And....Happy New Year

 

So, the year has infact began, thank God.  If your life is as busy as mine tends to get, then you know that the pace isn't any slower yet, the challenges are still greater, the work load is much tougher, and the prayer list has gotten longer....but the real question is: has our faith become stronger?  How about our trust in God?

I am learning daily that faith is not just reading about its great work, but its about living in its great principle.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of what's unseen. Some of us have heard this so many times that it's not as real as the first couple of times we actually heard it.  But ladies, I don't know about you but God has a way of bringing me back to perspective and reminding me that He is God and noone else is. 

I want to encourage you today and for the rest of this month to really position your heart to believe God for absolutely ANYTHING....because really and truly...HE CAN DO ALL THINGS. I can testify of this first-hand.  If we can do this together as women for the month of January, we can set the faith/miracle tone for the rest of the year for our needs, our family's needs, our friends, etc...

Never give up!
Don't believe the lie that great things happen to others and not you!  You too are a partaker of God's blessings, so take it, receive it, walk in it, breathe it and see God move on your behalf!

Be blessed Righteous Woman!

Faith Builders:

• Do you believe God can do anything?
• What areas are you believing God for?

Strengthen Each Other

1 Corinthians 14:26 (New Living Translation) - Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.

I read this scripture a couple of days ago and it really ministered to me, in the sense that, it showed me once again how important it is for all of us to be good at what we do. And more importantly, how amazing it is for us to support each other in what we do; because every joint supplies.  That is, each and everyone of us plays a very important role in the big picture.

Ladies, let's continue to edify and encourage each other to step out into our giftings, so we can be full of strength as a team!

Strength Builders:

• Have you identified your role in life?
• Do you know someone who needs a little help in functioning in their calling?

A More Excellent Life

From the Leader's Edge Column, by John Maxwell

Do you need help in your career? Your marriage? Or maybe you're searching for a better life in general? If so, consider pursuing excellence, which is a generally consistent state of high quality that may bring to mind unmatched performance, unusual expertise, or consistent high-quality performance.  In our mnds, we often associate excellence with talent. To be the best, surely you have to be gifted, right?  Excellence has taught me that talent, while important in no way explains excellence. 

Consider this: are people born with a natural gift of marriage excellence?  No matter what area of life you want to improve, you can develop it to a level of excellence with a little know-how.  In fact, the primary pathway to excellence has 3 main steps, none of which depends on talent.

1. Find your passion - you are nothing unless it comes from your heart. If you perform functions only and go to work only to do processes, then you are effectively retired.  And sadly, most people are retired by age 28.  You have to bring passion, commitment and caring - that's what makes you a human being. People of excellence love what they do.  They have learned how to fuel the fire that keeps them moving. What does a passionate person look like? - they work with their whole heart, they work with undistracted attention, and they work with maximum energy.
2. Never cease practicing - passion won't take you anywhere unless you combine it with disciplined practice.  Practice is not the thing you do once you're good, its the thing you do that makes you good.
3. Honor your values - we all could give examples of talented, charismatic people who sabotaged their careers by abandoning their values.  Passion and practice bring excellence, but character eventually topples talent. People cannot climb beyond the limitations of their character.  Eventually, the limelight of success brings to light the cracks in their integrity. 

The fact that excellence isn't something a person is born with should be encouraging ... all you have to do is determine what your passion is and then put in the hours of practice. As long as you stick with it and honor your values along the way, you will reach a level of excellence.

I LOVE THIS ARTICLE!  :)

A Letter to a Young Woman

http://blog.ransomedheart.com/stasi/2011/04/a-letter-to-a-young-woman.html by Stasi Eldredge

A friend’s daughter is turning 16 and asked a few friends and family members to write her a (short) letter about their memories of being sixteen and perhaps a little advice…here’s mine. I dedicate it to all the young women reading this…whatever their age.


Dear Beauty,
Sweet Sixteen! What a milestone! Hooray for you! On my sixteenth birthday, I got my driver’s license. Now that was sweet. Sixteen is a year of transition and wonder and enlargening circles and increasing freedom and more deeply stepping into the lovely young woman you are.

When I was sixteen, most of the girls I knew had entered into the fray to attract a boyfriend. A date. An invitation. A kiss. A something. (Is it the same for you?) An intangible grid shifted in too many hearts around me (including mine) which gave an enormous amount of weight to the young men while robbing it from the young women. What did “he” think, say, do, ask? Those were the engrossing questions. What had begun in elementary school, increased to obsession in middle school, and became defining in high school. Girlfriends were sacrificed on the altar of “I’ve got a boyfriend, now.” Friendships that may have lasted for years were set aside in the interest of a relationship with a boy that may have lasted barely a few months or even days. You know it happens.

Something internal inside of too many of us handed away our self worth to the cutest boy who made our heart skip a beat. Yikes. When I was in high school, I accepted this. It can be a girl thing. This valuing boyfriends above girlfriends thing.

But you are not a girl. You are a self possessed, loved, and cherished young woman. Still, you are living in a world of girls. So guard your heart. Who you are is the most valuable treasure you possess. Be vigilant against handing away your self worth to anyone else. Male or female! You matter! Your heart matters! I still have girlfriends from high school. But…not any boyfriends. Friend boys. Yes. Boyfriends, no. (My most important friend boy from high school is now my husband!)

There is only One who can tell you to the core of your being who you are. And He has spoken and He continues to speak. Through creation, through His Word, and through the life, death, and triumphant resurrection of His Son. You are priceless. You are immeasurably loved. And nothing and no one can ever change that!

Enjoy being 16! Soak it in! There is the temptation to “rush” it…to rush life in the looking forward to the all that is coming. But I encourage you to savor it. Relish it. Stay in it. Be present to your own life and to the stage you are in; the glorious, wonderful age of sixteen!

Happy Birthday, dear heart! You’re marvelous.
Your Aunt Stasi

Be Encouraged

Forwarded by Debra King-Cooper, a fellow RW I'm too blessed to be stressed Too anointed to be disappointed I refuse to be discouraged To be sad, or to cry I refuse to be downhearted And here's the reason why I have a God who is all-mighty Who is sovereign and supreme I have a God who loves me And I am on His team I refuse to be defeated My eyes are on my God He has promised to be with me As through this life, I trod What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like. ~ author undisclosed

Overpowering Love

I was reading Romans 8:31-39 this morning and was really blessed by how much God's overpowering love will never change....no matter what we do or don't do. There are so many things that try to sway us away from our love with God; there are other things that just happen to us in this life that can easily distract us and cause us to doubt God and His love for us; BUT, this paragraph of scripture is so encouraging and gives a sense of peace that embraces all fear and overpowers all doubt. God is still God, and that's that! NO MATTER WHAT. Whether He does want we want Him do or not...the fact remains that HE is still who HE said He is.... - our Father, friend, and comforter. Sometimes, we may be feeling stale and dry, or too busy, or physically exhausted, or guilt from not spending time alone with God. The guilt starts to remind us of all the teachings we have received, all the Bible College classes we have taken, all the great sermons we have heard - or even preached at times, all the notes we have taken - but never studied them again, all the powerful books we have read - but yet to apply them to our day-to-day lives, all the people we know - that we have learnt nothing from, all the critical things we have done or said, all the lazy moments we have had, all the unkind words we have spoken or thoughts we have entertained etc..... Then it begins to get really clear to us that we are not the saint that we want to be, or the saint that we have been portrayed to be. When we get all these feelings bundled up in one, its the best time to read Romans 8:31-39 - to remind us AGAIN, and bring to our consciousness that God's love is with us...no matter what. God loves you in spite of you! Sometimes, as ladies, we think that the less we deserve God's love, the more we have of it. If you have kids, you know that the one child who struggles the most, is the one that you reach out to the most. If you have any friends, the same logic applies - you find yourself emotionally or physically present with the friend(s) that struggles the most. Now imagine if you are exerting this kind of love and attention to a struggling person, how much more does our Heavenly Father love us even when we've fallen flat on our faces? Love Builders:

• When have you felt spiritually dry?
• When have you felt like a failure?
• How does receiving God's enduring love encourage you in times of staleness or spiritual dissapointment?