Category Archives: Lessons

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Life Is Tough!

Let’s be real honest: Sometimes life is tough, I mean it’s just plain hard. I mean there are days that we say to ourselves: “This is just not fair!” You know the kind of day I’m talking about. The one where you don’t want to get out of bed or if you did make it out, you’re thinking to yourself you should go right back. Trust me, I’ve had more than my fair share of those days and every now and then, they still try to creep up on me. It is important to realize that some days are going to be good and easy, and some days are going to be bad and hard, but a day is just a day and when you finish this one, there is another one coming.

Life has a way of making us focus on the bad and it is true that what we usually tend to focus on, we often get more of. I have discovered in my own life and living that a bad day does not have to mean a bad life. In fact, I am learning that some of life’s greatest lessons are learned in and through the bad stuff, so if I can just learn whatever the bad is trying to teach me, then I can grow on beyond it.

When I am having one of those bad days, I try to ask myself as soon as possible: “What needs to be fixed?” If there is something that can be fixed, then I want to fix it and not waller around in misery. When I find myself in the “bad place”, I ask myself: “It there a crisis that can be prevented?”, and if not, then why am I wasting my time worrying about it? Another self question that helps me fix my perspective is: “What new thing do I need to make life better?” In other words: Is their a new attitude that I need to adopt, a new belief I need to grab hold of or a new perspective that I’ve never considered before???

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” -Philippians 4:4-7

I’ve discovered in living through just enough bad days that just as easily as our focus can be shifted from the positive to the negative, it can be shifted back from the negative to the positive. We’ve got the power. When life moves us from the positive to the negative, this shifted focus automatically moves us out of gratitude and into worry! Once worry takes over, we have a battle on our hands to not keep digging the hole deeper. It’s just part of life that there are going to be good days and bad days. The secret is to live and learn from them and not get stuck in the bad days and empower them to become weeks, months and possible even years.

Here are a few tips to grow through the bad to the good and get the most out of all that God has for you:

1.) Embrace The Experience!

Whatever flows to you has a purpose and the sooner you discover and embrace it’s purpose, the sooner it and you can move onto something else and something better. We cannot always avoid the negative, so sometimes we have to embrace it and get from it whatever it came to teach us.

2.) Deal With Reality!

Often, we think if we pretend everything is okay, then it will be, but when we eventually get back to reality, problems that we have not dealt with and worked through are still there and have often grown in size and complexity. If you are going through a bad time, then be honest and figure out what and why, and deal with it. The sooner you go through the process, the sooner the process will accomplish what it is there to do and you can move on to bigger and better.

3.) Do Your Part!

I’ve discovered through the years that most all of my bad days where in some way influenced by me and my attitudes and thoughts. When I started to accept responsibility for my life and began to hold myself accountable for making better choices and decisions, my life began to change. It was not that I did not have bad days, but the days became shorter and fewer.

4.) Count Your Blessings!

If you know me, then you know my belief in the power of gratitude. When my girls were little and would get ungrateful attitudes, I would have them go to their room and make a gratitude list. Taking the time to thank about all of the blessings we have in our life is often one of the quickest ways to shift our focus from the negative to the positive.

5.) Live, Learn, Laugh And Love!

This life is God’s gift to us and what we do with it is our gift to God. Live – It’s what you were created for. Learn – It’s one of God’s greatest gifts to help us become, which is really living. Laugh – Life really is funny and laughter is fun. Love – God is love and He created us in love to love. When we receive His love and share His love, it creates a powerful flow of the stuff of God flowing to and through us and this is what our existence is all about…

Life is tough, but so are you. You’ve got this!

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Cherish Each Moment!

A few months ago, I had a stroke and did not even know I was in this world. I finally came to myself in the ICU at the hospital and my wife Joy began to tell me about my very eventful day in the Emergency Room with the Stroke Trauma Team that I knew absolutely nothing about.

In the past several months as I have worked to recover, I have learned many lessons about many things. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is just what a precious gift we have been given with this thing that we call life.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. -1 Corinthians 15:52

One of the most meaningful lessons that I am learning is the preciousness of moments and how careless and flippant I have often been with them in the past by simply taking them for granted.

The reality of this human existence is that we are not guaranteed the next moment and if we don’t get the next moment, then the last moment was it, so we better allow every moment to unfold and learn be grateful for the gifts it brings.

One day last week, I was sitting in our living room and there were toys scattered all over the place. In the middle of the floor was a wooden bowl, spatula and a little car. When I looked at them I smiled inside and out and then began to cry tears of joy as I thought about my Grand Daughter Addi Jo stirring up some “make believe” deliciousness in that bowl and then offering me a bite. I was still getting blessing and joy from the moment even after it passed.

Life is a series of moments strung together by memories, so make sure that you are cherishing each moment as the special gift from God that it is, because we never know when this moment might be our last…

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Lessons I’m Learning!

I guess I am probably at least to the half way point of my life or at least very close. Some people call this half time, which means I could possible have a third and fourth quarter left. Some see our lives broken down by the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall And Winter. If that’s the case then, I am probably coming out of my Summer and into my Fall. The one thing that seems to be becoming more and more real to me is the learning of lessons and the importance of learning the lessons. When I was younger, the older folks tried to tell me, and while we may listen, most of us have to learn for ourselves and we tend to insist on doing it the hard way.

Through the living of life and in the experience of hard fought battles which culminate in exciting and great victories or bitter and depressing defeat, we are shaped into who we are ultimately become. It is during this times that lessons are learned if we are wise enough to pay attention and learn them, so that one day in the Fourth Quarter Winter of our life, we can share them with the young bright eyes that are thinking to themselves: “I’ll show you!”

“For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.” -Proverbs 24:16

The greatest lesson I have learned is that I am still learning and so below I will share a few of the lessons I have learned and that I am learning along the way as I journey through this life.

1. You Are Responsible For You! We like to think we can change things and change people, but the only thing you really have the power to change is yourself and if you are honest with yourself, then there is plenty that needs changing, so open you lift, mind and heart to the supernatural and allow yourself to grow beyond yourself. It really is a never ending amazing journey.

2. Time Is A Precious Gift! When we are young, we think we have all the time in the world. It seems like it takes forever for Christmas to get here, but as you get older is seems that Christmas comes sooner and sooner each year. Don’t waste time, make your time count. It is a gift that we each have a limited amount of and once it is gone, it cannot be replaced.

3. Failure Is Not Final! We are raised to believe that failure is a bad thing and we are embarrassed whenever we fail, but most of the great things that we know, the things that have changed our lives, would have never became reality, if someone had not been willing to fail again and again. Take your chance and give it you best shot. Failure is simply learning another way that won’t work, which gets you one step closer to the way that will work.

4. Don’t Miss The Now! Now is what you’ve got. Yesterday is over, so learn from it and move on. Tomorrow is not promised, so don’t waste your time worrying about it. Today, right now, this moment is what you’ve got, so make sure that you make it count by getting the very most out of it.

5. There Is No Such Thing As One Size Fits All! What works for someone else, may work for you and it may not work for you. The reality is: Whatever advice, direction or instruction you’re given, you have to figure out how it works with you, because you are unique and special. This is why it is so important to get to know yourself, who you are , what you believe and why it matters to you.

6. Instinct Is A Gift, Don’t Ignore It! Some people call it a gut feeling, some call it intuition, some call it a sixth sense. Whatever you call it, you can’t afford to ignore it. Live you life long enough and you will discover that your instincts are better than you’ve been led to believe. You are continually taking in information, without even realizing it and just when you need the guidance, you gut steps up to try to help you make the right decision.

7. Gratitude Is Best Expressed Through Appreciation! God has blessed you with so much, but if you don’t appreciate it, then you could very easily wake up one day to find it all gone. Relationships are a very special gift and should never be taken for granted. All people have something to add to your life, if you are willing to take the time to discover the treasure. Show your gratitude through your attitude of appreciation.

Like I said: In no way am I an authority and I have not fully learned all these lessons, but I am learning them. This of course is not all the lessons, just some from the top of the list that I have been learning and that has impacted my life, living, blessing, success and victory. I encourage you to think about the lessons you are learning and share every chance you get, because it not only makes your life better, it allows your better life to make the lives of others better too…