Archives for November 2015
The Importance of Being Authentic
Be authentic…
Does that spark any thoughts in you mind?
Well, It is 2am and I am sitting in my bed typing this. I wanted to make sure that I discussed it while it was fresh on my mind.
We all have a message.
We all have influence.
Some of us feel that we are less heard than others, so we begin to reach out for a bigger platform that will afford us the opportunity to get out message out to a larger audience. Yet, many times, we never stop to think about when we will be satisfied with the size or magnitude of our platform. When will you be satisfied with the size of your audience?
Have you realize that your message has the power to change someone’s life?
If you focus on the size of your audience, you may never say what you need to say to change the life of that one person. Yes, one person matters.
Will you be happy if your message changes 500,000, 100,000, or 5,000 lives? How about 500? What about 100? What if your message reached 50 people and their lives were changed? What if you message reached 5 people? Would you be happy that those 5 people were always attentively listening to your message? What if the message that you shared changed the lives of those 5 and then they, in turn, had an impact on their sphere of the world?
Ironically, my family has 5 of the members, besides myself, in it. Years ago, I told the Lord that I wanted to change the world…He gave me my family. My role as a wife and mother has become the most important role in my life outside of being a child of God. I have come to realize that nothing else can be placed above these two God-given roles.
Now although I am a wife and mother, I am also a writer. I have come to learn that I must know my audience. When I am talking to my family, they are my audience. My message is for them. However, when I am writing, my message is for a specific, God-given audience.
I believe that we have to understand and appreciate the fact that God has given all of us an audience. Whatever it is that you do, you sphere of influence is God-given. You don’t have to change your message in order to attract your audience. Share the message that God gave you and watch those within your sphere of influence; receive a major impact in the way that God ordained.
Stop focusing on the numbers. Stop thinking that no one is listening. Those are all distractions.
When you are at home cooking dinner for you family, the message is clear…you care for them. They hear you say, “You are worth of my time.”
When you take the time to help your children with homework or to, simply, hug them…you are sharing your message. They hear you say, “I love you. You are valuable to me.”
When you listen to your husband talk about his day…you’re listening. He hears you say, “You are interesting and your story matters.”
If you are a blogger, like me, and you take the time to share a message with your audience…you are investing. They hear you say, “Your life matters and I am honored to share my message with you.”
We all have to realize that our message is bigger than ourselves. Whether the listener responds in a way that communicates what we are expecting or not, we have to understand the potential for our message to reach their hearts and to inspire them.
The numbers don’t matter.
I understand the statistic. “If you have a larger number of people in your audience, the greater amount of people who might hear your message.” Yet, you are focusing on the numbers, not the message.
Let me give you a different statistic. If you have a larger number of people in your audience, the greater number of people who may possibly encounter your message, but they might not be listening. Yet, if you focus on the quality of your message and know your audience, regardless of the numbers, someone will most likely listen and be greatly impacted.
What I am trying to tell you is that focusing on the numbers causes us not to be authentic because we are willing to do whatever is necessary to get our numbers up. We become blinded by the numbers and unable to see all of the people who God has placed in our lives, who are actually listening.
However, when we focus in on the quality of the message and share what God has placed in our hearts, the lives that He has foreordained, are changed…
Don’t change your message to make people listen. Share your real message and the people who are supposed to hear it, will listen.
All of this is a choice. Just give it a thought and be authentic…
The Little Things
The Little Things…
Over the past 13 ½ years, I have gone from working mom, to student, and then to stay at home mom and back to student/SAHM again. When I look at the standard that the world sets, I realize am supposed to be able to do it all and still live a healthy life as a wife and mother. However, I have found this to be a task that I have not successfully achieved in all of my adult life, to the degree that I desire.
When I attempt to tackle too much, I find that I am overwhelmed by the daily tasks and expectations that are set before me. I want to be, both, a great wife and a great mother, but when working hard at achieving these two goals and then trying to juggle a full-time job, it seems that I end up dropping the ball and despising one aspect of my life.
For that very reason, I decided to give up the 9-5 for a while. I decided to focus on my education, which will afford me the opportunity do work a more flexible schedule while doing what I love. In the mean time I focus on being thankful for the little things.
What little things? You ask…
- I am thankful for the conflicts that my husband and I have. They remind me that I am in a healthy relationship where my spouse is willing to challenge me. He helps to sharpen me like iron and he makes me better. I am married.
- I am thankful for the mandate that I have to balance my roles as mother and wife with other roles that I have. They remind me of how important it is to me to be a mother and a wife. These challenges show me that somethings will come up against my most important human relationships, but resilience and reevaluation are the keys to getting things back in line. I am a wife and a mother.
- I am thankful for the mounds of laundry that I tend to have. We have six people in our family and those mounds of laundry remind me that God has blessed us with tons of clothes and choices of what to wear. We have clothes to wear.
- I am thankful for the dishes in my sink. I have to take the time to wash them, either by hand or by dishwasher, but they remind me that we have all eaten and do so daily. We have food to eat.
- I am thankful for the toys to pick up off of the floor. They remind me that God has blessed us with an income to provide for our children’s pleasure. They get to play with things that they enjoy. We have a steady income and material things to enjoy.
- I am thankful for the time that I have to manage wisely. As a stay at home mom, I have a certain amount of time that I have to manage in order to be productive, while my family is away at school and work. This could feel overwhelming at times, but it is a blessing to have that time to decide what I would like to take care of and how I would like to do it. I am still alive and can manage my time.
- I am thankful that I have to tell my kids to stop running around the house or being so loud. I grew up as an only child in my house, so I having four children actively running around and playing are things that I had to get used to. However, their noise is a very pleasant reminder that they are healthy and adventurous. Their noise and lively activities remind me that I have been blessed with children and I am thankful. I have children and they are healthy.
- I am also thankful for the school work that I have to complete and the books that I have to read. They are reminders of the fact that I am receiving an education that will prepare me of various opportunities in life. I have the opportunity to be educated and make the best out of life. I have a sound mind.
I have a long list of things that I could discuss, but I think you get the jest of what I’m saying. It is very hard to forget our blessings, especially when some of our struggles come from those very places. We could all take a look at the things that we complain about and realize that they are simply a blessing that we must learn how to manage. I hope that you have found this post encouraging.
Do you have various areas of your life, where you tend to complain, but after reading this post, realize that you have more to be thankful for than to complain about? If so share them with us.
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Is Your Husband Flawed?
When I first married my husband, I was convinced that he was a great guy. I knew that he would always love me and show me that he cared.
As we moved into our second, third, fourth, and even fifth year of being married, I could see his flaws more than I could see them originally. I considered how I thought he had changed and was determined to help him remember the qualities that he had possessed before, which qualified him for the “great guy” category.
What I did not know was that he had always been a flawed individual, but because of the love, passion, and desire that I had for him, I could not see them.
When we were dating, my husband would show up early for our dates. He would ring the door bell and then patiently wait for me, on the couch or in the car. When we arrived to our destination, we were always early.
Later on in our marriage, he would get ready and promptly remind me of my need to speed up, as I got dressed. He wanted us to arrive early to our destination, but I was taking my time getting dressed.
Before marriage…not a flaw….
After marriage…flaw…
Over the years, I had tried to change various aspects of who he was, but learned that it was more difficult to change him, than it was to change something in myself.
What I mean is that I started to ask myself why certain aspects of his personality seemed to be flaws to me now, when they were not flaws to me before…
He had always been very punctual…nothing had changed about him.
Had I been unaware of the changes that had occurred in my own personality over the years? The more I asked this question, the deeper I dug into the root of my issue. The more I dug, the more I prayed. The more I prayed, the more God began to show me…myself.
He helped me to see that I wasn’t perfect, but He never considered me so flawed that I could not be loved. He showed me that He had actually given me time, as He would continue to in the future, to get past certain struggles and be the woman that he created me to be. He showed me that there were various aspects of myself that would need to be changed before He would consider me mature. Yet that never changed how He saw me. It never changed the fact that He considered me precious and lovable.
Learning to see myself through God’s eyes, helped me to see my husband in the same way. I began to accept who he was and his “flaws” became characteristics that I cherished. Our differences came to be the strengths of our marriage, when previously, I had considered them weaknesses.
Today, I am a more punctual person. Although I still struggle with consistency, my husband’s ability to remain consistent will definitely rub off on me, I’m sure. I consider that my perspective is often times what needs to be changes, not my husband. God will and does work on him, but my job is to allow Him to work on me.
I love my husband more and more each day. I cherish the ways that he sharpens me like iron, even when it’s not comfortable at the moment. When I look back on it all, I am thankful.
If you were to ask me if my husband is flawed, I would humbly say, “Yes, he is, but so am I. We are both human.”
Can you relate to what I have said here? Do you find it easier to identify the “flaws” of your spouse that it is to identify your own flaws? How can you change your perspective and actions to make the weaknesses of your marriage the strength of your marriage?
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Communicating With Your Husband
The other night, I was in a marriage coaching session with a couple. After we had finished, I sat and thought about the communication between these two spouses. I gradually began to think about my communications with my husband over the past 13 1/2 years.
I realized that many times couples underestimate the effectiveness of loving, open-hearted communication.
When we were in our first two years of marriage, I remember thinking that good couples in healthy marriages did not argue. Now that I have been married to my high school sweetheart for more than a decade, I have come to realize that some of the best couples, indeed argue. They are just careful about how they do it.
Many times in life, we try to avoid some of the hardest situations. When we are in the fire, we run away, refusing to get burned. What we fail to realize is that somethings require fire in order to be refined, like gold. That is how our lives are.
We spend a lot of time around people who want to tickle our ears. They don’t want to ruffle our feathers because they are afraid that challenging our perspectives will jeopardize the relationship that they have with us. Yet, without challenges, we cannot become better individuals or live our best lives for Christ. Without challenges, we are stuck in our same ol’ ways, smiling, but never better. However, marriage is not one of those relationships, nor should it be.
In a marriage each partner, by default, should make the other better.
Think about it. This is the person that lives with you and sees you at you best…and worst. He knows when you are giving something your all and when you are doing it half way. He can see when you are walking in love and walking in anger. To be even more precise, he can see what you cannot see about yourself and speak truth to you about it, in love.
I know, it doesn’t always feel like he is speaking in love, but what if you adjusted your hearing. Do you think that you could turn down your detection of pessimism, resentment, and anger long enough to detect the love that he has in his heart for you. Do his words challenge you and call you out of fear? Does he confirm what God has already spoken into your heart about the changes that you need to make to be your best?
I have found that over the course of my marriage, communication with my husband has not always been easy, but more times than not, it has been very beneficial. I have had to make a choice to remain accountable, open-hearted, and humble towards him, so that he could lead me.
Yes, I said that my husband leads me. When I have prayed for direction and I’m looking for someone to speak into my life, God will often use my husband to say some of the toughest things to me. Because his eyes are watching me each day, I have also been held accountable.
In trusting our husbands with our hearts, we leave room for God to speak to us through them. He is able to validate us through the one human relationship that will be most fulfilling on this earth.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. ~Ephesians 5:22-33
Today, I want to encourage you to consider the communication that you have with your husband. Don’t think that it always has to sound or look a certain way in order for it to be effective. It should not be abusive, but it doesn’t have to be pretty either. It needs to be what God knows is best for you in your life and in your marriage. Your husband loves you and servers God in helping you though this process of sanctification and cleansing that God is so mercifully taking you through. See the fire and the flame as methods used to make you better. Never stop talking to, texting, emailing, winking, or smiling at your husband. Leave the lines of communication open and know that in a loving relationship, iron sharpens iron.