The Importance of Listening to Yourself (And Saying the Right Thing) Be Careful What You Say To Yourself, Because You Are Listening!*

No Legacy Is so Rich as Honesty – 6 Steps to Develop an Honest Mentality 5 Ways to Build Trust and Honesty in Your Relationship Nine Tips to Improve Your Integrity and Honesty

Global Forgiveness Day The Day to Forgive, the Day to be Forgiven! Chocolate Day What is chocolate?  Buy Fair Trade Chocolate  and Stop Chocolate Slavery  (yes, it's a thing and yes, you can be part of seeing it end) 9 Weird Uses for Chocolate 9 Awesome Uses for Chocolate Tell the Truth Day 7 Benefits of Telling the Truth 'I cannot tell a lie' - Health Benefits of Telling the Truth A Remarkable Benefit of Telling the Truth Strawberry Sundae Day How to Make a Strawberry Sundae

Hurt me with the truth but never comfort me with a lie. Unknown  It's so tempting to soften the blow for someone by lying to them.  But in the end, when they discover you have lied instead of spoken truth the hurt is double than it would have been with the truth.  Yes, the truth may hurt but it is better than the lie.  The "comfort" the lie pretends it offers is insincere and damaging.  The "hurt" the truth presents offers eventual healing, restoration, and growth - spiritual and personal.  Which would you rather have?  Damage to relationships and self because of deception or ultimate healing to relationships and self because of truth?  I say bring on the truth.  What say you?  

Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.   Elizabeth Cady Stanton Today's quote could cover many different topics of truth but I want to discuss the most basic fact of truth and that is honesty.   When we choose to tell the truth, to be honest, then we are standing on firm ground.  When we choose to engage in dishonesty then we quickly can and will find ourselves in quicksand.  As a parent I've been reminded of this fact about telling the truth with my own children.  Teaching them to always tell the truth has been a needed refresher course for me. Through them I have seen why we are tempted  to  be dishonest and what happens when we choose that course of action.  I  have observed that we are most often tempted  to  be dishonest when we are scared of the consequences of whatever it is that needs to be disclosed.  This clearly shows how faulty our thinking is because the consequences of being dishonest and covering up far ...

There's nothing that keeps its youth, so far as I know, but a tree and truth.   Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. I may be totally off on today's quote but oh well!   It's my blog so I can interpret as I want!  Ha!   We all are aging.  No matter what we might try to maintain our youth we fail.  We are all aging.  No amount of botox, surgery, fast cars, etc will help us with the quest to stay youthful.  So why not focus instead on the things that matter and do keep their youth?  I'm going to bypass the tree part of Holmes quote today and go straight for the other, more important in my opinion, part.  Truth.  When we choose honesty we choose youth because the truth never ages.  It maintains its youthful glow.  The picture I get in my mind is that of wrinkled skin versus smooth.  When we choose lies and falsehood we create wrinkles.  And what do we do with wrinkles?  We try to smooth them back out with cremes and ...

Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity We are all looking for something.  Something that has meaning, worth, value, inspiration, and purpose for our lives.  Not one of us is exempt from this search.  The results are in and clear.  It's nothing in this world that will answer that quest.  What we each are seeking can only be found outside of this world.  It can only be found in something beyond ourselves.  Lewis knew what he was talking about, he went from searching this world for answers and being left still wondering to searching beyond himself and finding exactly what he was looking for.  The answer is found beyond ourselves.  The answer is found in a Creator who created us.  He is the One with what we seek.  He holds meaning, purpose, value, inspiration, and worth for our ...

The soul always knows what to do to heal itself.  The challenge is to silence the mind.  Caroline Myss The biggest obstacle to our healing from emotional wounds, etc is to keep our minds from engaging in that healing.  Our minds are wonderful and helpful when it comes to pretty much everything but healing.  Then our minds turn on us.  They replay the lies that hold us in bondage, they keep the shame we might feel at the front of our efforts, they whisper things to us that keep us in victim mode, they convince us that we are right and "the world" is wrong and against us.  The mind becomes our enemy of sorts when we need to heal. I know this first hand.  I've been there.  I've been in a battle with my mind and my soul. Our souls always know what to do to heal.  They are reliable in leading the way to wholeness.  They point north and lead the way but only if the mind gets out of the way.  And that is a choice each of us have ...

The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.    Morrie Schwartz Morrie became famous when an old student of his, Mitch Albom, spent Tuesdays with him near the end of his battle with ALS and then recounted the lessons Morrie shared with him in a book.  Morrie was a pretty smart man, if today's quote was his only one * he would still be smart.  Today's quote is spot on.   Once you learn how to die to your self - your selfishness, your need to be right, your entitlements, your pride, your vanity,  your fears, your insecurities, whatever else of yours that holds you back from living life - then you begin to learn how to live.  An abundant, full, satisfied life begins when we die to our very self.  How is that possible?  Because all the things we have to die to hold us back from really living life.  So once you learn how to die to those things your life will begin.   Morrie's wisdom reminds me of age-old wisdom f...

You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another.   Proverbs 27:17 I've been thinking about this proverb this week.  When someone confronts you on an issue in your life you can usually tell if they are doing it because they care about you or because they just want to be a  critical  voice in your world.  With the one friend you listen, as hard as it may be to hear.  With the other you take it with a grain of salt and go on your way.   Have you ever heard steel sharpening steel?  It can be a grating noise.  But at the end of the process the steel is sharp and ready for use.  That's also what happens with relationships.  When you have given someone permission to speak into your life you should expect it to sometimes be grating on your dull edges.  But if you can hear what is said and do some honest introspection about it then the hope is you come out of the process sharper and ready for further use.   I...

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.   Mark Twain The thing about telling a lie is you have to remember what you've said so that you can keep up the lie and not get caught in it!  So Twain gives a piece of very practical advice, a memory tip.  Tell the truth.  Simple as that.  Tell the truth and you don't have to remember what you said.  Would you rather get caught in a lie or caught in the truth?  :)

If you aren't enamored, captivated, by Jesus then perhaps you should consider if you have ever really met him. Dan Jessup At Family Camp my friend Dan was club speaker.  This is what we talked about.  The person of Jesus.  Does he enamor you?  Are you captivated by him?  No?  Then have you met him...really?  I venture to say "no".  Dan is right.  If you aren't enamored by Jesus then you probably haven't truly met him, just a glimpse is all you've gotten and chances are good it wasn't an accurate glimpse.   See when I really met Jesus I became speechless, awed, humbled, amazed, and a crying mess.  Just the thought of him gets me weepy.  He is beyond words.  I've really met him and it wasn't on a Sunday morning or Wednesday night. It was in my life that I really and truly met him.  It was without a Pastor telling me what to do and how to do it.  It was without textbook answers and false appearances.  It was...

"Our danger is to water down God's word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He suits me to fit His word." O. Chambers Do I really need to say anything more than the quote above?  Do I really need to expound with some sort of commentary?  For a lot of you I don't.  For some of you I do, even though you'll get a bitter taste in your mouth. (That's your warning btw, if you want to quit reading now so you don't feel mad at me...or whomever!)  See we humans have a problem.  We think it's all about us.  We think that God should be and is who we want him to be, whatever that is.  When he's not, or so it seems in our estimation, we get offended with him.  We decide he's not real.  We begin to pick and choose parts of the Bible that apply and don't.  We begin to make the Bible fit our "all about me" beliefs rather than allow the Bible to become weaved into the very fiber of our beings.  We do what Chambers so correct...

Today I know it deep in my spirit that the hard seasons don’t minimize Him but in fact magnify His goodness.   Katie Davis This is not a new truth but one that is easy to forget and hard to remember.  That may sound like I just said the same thing but I didn't, not really.  Stick with me.   It's easy to forget about God's goodness when things are going well.  We tend to forget that his goodness is there, weaved in throughout our days.  We breeze through our days without giving him much of a thought.  It's unfortunate that we have allowed ourselves to forget him.   It's really hard to remember God's goodness when things aren't going so well.  Suddenly we begin talking to him and about him, blaming him for this hard season.  Um.  Either he's with us all the time or he's not, make up your mind.  You know what I'm saying right?  Even the most hardened heart acknowledges God in hard times.  W-W-W-HAT?  Think abou...