Love, Laugh, Learn and Eat Chocolate Every Day

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Seen on Jeff Goins blog. If you are a creative, check it out.

You don’t have to listen to the critic in your head that says you aren’t good enough.

If the dream is in you (really in you, and not handed to you by your mother, sister or friend who really loves you) and you can’t ignore it, no matter how hard you try – give yourself time to “work it out” and don’t worry that you aren’t as good as you want to be, yet.

Just because your own writing or something else you create, makes you crinkle your nose like you smelled something bad, don’t put out the flame that burns in you: use it to grow in your call.

Practice, dare and explore and allow your disappointment to be your fuel.

Let your disappointment:

Push you into vulnerable places.

Ask you how bad you want it.

Make you angry, so angry that you will do it anyway – even if it’s terrible.

And when your  luck hard work pays off and you  make lots of money create something that makes you happy, and you can’t believe it came out of you, be thankful for not measuring up and how it made you better.

Are you letting disappointment do its work in you?

The savior of the Lord came to save the world. He came for all: liars, cheaters, drunks, thief’s,

good people, bad people, and all people.

May you receive his gift to you this Christmas.

I wonder if you hide important parts of who you are.

I’m not talking about hiding our weaknesses, and most of us know that they are bound to surface on our worst days anyways.  Instead, my thoughts have been stuck on something else.

Have you ever noticed that you have become a natural at hiding your strengths and your gifts?  Sound odd?  Maybe – but I think we do it too. If you really spend some time looking, maybe you will find them stuffed them underneath worries that you won’t be liked, or others won’t approve.

I’ve hidden lately too.

I have been too quiet. I haven’t shared recent struggles, or what I’m learning. I haven’t shared anything about what I’m learning as I’m writing a book. One that I. never. thought. I’d. write.

We hide when we keep what drives us to ourselves and when self-protective mode becomes more natural than doing what we naturally do.

A certain amount of time in needed to allow our gifts to grow. Jesus spent years waiting until the time to bring out his gift, but his gifts weren’t completely buried. We don’t know how many times his mother and him discussed them, but we do know of once. Allowing those we trust to get a glimpse of all us, allows them to encourage us when we need it.

Although we will never turn water into wine, Jesus does expect us to use the open and use gifts he is given us. God gave us His best gift when he gave us his son.

I pray first that you unwrap the gift of Jesus this Christmas.

And I pray that you unwrap that the gifts that he’s given you and bring them out of hiding. They can’t grow under a blanket of protection or permission.

Give them back to the world. They don’t have to be perfect. They just need to be yours.

31 days of confronting lies: Sundays are related to the church.

Thank you to all of the other women who have joined this series along with The Nester, The Reluctant Entertainer,Life With My 3 Boybarians, The Inspired Room, Remodeling This Life, Chatting at the Sky, My First Kitchen, The Mom Creative, Balancing Beauty and Bedlam

Day 30

lie: you don’t need church

It’s easy to come up with a list of reasons why you can think you don’t need church like:

• You don’t need anyone to telling you what to do
• You can worship God in my own way
• You won’t fit in
• People are hypocrites

I know, I use to have the same list.                                                                                                                                                              What I believed about “church” was just my feelings about my own life in relation to church.

It can be hard to walk into a church when you aren’t sure what you believe or aren’t sure if you could fit in, but most churches want to invite everyone in and would like the opportunity to explore our questions and feelings.

There are some Christians don’t believe that they need church either (that was me for a few years too), but that’s just a lie to keep us from growing, being and doing what we could be for God.

So, these are why we should go to church:

• Because doing, spending, or eating all that we want doesn’t satisfy
• Worshiping with others is the tiniest speck of what Heaven will be like
• We can learn about who God is and who we are in relation to Him
• There are hypocrites everywhere
• To learn what our gifts are and help others with them

Church is really about relationship. We struggle the most with church when we are struggling the most with our relationship with God and with others.

we need to be the church.

“Church isn’t where you meet, Church isn’t a building, Church is what you do, Church is who you are. Church is the human outworking of the person of Jesus Christ. Let’s not go to Church – let’s be the Church.”

Bridget Willard