Live Boldly: Forgive more and judge less.   Mary Anne Radmacher Today's quote is a courageous and risky choice to make...daily.  It's not something you decide to do once and it happens.  You have to make the choice daily.  And some days it is harder to make the choice to be risky and courageous.  Some days we just aren't up for it while other days we have the energy. Why do I say that forgiving more and judging less is risky and requires courage?  Because it requires you to open up and expose part of yourself emotionally.  It means you are making a choice to risk getting hurt again.  It means you are making a choice to not be someones judge and jury.  It's a bold move to forgive more and judge less.  It requires a strength in character to do it. It is "second nature" for us to judge based on: appearance, political affiliation, religious preferences, job positions, school choice, etc.  Pretty much anything that is different than ...

Practice sorting through the much to get to the must.   Mary Anne Radmacher I was thinking about how true today's quote is on several levels of life. In material terms it means we sort through all the "much" in our homes (multiple TVs, computers, unused furniture, "collections", paperwork, etc) and we weed out the much to get to the must (do *you* really need multiple TVs, computers, etc?  Why are you hanging on to unused things when others could be using it?  You see what I mean I am sure).  So it benefits our home life when we can make it a practice to sort through the much that accumulates to get to the must.  Sometimes the much we justify as necessary but really evaluate the necessity.  Is it truly a need or merely a want you've tried to make a need? In emotional terms it means we sort through all the "much" in our hearts (toxic relationships, unhealthy behaviors, wrong thinking, etc) and we weed out the much to get to the must (the toxic r...

Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.   Francis Chan I love the way this is put.  Failure means at the very least that you went for it.  And that you went for it hard and that it mattered.  Success, or what appears to be success, as you go along the way in the little things that don't truly matter is the cowards way out.  Ouch.  That kind of hurts doesn't it?  Can you think of something that doesn't matter but people strive to succeed at? One that comes to mind immediately is the struggle for power/control.  One might argue with me that it does matter and I would respond with two things:  one, it really doesn't matter in the big picture and two, you have proven to me and others that in your attempts to convince us that power/control does matter you strive to succeed in it.  Oddly enough the people who strive to succeed at power/control are usually very afraid of failu...

And what he greatly thought, he nobly dared.   Homer I think most of us have a thought of something we consider to be grand, great, necessary even.  But we stop short at the thought because we can't find the courage within to attempt it.  We let all sorts of excuses and reasons keep us from daring to attempt to put this thought into action. One such excuse is that it isn't "grand" enough in the big scheme of things.  Oh yeah, who says so?  What if it changed 2 people in your world but then those two people also practiced it and their attempts changed 2 more and so on?  The domino effect would happen.  Forget 2 people - what about just one?  Our worlds change, usually, one person at a time. Have you been entertaining great thoughts lately?  What is stopping you from nobly daring to put action into them?  You have the courage within you, reach deep and touch it and see what will happen then.  You really have no...

You find out if you understand the gospel when you fail. Approach the throne of grace with confidence? Or go away to “clean yourself” before going back to God? If we don’t approach the throne of grace boldly after sinning, we don’t understand or we forgot the Gospel.   Matt Chandler Newsflash:  you can't get clean enough before approaching God.  You can't.  So don't even try.  Just go. And go BOLDLY. Hebrews 4:16 tells us we can.  Actually Hebrews 4:14-16 tells us why we can go as dirty as we might be before God - because God gets it.  He's experienced all that we have but stopped at the point of sinning.  (He had to or else he couldn't be our Savior.)  So he gets the temptations, the doubts and fears that lead us down roads we didn't think we would ever travel, the moment of insanity in which we do something that leads us down a spiraling staircase.  He gets it and he doesn't condemn us for it...when we come to him.  But we can'...

Four Things You Can't Recover: 1) The stone after the throw 2) The word after it's said 3) The occasion after it's missed 4) The time after it's gone Deanna Wadsworth Sad but true.  Read the list again without the "But..." in your head.  Wishing to recover any of those things is not going to actually make them be recovered.  The opportunity is gone and in it's place may be some regret but another opportunity will present itself.  What will you do with the new opportunity? I like word pictures.  I like them even though I'm not great at painting them.  So forgive my weak attempt and try to follow along. The stone was thrown, the gash (wound) inflicted.  (Think in mental/emotional terms on this one will ya?)  What's the new opportunity?  Help clean the gash, apply the antibiotic ointment, and place the band-aid.  Do whatever the one you wounded will allow you to do to make up for the throw.  And remember what happene...

Never lie, steal, cheat or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.    Old Irish Drinking Toast - also quoted in movies like: Hitch, Leap Year, Love is a Four Letter Word, etc.   Here's the original toast from the Irish: "May you never lie, steal, cheat or drink. But if you must lie, lie in each other's arms. If you must steal, steal kisses. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink with us, your friends." I like it.  It's the best kind of "degenerate" to be.  If I'm going to be a liar then I want to be the kind that spends my life lying in the embrace of my husband.  If I'm going to be a thief I hope, I pray, I'm only the kind that steals away the negative and bad from the lives of others so that joy can replace it.  Cheating death is not reall...

There is no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.   Nelson Mandela You may have heard me utter a time or two, "Less is more" (particularly after watching an episode of Hoarders) but in the case of today's quote I'm uttering, "Less is NOT more."  :)  I love it when my little theories get upset in the most delightful ways. Mandela has it right - when we settle for less life than what is out there waiting for us to reach it then we lack passion.  We lack zeal.  We lack fullness .  We lack satisfaction. What makes us settle for less life?  The belief that we don't deserve more life.  The belief that we aren't worth more to live more.  The fear of the unknown of a fuller life.  The fear of failing at living a fuller life.  The fear of passion.  Those are just the reasons that popped into my head, there's probably a hundred more excuses for settling for less when the...

live with intention. walk to the edge. listen hard. practice wellness. play with abandon. laugh. choose with no regret. continue to learn. appreciate your friends. do what you love. live as if this is all there is.   mary ann radmacher I've had a magnet on my fridge for years with this quote on it.  It's a great reminder to me - and I need these reminders - of what a full life consists of.  Even if I just put into practice one or two of these each day I'm better off.  How?  Well take, for example, "walk to the edge".  Living my life backing away from the edge and playing it safe leads to regrets.  It does.  I don't know of anyone who was happy they played it safe in the end.  We learn and grow the most when we walk right up to the edge of what brings us fear and we look over and make a move to conquer it.  Today's quote reminds me that I want to live each day developing my character and living a full life.  I hope you...

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says "I'm possible"!   Audrey Hepburn I never saw it before seeing this quote by Hepburn.  We need to be stronger and believe more than surface circumstances may dictate.  Deep down within us we have what it takes to make things possible.  I love that this look upon a word that bears such negative connotation turns it around and makes it a positive.  That's a good way to live life I'd say - take the seemingly negative and expose it to the light of positives.  

To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong.    Joseph Chilton Pearce A true creative person who is moved by the mediums and colors and methods that catch their eye cannot be wrong.  I  immediately  think of Andy Warhol.  He obviously did not fear being wrong.  :)  And while perhaps his creative works aren't what I would do or what I'm even drawn to I can see that he was extremely creative, talented, and did not fear what other people thought of his works.  Because he was  free  from that fear he was free to express himself through his chosen creative method.   I think most often we first have to get over the fear that whatever we feel we want to be creative about is wrong, especially if it doesn't fit in the box of what culture says is the definition of creative arts.  Then, once we have determined that our desired expression of creativity is okay, we have to tackle being afraid of "doing it wrong". ...

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.   Francois de La Rochefoucauld Masks can be fun...short-term.  And masks are really only meant for frivolity, not for hiding behind.  Too many of us wear masks. Oh nobody else may be able to physically see a mask but we all have, at one time or another, constructed an invisible one for our hearts and our faces.  We have created masks out of fear, insecurity, anger.  Those are the usual  culprits .  Almost any reason we can think of for our masks has a root that lies in one of those  characteristics . And some of us have worn the mask for so long that we can't remember who we truly are underneath.  In fact, we have forgotten that we are not the mask!  And so we lose ourselves and if we never run into someone who can and does remind us of who we really are at the core then we end up living a fake life - one that is controlled by the ma...

Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.   Helen Keller All the things you'd like to try to do, all the things that have been presented for you to do, all the things you can dream up to do - none of them are worth it if you don't actually go attempt them!  A full life is one that is open to adventure.  It will do you no good to be unable to be  adventurous  someday and recall fondly the things you wished you did.  Go and do some of those things now!  Be open to new adventures you never dreamed would present themselves to you.  Go for it!  (Yes, can you believe this Type A is encouraging such behavior? *grin*) I have a friend, she's sunshine in my life, and she could not have dreamed up one year ago where she is headed in few short weeks.  It's an adventure that presented itself "out of the blue" and she's decided to leap toward it.  One year ago she was single, no prospects that she knew of on the horizon, and she was happ...

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.    Neale Donald Walsch I just got this picture of flat pop versus carbonated pop.  Carbonated pop sizzles and pops and foams and goes everywhere (when we don't  contain  it properly!) and dances on our tongues and pleases our taste buds.  Flat pop is barely better than warm water.  It is dull, it doesn't dance, it's slightly disgusting actually.  Nothing about it is pleasing.   Our comfort zones are like flat pop.  They keep us in the safe zone.  Our comfort zones convince us not to dance, sizzle, pop.  It's too much of a risk and so we live our lives like flat pop.  But if we would just twist the top off of life and allow it to take us to places we only dared to dream about we would find ourselves living a carbonated life.  What carbonates you is going to be different than what carbonates me.  It's okay.  Just as long as we are both willing to twist the top an...