REST

Psalm 91 ” I am resting in the shadow of the Almighty. He covers me with His feathers. Under His wings I find refuge.”

Heavenly Father, How grateful we are for the rest that is found in Christ. You brought us forgiveness and relief and You asked us to rest in You. Thank You for the peace that accompanies this rest. Thank You for the freedom from worry. Thank You for carrying the weights that we used to carry on our shoulders, for giving us a thousand promises that become ours to claim, to grow in and to be comforted by.

Father, You have the ability, being Who You Are, to know each need in each heart and each concern in each mind. So we pause and release to You those things that have plagued us long enough. In doing so, we invite The Spirit of God to plow the soil of our souls so the seed of God’s Word can be sown, take root, and be watered in time as to produce spiritual abundance. We commit these valued moments to You, resting in You and may this allow us to be lost in wonder, love and praise. In Jesus’ Name Amen

BEING THE LIGHT OF LOVE

The world needs our power, love and energy and each of us has something that we can give. The trick is to find it, use it and give it away so there will be more. We can be lights for each other and through each others illuminations we will see the way. We live in a world that is in a state of need for gaining power against all odds. If that means, compromising on our own morals and losing all self respect in doing so… So be it! Right? Not really…  If any of our decisions and actions are a personal gain, with the “no matter what” attitude attached to it, its not just morally wrong but psychological and emotional wrong. We blame the world, the government, the officials, we literally blame everyone and everything for our problems. But have we ever thought of looking within? Have we ever thought of how we can be a positive light in this world?  Yes, there is darkness, corruption, a whole lot of wrong around us…And I agree to that. But, there is a lot of love and a lot of compassion within us, should we choose to live authentically. We can be the light not only to ourselves but for all those around us. If we choose to be the light and live a loving, caring and compassionate existence, our light will most definitely eradicate all darkness.  The way to be a candle of light is to Love. Love with all your heart and soul and everything that exists within you, rather than pull each other down on the road to power and success. Lets hold each others hands and get there together.

JOURNEY

Wisdom has been from mistakes, Failure has led to my growth, Abundance gratefully rises above the paths of my past.

What Am I Meant To Learn From All Of This?

I first started with prayer.I needed help in each moment to remember the greater purpose this is serving in my life. Though it has not been always easy, prayer has helped me realize that I don’t need to have all the answers. I can have faith that things are working out in my favor and that God is going to make this happen for the best. I’ve learned to give Him control of my life and learn to follow His lead. I also have recently touched on my evolving understanding of my ego and spirit (Few days ago). I began to realize that through this breakup, I had two thought sources. One seemed to come from just inside my ear and the other came from my gut. The ear/ego thoughts were generally painful and emotional and started with “I think” and the gut/spirit thoughts were calm and started with “I know”. Since my ego had expectations and attachments to what it thought our future was going to be, it was incredibly upset that life was not going according to its plan. But my gut at the same time knew that what was best for one of us, was best for us both. This distinction between the ego and spirit has been an incredible transformation in all areas of my life. After weeks of observation, I can now distinguish when a thought is coming from my ego or my spirit. Then I do my best to choose the course of action that is aligned with the spirit. If I’m having trouble with shaking an ego urge, Then I pray to my spirit for help. I’m nowhere close to being perfect at this but I am improving day by day. At this point and time (Remember its only been weeks), I have come to feel optimistic about the future for us both. I trust that our future is bright whether we are together or not. The relationship itself was never the source of the good in my life, but rather an extension/byproduct of doing my best and pursuing my purpose. Though the vision of my life included this relationship, I have faith that God’s plan for my life is much greater than I can imagine. So I’m not trying to fill in all the blanks anymore.

Some affirmations:

1) All pain passes eventually

2) I can’t always control what happens but I can control how I respond to it

3) I know now I can have hurt less and create even more possibilities for myself if I put more effort into completely letting go.

Opening My Heart To Love Again

I have been praying about sharing a painful time in my life and since I’m now healed from it,I am ready to write,blog and share about it.I do blog about my personal experiences, why leave this out.

A few months ago, I came out of a relationship with a guy I dated for 5 years on and off.There were a lot of break-ups and not something I can jump up and down about. I wish I can say “I want to take those times back, But the truth is, I wouldn’t change any of it simply because I learned a lot about myself in the relationship and about him as a person.I can honestly say that to this day, I have moments of heart wrenching pain, sadness that feels overwhelming, and tears that feel like they will fall forever. I often judged this pain as bad and thought to myself “I should be over this, why am I still feeling this much pain, I should be happy by now”, I start to “should” all over myself. Does this sound familiar? Whether its a broken heart or anything in life that feels challenging, so often I judged where I was versus just accepting it. This time though I at times feel pain in my heart, I think, “What do I really want in a relationship, in a partner and what is most important to me”. I started to realize that my life is precious, so I made a list to answer these questions.
1. Someone who believes and loves God.

2. Someone who will appreciate and accept me for Who I am.

3. Someone who will bring out the best in me.

4. Someone who will add value to my life.

5. Someone who loves themselves and is happy and content with their own life prior to being in a relationship. (This I say because if someone is not happy or content with their own life and or they don’t love themselves, Then this causes issues since they are seeking love from someone else to fulfill them instead of sharing their love with someone else. (I can get pretty deep on this subject, which is where I learned a lot.There is more to my list, But this is just a few.

I discovered that getting over a broken heart takes time, learning to open my heart again takes time, Its a process and its one that I need not take lightly. Loss is a big event in our lives and grieving a loss is what will help us to heal our hearts and bring us back to a place where we will be ready to love again. I remember after our break ups, I tried everything. I read books about relationships, self healing through a breakup, etc. Thinking that if I just work on myself, I will be able to heal my heart faster and call in my soul mate. WRONG! These were all just forms of looking outside of myself and thinking I needed to “fix” myself. I thought that if I would “fix” myself that I would be lovable and whatever I did in past relationships that didn’t work at the time, I would “fix” it. I would fix what was broken in me and then someone would really love me. The reality is that I had this backwards. As I went through the healing process, I kept hearing the words “You have to love yourself before you can love another or another can love you”. These thoughts swirled through my mind ringing Truth to me in so many ways, and they also brought to me a feeling that I would never find love until I fully, unconditionally loved myself. So yes I believe that we must love,take care and nurture ourselves and be in alignment with what our higher self wants. Loving ourselves is very important because when we stray from this, we will usually be presented with lessons when we don’t honor our own needs and start to give ourselves away, something will always be presented to us back to our center, even if its painful. I learned this the hard way. I was doing everything in my power to make it work. I thought if we just seek counseling together then we could fix what was wrong. Sad to say but I was in a fix myself mode for years. I don’t remember coming out of this relationship and not blaming myself for something I did/said wrong. This didn’t help me heal, this just brought on more suffering, pain and more healing. Losing someone is hard. Often times people will shut down and turn away from love because the pain endured is so intense. Sometimes I thought “I would never open to love again. I discovered we walk through life with an iron gate around our hearts thinking it will protect us. We turn to anything that will numb the pain or keep jumping from one relationship to another thinking the pain will go away (I personally know someone who has done this and it didn’t work, It caused more heart ache and more healing needed on top of the healing they ran away from). We pass each other on the street without acknowledging that we are all in pain in some form or another. When others ask “How we are and we answer “fine” or “I’m great, no stress and a lot happier”, But don’t really mean it because we don’t want others to see our pain. What I have learned through this whole process is that healing is about being vulnerable, about showing who I really am and how I am really feeling. No more hiding, no more pretending that I am okay. Telling someone close to me how I am feeling and reaching out for support, helped me to see how many people in my life do love me and that there is nothing wrong with me that I need to fix, These amazing souls reflected back to me the love that I am. When this happened, I knew I didn’t have to search anywhere outside of myself anymore to find a way to fix myself or to feel loved and my heart started to open up. So as I sit here today, I can only share with you what I have learned. I have learned that only time, patience,self nurturing,support from loved ones and acceptance of what is (even if it sucks) will bring healing. I also learned that being vulnerable is Perfect. That allowing someone to see my pain allows them to really see me and relate to me. That opening up my heart and letting someone in, is not as scary as it seems and that staying shut down just creates more pain. That each time I speak a Truth, even if its painful, my heart melts and opens just a bit every time. I am DONE with fixing myself. Fixing just tells the universe that I do not think I am okay exactly how I am. It sends out the message that I am broken, that I am not an inherently perfect, loving being. When I send out that message, what do I get? Someone that will reflect that back to me. So, what have I learned from all of the pain and broken hearts I have endured? Is that only time will take away the pain, and as I am feeling the pain, opening up to the true love inside of myself and accepting myself exactly where I am, Broken heart and all will bring me back to what is really important… LOVE

I want to thank My Heavenly Father for His lead,guidance and lessons,His amazing Love for me,Comforting me through my pain,Providing strength when I need to persevere,and protecting me under His Wings where I remained safe and secure. To my 4 wonderful,amazing boys, I’m so blessed that God entrusted me to care and raise you on my own with Him as our solid foundation. Thank you for all you have put up with during this challenging and painful time in my life. We are a team, and I must say…A Great team.To all of my wonderful friends and love ones. For walking along side with me,listening and encouraging me to press on. The lessons and experiences in this relationship were needed in order for me to discover Who I am in a relationship and for Self Awareness,it also has given me the wisdom and knowledge I now have today.

To those woman who are in a relationship, If your not appreciated for Who you are today, Remember…Don’t settle for less than God’s BEST. He will bring the perfect man in His time to you. It will be PERFECT!

I will be taking a small break to enjoy being free at last and to breath the air back in my life.

God Bless You All,
In Him,
Lourdes

The Only Constant In Life is…CHANGE

Discovering my identity in changing times…

Its like a trend starts, picks up momentum and blows right past the point of balance and so it turns around and does the same thing in the opposite direction- Like a pendulum, swinging from side to side. Life is always in a state of motion and changes direction all the time. Now the question is… How do I believe I stay stable in motion?  I believe true stability is not in the absence of change, It is the ability to maintain balance in a changing world. As an individual, the challenge is to develop a strong inner sense of balance that is not easily disrupted by changing external influences. When I feel balanced in my life, my sense of identity is not threatened just because circumstances have changed. Meaning- I’m both adaptable and stable at the same time. By recognizing this and appreciating my own set of unique resources, strengths, values, and abilities, I then started to spend some time figuring out Who I Am as a person and connect with that person. I believe that some us have lost touch with our creative self by allowing the roles we play to define Who We Are as a person when it should be the other way around. From this perspective, the winds of the change can easily throw us off balance. I started to then think about outside influences that can throw me off. ( One example )

1. Associates- The attitude of close associates may have a powerful influence on my personal ideas and beliefs. Their opinions can actually precondition me to view things the way they do. I may value their opinions so much that I subconsciously adapt their viewpoint without any personal experience.

My life and its many pursuits should be an expression of my most cherished dreams and values. Not the ones dictated by others. I find that some people choose a life that is based on external criteria. They end up following a path that leads away from the expression of their True Self and then with each step, they actually distance themselves from the life they truly long for. Circumstances and friends have a way of changing. Sometimes they support our dreams and passions and other times they provide a challenge. So I keep my dreams alive in the face of challenging circumstances, this requires that I know Who I really Am and What I really want. Once I’m in touch with my True Self, the changes around me become much less influential, instead of my identity being anchored to external forces, it remains safe and secure no matter which way the winds of change decides to blow.

True Self

Who am I ? This question is not asking me, What’s my name, marital status, or life history. These may be a reflection of Who I am, But this question goes deeper than that. I ask myself “How well do I actually know this person” Like, “Who I am underneath all the trappings and titles” “What do I see when I look at my very core”, this inner person walking around in my body doing my job and managing my life. (My True Self). I remember as a child hearing “What do you want to be when you grow up?” This never sat well with me and I discovered why. I believe the question should be “Who do you want to be instead of “What”. In reality “What” is just a role we play and may have very little to do with our true identity as a person. So how can I align my  life with my True Self if I don’t know Who I Am? I believe that our ability to find meaning and purpose in this journey we call life hinges on how well we actually know ourselves. Discovering our True Self can open the door to a life that feels fulfilling and exciting. I started to think and discover about My True Self. My values- Things that matter the most to me on the deepest levels. My personal values and standards- Priorities and Beliefs. Understanding my strengths- My natural abilities that I posses and the ones I want to cultivate and develop. These are personal assets giving me a position in life. Knowing my passions- What am I passionate about? What activities and pursuits make me feel really alive. Identifying my tendencies- These often become habits either good or bad. Acknowledging my limits- Which skills or activities are beyond my  ability for that time. This way I can focus my energy where its the most effective. Since I know I can improve my abilities in most areas of life, I don’t view current limitations as permanent. I’m realistic in my personal assessment. Setting my goals- Things I want to really achieve, what person do I want to grow into. Clarity was very important when I started setting my goals, this lead to action,  because without clarity it can lead to confusion and inaction. I then established my direction, where my True Self will take me. Understanding All these, I then needed to have a destination to move towards, a direction. I didn’t worry about reaching my destination because reality is that its the journey that counts. So I picked a direction that represented genuine happiness and I moved towards it, and then just left life unfold. Taking time with getting to know my True Self was so important. I discovered the wonderful blends of amazing abilities and qualities I possess that’s also felt by others.

God sees the matter of our heart

Proverbs 21:2 

“A person may think their own ways are right, but The Lord weighs the heart”

Sometimes we forget that God sees and knows everything. I think… What about if He were blind and could not see what we do or know what we think? Would our actions be different? Or will we be careless in how we live? Its like we forget that He is always watching us and listening to us, He remembers everything we do, His eye is never turned away or shut.. He examines the deepest thoughts of our hearts and minds (Jeremiah 11:20). We can’t deceive Him, He knows how much hypocrisy is in our hearts and how much truth there is. “Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but The Lord tests the heart” (Proverbs 17:3). He sees the lust and adultery, the hatred and unkindness. “The human heart is the most deceitful and desperately wicked, (Jeremiah 17:9-10) I The Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards”. We may try to hide our sins from Him, but the truth is He knows everything about us. The Word of God cuts deep into our innermost thoughts and desires, it exposes us before His eyes. He’s the One whom we must explain all that we have done. So why hide? We may wear a mask and people think we are following Him, But one day we will stand before Him and all will be seen. This should make us tremble in fear. He wants us to turn our sinful ways so that we can live. If we turn to Him and believe in Christ, He will forgive us and give us new life.

Embracing My Truths

I release my expectations so that I can discover greater blessings in God’s plan, I’m looking beyond my disappointments to embrace new beginnings, and I let God’s love help me face my hurt and forgive those who hurt me.

A Woman’s Dream

I believe God gives every woman a dream that is specially designed for her talents and His purpose, a dream only she can fulfill. It is with our faith to move forward as we will face obstacles that would keep us from His best for us. We will hear the enemies lies and we will feel discouraged, fatigued, impatient, and with unbelief. This is common because the closer our relationship with Him and fulfilling His purpose for our lives, the enemy will work harder. We simply walk in faith toward the destiny He has called us to do, keeping our focus on all the great things He has for us. I know these things as I have experienced it myself. I have been on some amazing adventures as I continue moving forward and regardless of my circumstances. I press through, walking confidently and avoid doubting Him.