should all strive to love the way Ugly did. Loving in a pure, wholehearted way is a key element in living a beautiful life! As I am laying here in bed, I began to think about the true power of words. Words have the ability to uplift, degrade, lead people to The Lord, make friends, create enemies, etc. Oftentimes we let our words just spew from our mouth without even a second thought about what is coming out. This happens to even me. Just today I said something, in joking, but realized that whether I was joking or not...it probably should not have been said. We all say things sometimes and then realize later that it's wasn't the best thing to say. When these kind of situations occur all we can do is ask The Lord to put a sensor on our mouth and ask people for forgiveness if needed. Sadly, watching what we say is a habit many people today don't have. We should be uplifting, encouraging, teaching and trying to lead people to Christ. Not destroying them through our words. Simply asking The Lord for help in this area can make a great difference. So, if you find yourself just spewing words from your mouth without thinking, ask God for help. It's easy and can help you live a more enjoyable and beautiful life!
Recently I was struck with a thought that has been fumbling around in my mind. Why is it that whenever somebody says we are just like our parents or we are growing to have the same likeness as our parents we automatically get offended? How come it is a negative thing to become like our parents? I will tell you why. It is because so many parents today are not setting a good and godly example for their children to follow. So many children today see their parents living in sin and many of them hate the thought of following in their parents footsteps. This is something that breaks my heart tremendously. As parents you were given the blessing of forming a human being and the responsibility to raise that child in a way that would please God. I know that I am not a parent, but I pray that when the day comes that I become a mother I am able to raise my children in the way God sees fit. To set a godly example for them to follow. I want my children to be able to look at me and not be ashamed to grow up and become like me. I believe that parents should be praying and asking God for His help in order to achieve this. You cannot do it without Him. What an amazing thing it would be if your child were proudly able to say that they are not ashamed to become like you. It is one of those things that would allow us to live an even more amazing and beautiful life. Embrace the blessing and responsibility you were given as a parent and make sure you are setting a great and godly example for your children to imitate. We have the ability to change things through the children of today, but we cannot do that if they do not have godly parents to follow in the footsteps of. Pray, grow, and become the parents your children would be proud to become. After all, we have been given a beautiful world to live in and we should strive to make our lives beautiful. Lately I have been struggling with my outer appearance. I have spinal scoliosis and there is much of me that people don't see and these are the parts which I look at sometimes with disgust. I see the curves and dips and unevenness my spine creates and it causes me to doubt my beauty. However, recently I got to thinking and seeing inspirational written works and talking to people that have made an impact on my life...true beauty is not about the outer appearance. Sure by societies standards I may not have the "perfect" body so many woman idealize, but I was made by God and God does not make junk. He made me exactly the way He saw fit. God focuses on the inner beauty of a woman and I whole heartedly believe that if the inside is beautiful, the outside becomes beautiful as well. So many people focus on the outer appearance when what truly matters is what lies under the surface. Instead of focusing on making my outer appearance more beautiful I choose to work from the the inside out. When you look at yourself in the mirror and start to view yourself as ugly...say to yourself that you are a creation of God and He does not make junk. Start focusing on your inner beauty more and eventually the outer beauty will show. There will be a twinkle in your eyes and a soft kindness on your lips. A certain radiance and beauty will come from you and you will no longer feel "ugly". I personally don't like the term ugly because that implies that God makes mistakes. He does not. Society as a whole likes to mess with what God creates and over time society has created this image of what is considered beautiful today. Just make sure that instead of calling yourself "ugly" or whatever it is you don't like about yourself, you remind yourself that God made you. Don't focus on outward beauty, but rather focus on making yourself the best you can possibly be. Smile at everyone and everything. Laugh and enjoy life. Speak kind words to people and about people. Serve God in all you do. Stay positive and live a beautiful life! |