REDEMPTION UNVEILED
Letting Life’s Problems Change Me… For the Better
Recently, I was talking to a friend and mentioned to her that I am always looking to change. I hope to be a very different person in a year than I am today.
I said it without thinking a thing about it until she stopped me and asked,
“You want to change?”
Do you ever say things and not think about them until someone calls you out for saying it? I do all of the time. I thought about it for a minute and realized that I whole-heartedly believed and agreed with the statement I made.
I want to change...
Recently, I was talking to a friend and mentioned to her that I am always looking to change. I hope to be a very different person in a year than I am today.
I said it without thinking a thing about it until she stopped me and asked,
“You want to change?”
Do you ever say things and not think about them until someone calls you out for saying it? I do all of the time. I thought about it for a minute and realized that I whole-heartedly believed and agreed with the statement I made.
I want to change.
I want to constantly be growing, learning and becoming something more amazing than I was before.
This is a far cry from the way I used to live. Actually, it is a complete 180. I used to feel so attached to who I was. I didn’t want to change. In fact, the mere thought of it made me feel insecure. Heaven forbid, someone suggest it.
I was so utterly afraid of needing improvement that it kept me from growing.
This mindset kept me stuck. But not anymore.
I am now dedicated to learning who I am and facing it. Brokenness and all.
Everything in my life is now an opportunity for me to grow. I am learning to maneuver through my perceptions that have kept me from growing in the past
I now view conflict as an opportunity to learn about my brokenness instead of merely accusing the other person of being all of the problem.
I have learned to listen to the things that I say about other people when I am frustrated. I have realized that often times what comes out of my mouth says more about me than it says about them.
I no longer blame my unhappiness or frustrations on anyone else. I have chosen to take ownership and responsibility for my life.
I have embraced the very real fact that sometimes I am just flat wrong.
I give more grace, not just to others, but to myself.
I allow my circumstances to grow me. I am embracing the true journey of this life. Not just a journey to my next achievement, but the journey of discovering who I am capable of being.
I am finding redemption.
I understand that I am beautiful, but I’ve got a lot of mess on top, around and within this beauty. I am dedicated to the process of unraveling, unveiling and redeeming this whole beautiful mess.
I want freedom and I don't want anything in this life to keep me from finding it.
Including myself.
LIKE what you read? Sign-up through email! CLICK HERE!!!
Without Love...
Love isn't always hard. But, often times, it is. It can be hard to love our spouses, our friends, our families, our homes, our jobs... or our lives.
I have yet to meet a "lover" who has not also experienced the painful kiss of disappointment, betrayal, and heartache.
When we love, we will inevitably experience disappointment and feel pain. We can slowly determine that the cost of love is too high because it hurts so much. Through the many disappointments that we experience it is easy to choose to love less.
Despite all of my experiences that have taught me that love is quite costly, I have determined that the cost of not loving is far greater.
To lose my love is to lose my life...
Love is hard.
Sure, there are times that love is easy.
Falling in love is easy. It is easy to love our children. And puppies. Puppies are easy to love. (If you aren't trying to train them! Haha.)
So, love isn't always hard. But, often times, it is. It can be hard to love our spouses, our friends, our families, our homes, our jobs... or our lives.
I have yet to meet a "lover" who has not also experienced the painful kiss of disappointment, betrayal, and heartache.
When we love, we will inevitably experience disappointment and feel pain. We can slowly determine that the cost of love is too high because it hurts so much. Through the many disappointments that we experience it is easy to choose to love less.
Despite all of my experiences that have taught me that love is quite costly, I have determined that the cost of not loving is far greater.
To lose my love is to lose my life.
Love is hard, but we must continue to choose love no matter how difficult it may be.
We can discover all of the mysteries on this earth, but if we don’t’ find love, we will still be lost.
We could find a family for every child in need of one, but if they are not shown love, there is no point.
We can possess all of the intellect of this world, but without love, it will lead us to isolation.
We can teach our children all of the lessons of life, but if they never learn that they are loved, then we have failed.
We could feed every starving person on this earth, but if they have not been treated with love, they will still be in need.
We can be on the “right” side of every argument, but if we can’t love the person on the other side, what does that say about us?
We can possess all of the power in the world, but without love, we cannot be trusted with it.
We can be married for the rest of our lives, but if it is void of love, it will be far from a fairy tale.
We can earn freedom for the entire world, but if there is no love, we will be enslaved by our hate.
We can have everything that money can buy, but without love, we will still be poor.
We can speak with beautifully eloquent words, but if they are not followed with love, our words will produce hate.
It is vital that we find a way to put love at the center of our cause, no matter what that may be.
Because without love my friends, we have nothing.
DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-MAIL LIST, SO YOU NEVER MISS A POST FROM REDEMPTION UNVEILED!
The High Cost of Hope
Why couldn’t it just have gone as planned? It was all supposed to be so simple. So straightforward. I’m so disappointed that things haven’t gone as smooth as I hoped they would.
Why must it be so damn hard?
I don’t understand.
I weep today over the obstacles of life. I weep over the deep disappointment of the dream that is still a dream...
Why couldn’t it just have gone as planned? It was all supposed to be so simple. So straightforward. I’m so disappointed that things haven’t gone as smooth as I hoped they would.
Why must it be so damn hard?
I don’t understand.
I weep today over the obstacles of life. I weep over the deep disappointment of the dream that is still a dream.
I am continually amazed at how much this life can hurt. The depth of disappointment that we can experience is surprisingly deep. Long roads that seem to have no end are beyond discouraging.
I am here. Broken.
I am here because I dreamed. I am here because I believed. I am here because I hoped.
What do I do now?
Do I run?
Do I hide?
Do I try to find a way to never be here again?
No.
I absolutely will not run from my heartache. I will not hide from my pain. I will stand here. I will be still. I will face it. I will challenge it.
I will soak in my pain, embrace my brokenness and I will do something that feels like a very stupid thing to do right now.
I will hope.
I will hope even though my hope has cost me in the past. I will hope even though I have no guarantees. I will hope because I refuse to be a person who lives without hope. I will hope because I believe in redemption. I will hope because I believe that hope is one of the most powerful forces in this world.
Hope is a rare commodity that many people come to believe is too costly to possess.
This world has a way of betraying us, but I will hope still. I will cry. I will scream. I will curse.
But I will stand.
And I will hope.
I don't think we will ever fully understand the role that disappointment has in our lives. The path we expected and the path that we have lived are far from the same. The amount of pain that this world brings to our doorstep can seem unfair. At times, it feels like we are being run over by our disappointment.
Disappointments are tough, but I will not allow my disappointment to control my future. I will march on, with more passion than ever and I will not fear the risk to hope.
Because to live a life without hope is to live no life at all.
Fear tells me that my hope is too costly to possess, but I will challenge my fears. I will have the final say.
Watch me.
Even when my outstanding dreams seem more than I can bear, I will press forward, forging a way to a new place. I will not look back. I will embrace where I am, but fully expect to be somewhere new soon.
I will stand here until my disappointment turns into one of the most precious commodities in the world.
I will stay in this place until my disappointment turns to hope.
And when I am once again armed with hope. I will be ready and expecting to bring change to this world. Because through the eyes of my hope, I can see not what is, but what could be.
DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-MAIL LIST, SO YOU NEVER MISS A POST FROM REDEMPTION UNVEILED!
Look in the Mirror and Clearly See
Have you ever felt discontent with who you are?
Several years ago, I found myself frustrated with my life. Don’t get me wrong, my circumstances were great. I had a wonderful family, great friends, I was a new mom, I was blessed with a job that I enjoyed and I was in a flourishing marriage, yet I felt disappointed with myself.
I wanted to find a way to live content.
I wanted to learn to be ok with who I was.
I wanted to learn how to love me...
Have you ever felt discontent with who you are?
Several years ago, I found myself frustrated with my life. Don’t get me wrong, my circumstances were great. I had a wonderful family, great friends, I was a new mom, I was blessed with a job that I enjoyed and I was in a flourishing marriage, yet I felt disappointed with myself.
I wanted to find a way to live content.
I wanted to learn to be ok with who I was.
I wanted to learn how to love me.
I set off on a journey to discover and learn to appreciate who I am. Now, after several years, I have a suggestion for anyone who is longing to become more secure in who you are:
Look in the mirror,
see yourself
and own what you see.
This is harder than it sounds. As I look back, I realize that I have spent a lot of time either running from the mirror or lying about what I saw. Why would I do this? I was filled with pride and fear. Pride kept me blind to the truth of my brokenness and fear kept me ashamed of my imperfections.
It can be so easy to get caught up in lying to ourselves about who we are, but in order to be completely free we must see it all, the good, the bad and the ugly. Only after we acknowledge that we have flaws can we begin to attend to them. I didn’t even realize that I had been hiding or denying complete parts of myself.
If we want to truly begin transforming our lives, we must stop thinking that it is unacceptable to have problems, insecurities and brokenness. It is not bad to have “issues”, it is human. The sad thing is that we are all walking around trying to be “perfect”, when in reality, we all have major shit we are working through.
Embrace the real you.
Embrace the truth of who you are, in all its beauty and in all of its ugliness. Embrace that you are a person filled with many aspects: wonderful things, embarrassing things, strengths, weaknesses and brokenness. Embrace your current self, embrace who you have been and embrace who you will be.
I was struggling with being secure because I wasn’t acknowledging who I was. My instincts told me that if I wasn’t perfect then I would lose my value; instead, I found the opposite to be true. Only in being genuine and embracing who I truly am, have I been able to find security.
Once we learn how to accept who we are, flaws and all, we learn something extremely powerful, to love without the premise of perfection. I have learned the life changing ability to love something that is a work in progress, myself. Even better, I no longer expect others to be perfect. I have thrown away the bar of “performance & expectations” in which I used to measure people’s value. I have finally tapped into the truth that value is not in having a perfect reflection, but being a person, which is of great value.