Originally posted by Cindy

If you don’t like the person you are, chances are high that any relationship you are in or get into will fail. In order for a relationship to flourish and to grow, a person needs not not only like themselves but also to love who they are. Loving yourself is paramount to having a successful and loving relationship.

The divorce rate today is higher than at any other time in history. People marry for the wrong reasons, they marry the wrong person, and more so, they marry too soon. Not only do they not know they person they marry, they often don’t know themselves or even like who they are as a person.

Many divorces occur because incompatibility. But how can a couple become so incompatible when they loved each enough to marry? How could a marriage that started out with such love, and perhaps still have the love, go so wrong? How can two people who perhaps still are so much for each other end up not liking each other or themselves?

Often the problem lies in an area that’s least expected, with ourselves. We simply don’t like who we are and we strive to become who the spouse wants us to be, rather than just to be ourselves. This can be manifested in several ways. Women get breast enhancements, even though they are beautiful as they are. Men take pills to to enlarge parts that are absolutely fine as is. Another man gives up his particular favorite pastime and does only what the spouse likes to do. One woman goes and buys herself an entire new wardrobe of clothing trying to look sexier for her husband. Still another spouse gives up their entire existence and becomes a virtual clone of their spouse, trying to be exactly like them in an effort to feel more wanted and loved. Another woman wants to control everything her husband does, telling him how to act, think, dress, work, who his friends are, etc. All of these relationships are doomed because the people in them simply do not love themselves.

Before embarking on a relationship, we need to learn to love ourself first. Self love doesn’t mean that we love ourself over another. It means we love and accept ourself as we are. It means we don’t change who we are, our very identity, in order to please another. It means we work to grow and if something in us needs changing, we work to change that something, not for another person but to better ourselves.

To be truly happy in a relationship with another person, we have to be happy with who we are as a person. We can’t not like ourself and expect to be happy. We can’t be at odds with ourself and who we are and be happy. We can’t pretend to be something or someone we are not and be truly happy or love ourself. We can’t be happy and at peace if we are living in the past and not accepting ourselves as we are. But when one has had a troubled past, how can they learn to love who they are and find that happiness?

The answer is learning to let go. Letting go of what we cannot change or undo is a first step in releasing the past to be just that, the past. No matter what happened, what you did, what someone else did, it’s all gone. Instead of punishing yourself for what can never be changed or relived, allow yourself to forgive and move on with life. Punishing yourself by denying yourself happiness and love won’t change anything that’s already happened.

We have all done things and had things done to us that hurt. Sometimes we won’t allow ourselves to be happy or to love ourselves because we think that in loving ourselves or being happy, it diminishes what we did or what was done to us. We think that we deserve to be unhappy or feel unloved and unwanted. We have the mindset that whatever happened in the past is reason for us to keep our present and future miserable, thinking that’s payment for a past we can’t change. Nothing can be further from the truth!

Not allowing yourself to be happy or love yourself as you are is not hurting someone from the past, but it is hurting you and probably someone that cares deeply for you. Punishing yourself for something that’s gone isn’t the answer. Letting go, forgiving, moving on, learning to really like yourself, and being happy with the one that truly cares for you just as you are, that’s where it’s at. Remember that a person who truly cares for you won’t ever hold the past against you, and you shouldn’t hold it against yourself either.

Now is the time to start loving yourself. Focus on what YOU like about yourself, not what anyone else thinks. Remember that in learning to love yourself, you aren’t out to please the rest of the world, just yourself. If you find something that you don’t like about yourself, work on changing that. But only do it for you! Allow yourself to be yourself! Don’t try to be someone you’re not or something you’re not. Be happy with how you look, how you think, how you feel, how you love, how you believe, etc. Realize that you are a beautiful person and allow yourself to see that beauty in yourself.

When you feel you are ready for a relationship again, don’t go for someone who wants to change you. Don’t go for someone who makes you feel that you aren’t good enough as you are. Don’t get involved with a person that won’t allow you to be yourself. Don’t go for someone whose idea of love is for you to lose your identity in order to make them happy. Go for the person that accepts you for you, all of you, as you are. Go for the one that makes you feel like you can be yourself, that isn’t out to change you, that loves you exactly as you are, that listens to you, that understands you, that wants you for you, not some fantasy they want to fulfill.

In learning to love yourself, you have to see and believe that you are loved as you are, that you are wanted as you are, that you are beautiful as you are, and most of all that someone is wanting someone just like you. When you realize that you are indeed lovable as you are and you love yourself, that feeling will carry over into your relationship. The confidence you have in yourself will enable you to love the other person as they are and to accept them as they are, making for a relationship that will go the distance and withstand the storms that come in life.

Originally posted by Cindy

Originally posted by Cindy

Forgiving ourselves isn’t always an easy thing to do. We have regrets, feelings of guilt, wishing or thinking we should have done this or that differently. Sometimes we think that if we had acted differently or made another choice, that somehow situations might have turned out better. Sometimes that’s true, but nothing can change the past. We have to learn to forgive ourselves for things we can’t change or undo, whether it’s for intentional actions or otherwise.

One of the hardest things to forgive ourselves for is the feelings of guilt over what might have been or could have been. Often we think that if we had done so and so differently, that perhaps the outcome would be different. And while often it’s possible there could have been another outcome, more often than not the outcome would have been the same. But even if it wouldn’t have been the same, we can’t change the past. So why do we beat ourselves up over things that can’t be undone? Why do we allow ourselves to experience such guilt over things? And most of all, how do we forgive ourselves for what our minds perceive as unforgivable?

The first step to forgiving ourselves is to realize that whatever we did or didn’t do can’t be changed. It doesn’t matter if the thing we are having guilty feelings over is something we actually did or something we think we could have done differently. Hanging onto feelings of guilt won’t change the past. Holding onto guilt over something will not undo the past or things that happened. It’s time to let it go, to move on, and to live again.

Some people find it difficult to leave the past in the past. They need something physical to get rid of or throw away, and memories simply are not physical. One idea is to make the thoughts and memories physical, giving something tangible to throw away, and in a way this shows that ’something’ was gotten rid of. But how do we make thoughts and memories tangible?

Get a small box, such as a shoe box. Make sure it has a top or can be closed and sealed. For every bad thought, for every feeling of guilt or feeling or what you feel you cannot be forgiven for, write it down on a piece of paper. Put the paper in the box. Once you are finished, close and seal the box. All the guilty feelings you carried in your heart are now in the box, out of your heart, no longer able to burden you down with feelings of being unforgivable.

What you now do with the box is up to you. You can choose to hold onto those feelings, leaving the option to reopen the box and letting the guilt out and back into your heart. Or you can choose to throw out the box, throwing away all of the guilt that you carried. Some people actually bury the box, laying to rest the past and all the hurts. Some throw it out with the trash, tossing out all of the bad. And some keep the box, reopening it and allowing all the guilt to come back inside of them to live again.

We don’t have to live with guilt. We can control our own thoughts and actions. We choose to do this or that. But we cannot control the choices that others make or the things they do. We can choose to live with guilt, never forgiving ourselves, or we can choose to move on, admitting that we are just human and that sometimes humans do fail and do mess up.

Forgiving yourself, letting go of the guilt, it won’t change the past. But it can change your future.

Originally posted by Cindy

Originally posted by Cindy

Grief is probably the one thing that we will probably be faced with more than anything else in our lifetime. From the time we are old enough to be aware of our surroundings, there is the possibility that we will face grief in some form. When something tragic happens, we are going to grieve over the loss.

The toddler who doesn’t get her way and cries, the man at age 90 who grieves at the loss of being able to live alone in his own home, the couple who were finally able to have a child together only to lose him at two days old to death, the woman who learned her husband was having an affair … grief can strike at anytime in many situations in life.

Grief is a natural and necessary emotion. Grieving helps us to heal over hurts and painful life experiences. Our hearts and souls need to grieve to help us get past the pain, to move on, and to be able to live again. But when we live in a state of grief and don’t get past the grieving, our mental health and even physical health can be threatened. The stress caused by continued grieving can cause our bodies to become too tired causing our health could suffer.

There are many ways to manage the grief we feel. Some are good ways and some are not so good.

Attempting to drown the grief in drinking isn’t a fix or a cure. When the alcohol wears off, the grief is still there. Taking illegal drugs won’t make the pain go away. Drugs and alcohol might make you feel better for a brief period of time, but the grief is still there. Unfortunately these are the two things that too many reach for, and they too often can’t figure out why they still hurt so much when their ‘cure’ wears off.

The best way to help deal with grieving is to talk with a close friend or loved one, someone who understands what you are going through and listens to you, perhaps even someone who is also grieving the same loss you might be dealing with. Talking with another person is healing because it helps you to say how you feel, dealing with the how you feel deep inside. Having someone to share with is a blessing and it helps so much in being able to deal with not only life’s tragedies, but the happy times as well.

Another way to help get heal from grief is to write your feelings in a journal. Writing is a great way to express feelings that often are hidden inside, feelings that we somethings cannot share with another person, even a close friend of family member. When journaling, it’s best to just be honest with your feelings and journal how you are really feeling. Write what you feel and write often!

If you are worried that someone might see the personal things you write, you can always destroy the material after it’s written. Or if you are using a shared computer and a word processing program, you can hide your writing in a folder with a name that doesn’t make it obvious what’s inside of the folder.

The main idea is that you want to be able to ‘voice’ your feelings of grief. Keeping how you feel locked away inside doesn’t help in the healing process, but rather hinders it. Getting over terrible hurts in life won’t happen overnight and it shouldn’t happen overnight. We grieve because we have lost something or someone that means so very much to us, or because we have been hurt by someone we love very much, or both. The last thing we want to do is forget the love we feel or left, or forget that part of our life. But we do want to move on past the pain, the feelings of loss, the feelings of grief.

In time, depending on what the situation is that you are grieving over, the grief will subside. Just remember that you control your emotions and how you feel, and that grieving is normal and natural and needed. But it shouldn’t control you, you control it.

Originally posted by Cindy

Originally posted by Cindy

The Bible defines faith: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1 KJV)

It’s often easy to have faith when there are no storms or trials in life. When there’s nothing going on, we usually have no problem at all in having faith. After all, why would there be a problem in having faith when everything is fine?

The real test of our faith is when the storms come. And the storms do come, sometimes in droves. When trials occur in life, that’s when our faith is often tested. But how does a person find or keep faith when it seems that everything around them, their very life even, is falling apart?

Sometimes when a storm comes, it tears down the old things, making way for the new. Granted, the tearing down of the old is often painful. There are memories in what was, some good and some bad. There is also the fear of change with the tearing down of the old. But, the only way something new, better, and stronger can be built up is for the old to be torn down. Hence, the storms of life. This is where faith comes in. We have to have faith that what we cannot see is there, that what we need will be provided in the right time.

Faith is something that will take us through not only the easy times in life, but also through the darkest and roughest storms that life brings. For the man who has sworn off loving again because of past hurts, he has to have faith that there is the one that will be all that he wants and needs and more, and won’t ever hurt him, but rather will protect him for all harm. For the girl who got pregnant as a teen and fears no man will want her and her child, she has to have faith that there is a man that will not only love and want her, but love and want her child as his own. For the family that lost their home and all they own to a fire and no money to replace any of it, they have to have faith that a home will be provided and all the things they need for it. And the thing about faith is that all that we need will be provided, it is provided, when and how the time is right.

You might be in need of better housing but are unable to afford it. You might wonder how you will obtain what you cannot possibly afford the down payment for a new one. Then one day there’s a hurricane coming your way and you are forced to leave your home and almost all you own behind as you evacuate. The hurricane spawns several tornadoes and between those and the hurricane force winds, your home is one that is destroyed. As soon as you hear the news, you are distraught over the loss of your home. But immediately, you are also joyful, because you have faith that all will be fine. A few days later you learn that the insurance you have paid in for years is just the exact amount you need for a down payment for a new home.
Faith is knowing that a way will be provided at the right time, when it’s needed. Faith is trusting wholeheartedly that what you need will be provided on time. It’s believing and trusting and knowing that you will be taken care of, that your needs will be fulfilled.

The storms of life will come and clear the old, making way for the new. Faith tells us that even in the midst of the storm that all will be okay, that faith is the core of all that we hope for but don’t yet see.

Originally posted by Cindy

Originally posted by Cindy

How many times have you heard someone complain about the way his or her life is going? How many times have you heard the same complainers thank God for what He’s given them and done for them? Does it get old and tiresome to you, listening to people constantly complain about this or that? Why is it that these people are unable or unwilling to open their eyes and see how richly God has blessed them? Are they too proud? Too lost in their self-pity? Too angry with God for something they did or didn’t do, not Him?

Here’s a question even closer to home. How many times have you complained about how awful you think your life is? And when is the last time you thanked God for His blessings? Do you think the people that hear you complain about how lousy you think your life is enjoy listening to you, knowing that you are blind to the overabundance of blessings God has bestowed upon you?

God never promised this life would be without problems and hardships. He did promise us He’d always be with us, that He’d never leave us. We often leave Him though; especially when He doesn’t do something for us that we think He should. God’s promises are not for those that don’t live for Him or follow Him. Do you really think God will bless you when you’re not living, as He would have you to? God’s not going to bless someone that’s not living His Word, or someone that hasn’t asked God to forgive them. I don’t think God is going to bless someone that hasn’t forgiven him or herself.

How has God blessed me, you ask? All you can think of are the mountains of bills, the kids are sick, the job is unstable, the marriage is falling apart, talk of war is everywhere, etc. You think, and are sure to let all around you know, that your life is terrible. You complain that God doesn’t care, hasn’t blessed you, and has forgotten you, to anyone and everyone that will listen. You’re so blind that you can’t see the nose attached between your eyes.

God didn’t make your bills. But you expect Him to bail you out, right? Learn how to manage your money and stop wanting/buying everything you think you need. Learn to get the things you truly need, and save the wants for when you have money to blow. Plan before you spend and know your financial limitation. Don’t try to live like a king or queen on a pauper’s salary. And be content with what you have! Many people have so much less.

God didn’t make your marriage a mess. It takes three in a marriage to make it work. God, your spouse, you. And in that order. If God is not first, it’ll be miserable. If you put yourself ahead of your spouse, it’ll be miserable. Learn the art of communication. If you cannot or will not talk to your spouse, you’re in trouble. Someone else will talk to them, and the outcome will probably not be what you like. Your spouse cannot read your mind, just as you cannot read theirs. Talk! Stop assuming that just because your spouse loves you and is married to you, that the person is a mind reader.

Times are hard and no jobs are a sure thing, even in good times. Be happy you have a job. Many don’t have one. If you’re one that doesn’t have a job and want one, go get one! Stop waiting for the perfect job. Any money is better than no money. You can always look for something better after you’re working and have some money coming in. As long as the job is morally okay and legal, it’s a good job. And you have nothing to complain about if you are too lazy to get up off your end and go look for a job. No employer is going to come looking for you! A job is not going to just fall into your lap! Get up and try, or stop whining about it.

God did not forget you, but it seems you might have forgotten Him. When’s the last time you talked to Him? When’s the last time you read His Word? When’s the last time you thanked Him for what you have that He’s given you? Yeah, here were are again at that. What’s God given you, you ask? Let’s see.

Do you have a roof over your head? God blessed you with that roof. So it’s not a high dollar mansion, and maybe it’s not even yours, but who cares? You are blessed to have a place to live. Stop complaining that it’s not the right size or the right color or the right floor plan or new enough. Be thankful you have a home to live in. Many don’t.

Do you eat? You’re blessed by God to have meals. You’re not starving. You’re not going hungry. God gives you that food and the means to have it. Stop complaining that it’s not what you want or what you like or the way you want it cooked. Be thankful you have food to put into your stomach. Many people are literally starving. You’re not.

Are you clothed? God had blessed you with clothing to wear. You’re warm in the winter, have a bed to rest on, shoes on your feet. God is good to you.

Do you have all of your limbs and body parts? Wow, you are very blessed by God! There are people that are blind, are deaf, have no legs to walk with, are unable to walk, those that can’t speak, those that their minds are gone. God has blessed you with a body that works. You can see the sun in the morning, hear the rain and the thunder, smell the flowers and the meals cooked get up and walk someplace, and more.

Are you angry with God for something? Why? Who’s the one that did something that caused problems? Was it God or you? Then why are you angry at God? He didn’t do anything. He offers to console you and be there for you, yet you turn Him away in anger. Why? Did He get you into the mess you’re in? No, you did. He’s blessed you with things that you refuse to see or acknowledge.

God’s blessings are for those that love Him and follow Him. If you refuse to live for Him, how can you expect to be blessed by Him? If you refuse to help yourself and make an attempt to do something for yourself, why do you become angry with God when He doesn’t do anything for you? If all you do is complain and gripe about God’s blessings on you, why do you think He will keep blessing you? After all, even God gets tired of the whining after awhile. And even God will get tired of blessing you, only to have you curse His blessing and all He’s done for you.

Do you want your life to be a blessing filled life? Then get off the poor pitiful me attitude, stop complaining about how bad your life is when you do nothing to make it better, stop being angry with God for something He did not do, stop expecting Him to do everything you want, and learn to trust Him. Most of all, start living.

Originally posted by Cindy

Originally posted by Cindy

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”

It’s one of the most horrible crimes imaginable. A woman becomes pregnant, yet instead of being filled with joy and happiness at the thought of becoming a parent, she makes an appointment and has her baby killed. The saddest of this? The baby hasn’t even taken the first breath of air, has never been held, has never been rocked to sleep … and never will. The “mom” took all that away from the baby by ending his or her life, calling it abortion.

There are far too many people that think a baby that is still in the mother’s body growing is not a baby and that it’s okay to kill the baby because it’s still in the mother’s body. Killing is killing, and murder is murder. The fact that the baby is still inside the mother’s body doesn’t make taking a life anything less than killing. It simply means the baby is still growing inside the mother’s body.

When a woman is pregnant, she doesn’t say her fetus just kicked her. She will say that her baby just kicked her. When a new mom is shopping for things for her baby that’s on the way, she won’t say she went shopping for fetus clothes or a fetus bed, a fetus stroller, fetus bottles, and the like. But rather the mom will say that she went shopping for baby clothes and a baby bed, baby bottles, a baby stroller, etc. She doesn’t say she found a cute pink or blue fetus blanket.

A pregnant woman, a new mom, will call her baby just that, a baby. Friends and family that might make someone handcrafted for the new baby won’t give it to the mom at the baby shower and call it a fetus or tissue gift, nor do we have fetus or tissue showers, but rather we have baby showers.

A woman that has only the thought of killing her baby before it’s born will no doubt call her baby a fetus, as will abortion clinics and those that want you to believe that killing your baby is okay and the thing to do, that there’s nothing wrong in murdering your baby before it takes its first breath of air. They call it the medical term of fetus because that makes it easier in their minds to commit the crime of murdering the baby. After all, if they try to take away the ‘baby’ out of the baby, then it makes it easier on their conscience to commit the horrible deed. They just tell themselves its not a baby at all, but only a fetus or tissue.

I have yet to see any woman ever deliver a bouncing baby fetus or a bouncing ball of tissue and be overjoyed about it. Yet there are women who deliver a bouncing baby and are overjoyed. Amazingly enough, that baby the moms are overjoyed at delivering and holding and loving is the same thing abortionists call a fetus and tissue.

Abortion activists want pregnant women to believe that their unborn baby isn’t a baby at all. For some reason, abortion activists want women to believe it’s okay to kill their baby. They call it having a choice and having control of their own bodies. Women should indeed have control over their bodies. However, the little body that is growing inside of them is NOT their body, and no one has the right to kill or harm that little innocent body. Mothers have the responsibility to take care of their children. Killing a child before it’s born is not acceptable, neither is it a choice, or a right. It’s murder.

Genesis 25:21, 22 “And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she [was] barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within her … ”

The bible tells us that Rebekah was pregnant with twin boys, and that the children struggled within her. Tissue doesn’t struggle, babies do. The bible calls the two unborn sons what they are, children. Rebekah went on to have the twins, Jacob and Esau. She did not bear tissue, because she was never pregnant with tissue, nor was she expecting tissue. She was pregnant with, expecting, and bore babies.

The point of this is that pro-choice abortion activists try to minimize the baby into something it isn’t, tissue. They try to take away the human aspect of the baby, attempting to make the baby less than human. All of this is done to attempt to make it okay to murder the baby, because in their minds if they call the baby something other than a baby, to them the baby isn’t a baby so they can kill the baby with a clear conscience. It’s murder.

When Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his wife, he was also convicted of killing his unborn baby. Recently Jessie Davis who was nine months pregnant was missing and found dead. Her boyfriend, Bobby Cutts, Jr. is being charged with two counts of murder, Jessie’s and her unborn baby. The fact is that two people died in both of these cases, and many others like these. The mom and the unborn baby lost their lives. The mom wasn’t carrying tissue around and when the mom died, it wasn’t tissue that also died, but a baby. Charging the killers with two counts of murder is only right, because two people died. So why is it that some people think it’s okay to kill a baby through an abortion murder clinic?

It will simply never be right or okay to take the life of an innocent baby. No amount of denial or arguments will ever make murdering an unborn baby okay. The joy though is that every single one of those babies are loved and cared for by our Father who created each little life.

Originally posted by Cindy

Originally posted by Cindy

When you feel unloved and unwanted,
When you think that no one cares
Know in your heart, Friend
God does.

When you feel that things said and done
are not forgiveable,
That your guilt and burden is yours alone,
Know in your heart, Friend
God heals.

When you feel that no one can see past the hurt,
that no one knows the pain, the heartache,
When you think that it’s all hidden and you’re
all alone,
Open your eyes and see, Friend
God knows.

When you feel you’re at the bottom, that no
one can reach you and bring you back up again,
When you think there’s no more hope,
Just reach out your hand, Friend
God is there.

When you feel like there’s no one that can
understand, that no one would want you,
When you think you’re destined to be alone,
Don’t give up, Friend
God’s got a plan.

When the day is done, and you feel like you’ve
no place to call home,
When you’ve traveled far, and you need to rest,
Just hold out your hand, Friend
God’s leading you.

Originally posted by Cindy