Sarah Price's Blog, page 19

As we came to the landing in the parking garage stairwell, we both noticed a small bird frantically flapping its wings. The “wall” was made of glass and the bird clearly thought it should be able to fly straight out into freedom. She didn’t realize that even though she could see the sky, there was a barrier keeping her from flying toward it. My friend, Marilyn, and I stopped and watched, trying to decide if we should intervene.

It became clear that the little bird was not going to figure out that all she had to do was turn around to be set free. She was so close to flying away—only a few hops—and yet she was desperately trying the same thing over and over. Spreading her wings she would flail, flying straight into the window, and sliding down onto the ledge. Clearly she was exhausting herself. We made a plan. I put my purse near the ledge to block her and my friend used a paper from her purse to gently coax her in the right direction. After only a few seconds, she flew away to freedom.

Marilyn jumped up and down (she really did, I’m not making this up) and I clapped my hands. We had saved a little life! It felt amazing.

Today is Easter.

Why did He do it? Why did Jesus come to earth, leaving Perfection, only to die?

He did it because we needed rescuing. From the beginning, with Adam and Eve, humanity insisted on going the wrong direction, making the wrong choices, and running from God’s plan. God watched and realized they were never going to figure out that they just needed to obey Him. So, He finally stepped in and gave us a Way to freedom. He gave His Son, Jesus. He reached down and said, “Here. This is the way to the freedom you have been seeking.”

Every time a person accepts Jesus into their life as their Savior, the Bible says all of Heaven rejoices because a life has been saved from self-destruction. “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15:10 ESV. Isn’t that something?

Today is Easter. Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth. He lived as a human, yet was perfectly sinless. He chose to be ridiculed, humiliated, tortured, and killed for you and for me. He defeated sin on that cross. Three days later, He rose from the dead. He is alive today in Heaven! But, He is a personal Savior. He wants to have a relationship with us. That’s so incredible! All we have to do is give our sins to Him (repent), asking Him to take them and be our Lord. What a remarkable exchange!

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life,” John 3:16 MSG

If you don’t know Jesus as your savior and you want His freedom, please feel free to email me ([email protected]) or comment below. He loves you so much.

With Love,

Lisa

Connect with Lisa: BLOG~FACEBOOK

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Every weekend my friend, Marilyn, and I try to get together for a few hours of therapy session (coffee, food, and talking). This week we really wanted someplace quiet where we could just “be”. We decided on Panera. When I arrived, I walked in and the place was packed! I was surprised because there weren’t many cars in the parking lot. But, then I remember the BUS I saw at the gas station. UGH! The place was full of college students. (Nothing against college students…it just wasn’t quiet and calm. )

When my friend arrived I said, “I’m not sure about this. I don’t know if there are any seats left, and, well…” I spread my arms so she could take in the atmosphere of the place.

“Oh. Should we go somewhere else?”

*sigh*

We walked through the restaurant and found a back room. It was completely empty except for one lady who looked like she was filling some kind of party orders. I looked at my friend and said I didn’t think the room was open. The lady looked up at me and said, “Oh, it’s open—and I’m hiding in here!” My friend and I ordered our (delicious) food and sat in the far back corner of the room.

Classical music played in the background and I literally giggled out loud and “raised the roof” with my hands (a little dance of delight).

Not long after we sat down, the other woman left. For almost three house we had the entire room to ourselves! We giggled, we joked, we ate, we sipped coffee, we had deep (I’m not kidding) theological discussions, we made plans—we just soaked in our time together—alone.

It was incredible! It truly was therapeutic.

While spending time with friend is important and necessary for my sanity, spending time with my Father is absolutely essential to my survival. And, it cannot be once a week (a trip to church on Sunday, for instance) occurrence. It must a daily appointment.

Many of you are aware of my Wednesday coffee dates with my Dad. Well, I also have daily coffee dates with God. I get up, brew my coffee, open up my Bible and my journal (thank you, Pam for your inspiration), and spend some time alone with my Heavenly Daddy. It’s a time I pull away from the crowded noise of this world and just enjoy the presence of my God. You see, my God enjoys spending time with me as much as I enjoy spending time with Him! In fact, He created me for the purpose of having a relationship with Him. How incredible is that? I was created to crave time with Him—time away from everyone and everything else where we can just talk and “be”. (Insert happy sigh)

“and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me,

says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:18 ESV

Love,

Lisa

*If you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus or don’t understand how God could want to spend time with you, message me. I would love to talk with you.*

Email me at: [email protected]

You can also find me at:  https://www.facebook.com/LisaBullWriter/

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I’m sitting in my front room, the fire dying out in the fireplace behind me, and I’m participating in a workshop about “Learning to Fully Charge Your Battery” (because I really need MORE energy…ha ha ha).

And the moderator/Instructor asked this question: Do you focus a lot of energy on doing things that boost your own happiness?

I paused the lecture and…not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES…I rewound that section to hear him ask the question again.

I knew exactly what was coming. It’s something that I have been saying for years. It’s something that I have been emphasizing LOUDLY for 33 days.

Some of you may not be familiar with my Morning Coffee Videos that I live stream every morning (except Sunday) on my Facebook page. For over six months, I have been getting up and chatting to anyone who wants to listen (and maybe some who don’t!) about things that are important to me at that moment. Over 5 million people have been reached in that short amount of time. Amazing, isn’t it?

My husband often looks at me and says (which his deliciously adorable French accent), “I don’t know how you find things to talk about every day.”

And that brings me back to this lecture.

My life has changed since I have started doing the Morning Coffee Videos. I started them for fun during an amazing trip to Los Angeles with Cat and her friend Julia. I kept doing them because so many people seemed to like them. And then, somewhere along the way, everything changed. I realized that doing the morning coffee videos really made me happy. As I continue my journey away from the darkness of depression and into the light of life, I focus a lot of energy on being happy.

Which is why the lecturer’s question made me pause.

Because I knew exactly what he was going to say next.

“Those things are nowhere near as likely to improve my well-being or the well-being of others than the efforts that focus on improving the daily lot of another person.”

And he’s right.

The core of meaningful happiness is grounded in one and only one principle: giving and doing things for other people. The problem that often arises is that other people try to take advantage of that. In my life, that was a common thread. Over the years, this has been at the root of my depression: the disappointment I felt with people who saw my focus on giving as an invitation for them to just take.

You see, too often people focus not on what they can give but on their own personal gain. They do not look around and see how they can help other people achieve happiness or success. They only look at how they can achieve happiness. Period.

The secret that many people don’t understand–and the one that I struggled to accept– is that giving people can only give so much without getting something–even if it is only a boost to our own happiness!—in return.

Every morning, when I get up and start my morning routine, my thoughts are on my morning coffee live stream. What can I say? How can I reach people? Who might need a special thought today? It’s almost like a private dialogue that I have with God, asking him to help guide me to find the right words or topics to share with everyone who blesses me with their time by watching. There are some mornings when I have no idea what I will say until I am sitting there and the recorder goes live. Other mornings, I know exactly what needs to be said because the topic keeps racing through my mind.

Morning Coffee puts me on track to have a wonderful day because I focus my energy on doing something for other people. Whenever even one person messages me, thanking me for helping them through whatever was troubling them or telling me how much they enjoy my videos, my own happiness increases because I have helped another person. It’s exactly what the lecturer said.

Truly it is better to give than to receive, but there is no reason why we cannot do both. Giving does not have to operate in a silo. Happiness truly is a state of mind that we must decide to achieve. It is not marked by large moments in time but the smaller everyday things that contribute to our overall well-being. By focusing on ourselves, and not others, we will never truly achieve happiness.

It is only by shifting our attention to the needs of those around us and learning how to contribute to the happiness of others that we can actually develop a meaningful life.

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The post Making Others Happy appeared first on Sarah Price.

My mother seems to think I should remember things from when I was two, three, and four years old. We’ll be talking and she’ll say, “Do you remember so-and-so?” I’ll look at her with that “look” of, “I have NO IDEA who you are talking about.” She’ll sigh heavily (because obviously I should remember this person), “Well, you should. It was when we lived on the college campus.

They lived in the dorm…”

“Mom. I was three.”

“Well, I remember lots of things from when I was three.”

(Insert chirping crickets)

I don’t know if I have just developed a black hole in my brain that has wiped out all of my preschooler memories or what. Is it a normal thing for people to remember most of their nursery school days? Or, is it my mother who is the exception?

ANYWAY, this morning I was sitting here wondering what to chat about with all of you, my wonderful friends. A memory popped into my mind and, amazingly, it was from my little preschool self!

My mom will be so proud! It isn’t a very detailed memory. It’s short and sweet. But, obviously this particular thing must have been important to me because it made a deep enough imprint to remain in my memory for (ahem) a few years now.

It was night, after church I believe. My mom, my dad, and I went for a walk. We were all three holding hands. I could feel our smiles. I remember looking up into the night sky and it was filled with happy twinkling stars.

That’s it. That’s the memory.

Why would that particular memory stay with me for so long? Here is my theory. I felt loved and I felt safe. Isn’t that what we all really want after all?

Maybe you don’t feel loved. Maybe you have never felt loved or safe. I don’t know your story. What I do know is that regardless of your ethnicity, your financial status, your health, your education, your mistakes—God loves you! He loves you so much that He sent His son to die for you so that you could be adopted by Him! God wants YOU to be His child! He wants to hold YOUR hand and walk through life with YOU. What safer place to be than in the Hands of God?

1 John 3:1-2 (ESV)

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

John 1:12 (ESV)

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

Visit Lisa daily at: https://www.facebook.com/LisaBullWriter/

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The post Isn’t That What We All Really Want After All? By Lisa Bull appeared first on Sarah Price.

I have been the only one up for three hours now. Well, me and my puppy. But, the other humans are still snoozing. So, it’s my job to keep the fire going. We heat with wood. The plus side to that is the cozy warmth we have all winter in our home. The negative side is it takes work to keep the fire going.

After stoking the hot coals (remember the process from my previous blog??), I went into the cold garage and started gathering the wood that my husband had loaded up yesterday. As I reached for another log a sliver, a tiny splinter, stuck into my finger! I let go of the piece of wood, letting it crash back into the wheel barrow, and grabbed my hand looking for blood.

Nothing. No blood. No wood sticking out of my finger. No sliver under my skin. But. WOW. Did it hurt! It’s amazing how something so tiny can inflict so much pain!

I remember when I was little girl and I would get a splinter in my finger. Often I would avoid telling my parents, because I knew it would have to be removed. It would stay in my finger—festering.

Finally I would tell my dad. He would get the tweezers, sit down with me, gently take my hand in his, and I would start sobbing. I just knew the removal was going to be worse than the splinter that was embedded in my body. Once I finally calmed enough for him to do his job, he would quickly remove the tiny wood piece and the pain would soon disappear.

Some of you have emotional “splinters” that you have been carrying around for a very long time…maybe even a lifetime. You might even have more than one. Perhaps you are full of splinters that have become infected—you are constantly in pain.

Isn’t it time that you go to your Heavenly Father and ask him to remove what’s causing your pain? I know it’s scary. Sometimes it’s hard to let go of the painful things in our lives because it feels like it might be more painful to forgive. The incredible thing about Jesus is, He will carry what we can’t. If you ask Him to, He will take your sin, your guilt, your anger, your hurt and remove it so you can heal. He wants you to live a happy, full, free life.

Today is Valentine’s Day. What better day than today to let Jesus remove all of the “splinters” that are causing you pain?

1 Peter 5:7(AMP) casting all your cares [all your anxieties, all your worries, and all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, and watches over you very carefully].

Psalm 147:3 (AMP) He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds [healing their pain and comforting their sorrow].

With Love,

Lisa

Visit me daily at: https://www.facebook.com/LisaBullWriter/

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I probably shouldn’t complain. It’s not like I’m the only person living in NJ or the polar vortex, for that matter. But when I heard that our weather is supposed to top out at 15% tomorrow…well…let the complaining commence.

Many of you know that, on Christmas, I went to Belize for a month with my children. My husband joined us for part of the trip, too. When we flew home, a snowstorm delayed us in Florida, of all places! Talk about good luck!

But now, here I am back in NJ and watching the weather channel with a growing sense of anxiety.

Simply put…I hate winter.

And it’s times like these when I have to really respect the Amish farmers and their families. On Sunday morning, it will be 5 degrees at 4am when many dairy farmers wake up to begin their day. By the time they are finished and head back inside their house to, hopefully, get some very hot coffee, it will be a balmy 4 degrees.

That’s right…1 degree colder than when they woke up!

This is my number one reason why I could not be an Amish farmer: getting up at 4am to milk cows on freezing cold winter mornings. Number two is the lack of Internet access but that’s a whole different story.

Certainly most of the families will stay home and not go visiting this weekend. Frankly, it’s too cold for the horses to be on the roads. Extreme weather like this can endanger a horse’s life.

So, what will they do all day?

The family that is fortunate enough to stay home—for some of them might have outside jobs that they still require them showing up—will most likely stay together in the main room of the house: the kitchen. Mother and daughters will bake cookies and bread while the father and sons will sit and play board games. Some of the favorite games that I have played with my Amish friends on lazy Saturdays and Sundays , include Scrabble, Rummikub, and different marble games.

And let me tell you…Amish people who play Scrabble take it very, very seriously. Egos must be checked at the door if you play Scrabble with an Amish man or woman…you will not win. Scrabble is not for the faint of heart in an Amish household.

It might surprise people to know that some Amish people play musical instruments. On my recent trip to Ohio, I learned that some communities are very musically inclined. That differs from my experience in Pennsylvania where I had never thought about Amish playing musical instruments. In the communities where I stayed, it was simply not permitted. Yet, a few years ago, one of my friend’s pulled a harmonica out of a drawer and began to play. With her foot stomping the floor in rhythm to the music, she played beautiful, upbeat, and rather fancy music. When I asked her about it, I learned that Amish youth sometimes played instruments up until their baptism and then, secretly, they continue afterwards. It’s all permitted unless the bishop finds out (wink, wink).

Cooking. Games. Music. Not a bad way to spend the winter. In fact, that’s basically what I did with my children when we were in Belize: I cooked while they played games as we all listened to music. I suppose one of the big differences, however, is that no one in my house will be awake at 4am to milk the cows…although Marc will have to leave at 7am to tend to our horses at the barns.

Hmmmm…maybe I could be an Amish farmer after all. Or at least an Amish farmer’s wife…Just as long as I’m not the one milking the cows in 5 degree weather!

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I am thrilled to have Nicole Deese stopping by today to chat about her latest book, A Season to Love!

What is A Season to Love about?

At this point in her life, bravery is not a trait Willa Hart would readily claim. She believes her seven-year-old daughter, Savannah, who never knew her father and successfully tackled chemotherapy, is truly the courageous one. Yet after Willa has a fateful encounter with handsome young doctor Patrick McCade, her outlook—and her view of herself—begins to change.

Patrick, a thrill-seeking world traveler and temporary resident of Lenox, Oregon, sets out to show Willa the value of adventure, even within her tiny town. But just when their friendship shows signs of turning into something more, Patrick’s life as a traveling doctor calls him back. Will his last days in town signal the end of their journey, or will Patrick and Willa find the courage to transform a single season into a lifetime?

What inspired you to write this story?

After losing my baby sister two years ago, I had a fresh understanding of what it felt like to weather a significant life storm. During the eye of that storm, it took everything I had just to hold on. To believe God would comfort my grieving parents and family. To believe His promise to never leave or forsake us was true. When I emerged from the deepest part of that season of grief, I realized I’d picked up some new fears and anxieties along the way. I had to learn many of the lessons that Willa learns in her story. A Season To Love is about overcoming fear after the big storms of life have settled. A lesson in self-discovery and trusting God.

Personally, I love both A Cliche Christmas and A Season to Love. Both books are set in Lenox. Both books have very fun and real main characters. Now it’s time for the truth! Which couple is your favorite??? Georgia and Weston vs. Willa and Patrick? Why?

Haha! You know, I love both these couples for very different reasons. Georgia and Weston are just plain fun. They were easy to hear (in my head) and easy write. I loved hanging out with them and walking them through all their who are we now? conversations. Some of my favorite love stories are second-chance romances where the hero and heroine meet again after years of separation. And of course, I love their cheeky banter.

That said, I can relate most to Willa and Patrick’s love story. I definitely married a Patrick, a man who is wise beyond his years and is SO VERY PATIENT. Patience is often a quality we overlook in romance, but there’s a reason it’s listed as the first attribute of love in 1 Cor. 13. Their relationship starts off with a very specific goal and then develops into a friendship, which then becomes the foundation for their romance.

What is the message that you want to share with people through Willa’s story?

I pray the takeaway from Willa’s journey will be a deeper trust in God. We often think if we hold back from life and tighten our grip on control that we can protect ourselves from pain, hardship, and heartache. But the opposite is true. It’s only when we let go that we can experience true freedom and love.

What’s next on your list?

I’m working to finish a standalone contemporary romance titled, The Promise of Rayne. It releases in November 2016. I can’t give too much away yet, but here are some keywords: A forbidden romance, an 18-year feud, a family-owned lodge, an apple orchard, a wildfire threat, and an evacuation. I’m really excited about this one!

Where can people find you?

I’m very active on my FB author page: https://www.facebook.com/nicoledeeseauthor/

I’m also active on Instagram: nicoledeeseauthor. Please stop over and say hello!

Nicole Deese is a lover of fiction and writes contemporary romance with an inspirational twist. She is the Kindle bestselling author of the Letting Go series and A Cliché Christmas, the first book in her new Love in Lenox series. She lives in northern Idaho with her husband and two sons.

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Yesterday, Lisa Bull wrote about depression on her weekly post for my blog. She mentioned a couple of things that, if you have every experienced depression, you probably nodded your head and said, “Um hmm. Been there.”

One of the things she wrote really touched me because the feelings she described are far too familiar:

About three years ago, I had a “break down”. My mind and my body decided simultaneously that I stressed them out too much and they were done. My world stopped. It was during that time that I became totally dependent—dependent on my husband, dependent on my boys, and most of all, dependent on God. There was no more “Lisa” left.

There was no more “Lisa” left.

Wow. Spot on.

Depression is no stranger to my house. It started after I had my son, Alex and continues until today. There are periods of good times and then the hand of Satan seems to break through our door and bombards us with yucky things. When too much builds up, I can slip into that well of sorrow and simply cannot crawl out. Usually I feel it happening and try to fight it. I let my family know what is bothering me but either the person cannot control the situation (re: Alex’s illness last year) or the person chooses NOT to control the situation (re: no comment).

When someone is severely depressed and cannot find the joy that Lisa mentions in her post, other people react different to her (or him). Their lives continue and, as tends to be the case in our society, centers around their own needs, wants, and desires. Many people don’t understand depression. It’s still one of those hush-hush topics that people gossip about—despite the fact that they, too, have most likely gone through a depression during their life. They call it a mental illness and the person is sick, two ways of describing it that are accurate but not when spoken with disdain and a touch of superiority, as if the inflicted person is now broken and inferior.

So when Lisa wrote that, during her depression, her demeanor might have been ugly and people described her as intimidating, harsh, and scary, I take exception to that. With all due respect, I counter that the opposite is true. If a person has a long-term illness, they are going to feel very “glass is half empty.” Severe depression and its friend, anxiety, are not feelings that you can “snap out of it” or merely pretend are not happening. The way that the people around us provide support and compassion can help with the healing process. But if people do not understand or offer that Christian compassion, merely continue to ignore the fact that someone is unusually sad and stoop so low as to criticize that person, whose behavior is ugly?

I can assure you that calling someone intimidating, scary, harsh, sick, mental, crazy, and (my personal favorite) bi-polar does NOT help a person who is severely depressed. Instead, those are just more labels that, whether intentionally or unintentionally, drag the person further into that well of darkness.

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The post Depression Is No Stranger appeared first on Sarah Price.

I’m 5’1”. Some people say I’m short. Short sounds a little rude me. I prefer to be referred to as “petite”. Petite sounds sort-of French. Hang on. I need to look it up…Ohhhh! YAY! It IS French. So, I am petite and blonde.

Those two things combined likely do not make me sound like much of a force to be reckoned with, do they?

Well, just so you know, I am “intimidating”, “scary”, and “harsh”. These are just a few words that have been used to describe me. Several years ago a few of the younger girls in my office said I reminded them of “Angela” on The Office. I hadn’t watched the show, so I had no idea that what they were saying was a total insult. Let’s see some of the words that have been used to depict “Angela” on the internet: **“cold, condescending, judgmental and uptight…little sense of humor and almost never smiles or expresses happiness…”

Wow.

To say I’m hurt is an understatement.

But, beyond my feelings being hurt I am hurting because clearly I had some kind of disconnect back then. I feel terrible that I would have EVER caused anyone to think of me in those terms. How awful! If that’s how I came across—I wouldn’t have even wanted to be around me.

Hmmmm. Thinking back, I guess I really didn’t like ME much back then. Frankly, I was miserable. I was barely existing. I had a wonderful husband. I had two amazing boys. I had a good job. We owned a great house. But, I was consumed by fear. I feared pretty much everything. I had a completely out of control fear of germs. I worried non-stop about my children. I feared war, car accidents, disease, death—I was in a constant state of anxiety. And, I’m sure my fears, my anxiety, my depression–caused my demeanor to be, well, UGLY.

About three years ago, I had a “break down”. My mind and my body decided simultaneously that I stressed them out too much and they were done. My world stopped. It was during that time that I became totally dependent—dependent on my husband, dependent on my boys, and most of all, dependent on God. There was no more “Lisa” left.

I learned a lot of lessons during that time. I learned that I had been trying to control my life by worrying. Worrying was my control. But, what worry had actually done was steal my life from me. It had made me a bitter and anxious person that people didn’t want to be around. Thankfully, God had already blessed me with an amazing family. He also placed an incredible doctor and therapist in my life. Most of all though, He revealed to me the keys to Joy.

To have true joy, I had to learn to TRUST in Him. I had to learn to CHOOSE to be joyful. I had to LET GO of worry.

Worry is a prison. It separates us from God AND from relationships with the people we care about. God wants us to have FREEDOM not BONDAGE.

Attached you’ll find a PDF  with some scriptures to help you if you struggle with worry.

With Love,

Lisa

Lisa Bull sees her life as a journey along God’s divine plan. While considering herself an expert on nothing, she enjoys laughing and has made “choosing joy” her motto. Lisa has experienced God’s unfailing love and grace in her life and wants nothing more than for others to enjoy that same gift in their lives.

Lisa is the daughter and granddaughter of ministers. She has multiple relatives in ministry on both sides of her father’s family including several pastors, pastor’s wives, and missionaries. In fact, ministry in her maternal grandmother’s family can be traced back several generations. She loves being a wife and mother of two terrific young men.

Visit Lisa at Walking Bare Souled in the SONshine and JoyGurls.com

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The post Just So You Know, I’m Intimidating By Lisa Bull appeared first on Sarah Price.

(catchy title, right?)

Last night I dreamed that I yelled—YELLED—at my mother in public, that I was on the Walton farm (as in the 1970’s TV show) trying to get Elizabeth out of her very dirty clothes so I could wash them, and that I was trying to help my boss figure out what a charge was on her debit card (and she refused to call the bank). Now, some of you are going to start asking me what I watched right before bed or what I ate before going to sleep. Nope. It’s nothing like that. These types of dreams are completely normal for me. I dream like this every single night—without fail.

I’m a dreamer.

I wish I could say that my dreams were special. But, that doesn’t really seem to be the case. If anything, I think, my dreams seem to indicate fear in my life. I’m often lost, late, wandering, exposed (yes exposed…those are really fun (not) dreams), and frustrated.

Every now and then I will have a unique dream—one that really stands out to me. These dreams stay with me. I can still remember some of my dreams from my childhood and my teen years.

When I have these dreams, I will think about them off and on for days, sometimes weeks. I had a dream like that last week. I’m not going to share it with you, because it’s mine (I’m a little selfish sometimes :)). What I mean is, I think God gave this dream to me for a very specific purpose and it is special. Anyway, I have a super sweet young lady in my life who shared with me that she has a friend that has interpreted dreams in the past (think Joseph in the Bible). Because this dream was so specific in its details I asked her to share my dream with her friend.

Long story short (kind of :)), her friend prayed regarding my dream and after several days responded. Now. I don’t care if you believe what I’m going to tell you or not—because it’s my story—I own it—and it’s MY TRUTH. The interpretation of my dream left me speechless. I had an idea of what it might mean. But the detail that she provided was amazing. And, I KNEW that she had heard from God regarding my dream.

You see, she has a GIFT.

First, and most importantly, she has a close relationship with her Heavenly Father. She knows Him and trusts Him to speak to her. Do you understand that is the greatest gift of CHRISTianity? RELATIONSHIP. We are in relationship with our God. God has given her a gift and she is willing to be an open vessel for Him to flow through.

Do you know that we all have gifts? God gave us those gifts so that we can help others and lead them to a relationship with Him.

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” 1 Corinthians 12:4-7

And, now you are saying, “So what? What’s your point, Lisa?” *sigh* My point issssssss God has gifted every one of us. He gave us those gifts to edify His church, not to hide or to use for worldly purposes. WHAT IS YOUR GIFT? What did God give you? (You are not allowed to say nothing because it isn’t true!) Look how important each one of is to the “Church”.

“In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.” Romans 12:4-5

Let me to encourage you to pray and ask God what gift He has given you. Some of you already know and are hiding it (shame on you!

What do I mean by “gift”? Well, I will list a FEW. But, we have a HUGE God, so His gifts are limitless!

Do you sing?

Can you teach?

Are you athletic?

Do you write?

Are you funny?

Are you compassionate?

Do you sew?

Can you drive (think church bus/rides to church/rides to the doctor)?

Are you especially good with the elderly?

Do children love you?

Are people encouraged by you?

Do you cook?

Are you getting the picture? YOU ARE IMPORTANT. God has given you a gift. Use it. Someone out there needs you. They need to see Christ through you.

With Love,

Lisa

Lisa Bull sees her life as a journey along God’s divine plan. While considering herself an expert on nothing, she enjoys laughing and has made “choosing joy” her motto. Lisa has experienced God’s unfailing love and grace in her life and wants nothing more than for others to enjoy that same gift in their lives.

Lisa is the daughter and granddaughter of ministers. She has multiple relatives in ministry on both sides of her father’s family including several pastors, pastor’s wives, and missionaries. In fact, ministry in her maternal grandmother’s family can be traced back several generations. She loves being a wife and mother of two terrific young men.

Visit Lisa at Walking Bare Souled in the SONshine and JoyGurls.com

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