Category: God

book, God, love, relationships, the butterfly journey

Relationships: You Still Have Time

livingwholecoaching

I was super bummed when I finished writing a lovely post about relationships this morning and clicked on the publish button and to my surprise or perhaps my demise half of the post was missing.  I had to trash what was left and decided to walk away until this evening.

But in the efforts to post something of wisdom, something positive, something motivating everyday I am re-doing my earlier post in hopes that I capture the essence that I wanted to.

Relationships are a huge part of life that shapes who we are, who we become, and how we handle all the other aspects of our lives.  I was not at all great at relationships.  Not that I didn’t have any but I didn’t have healthy ones, at least not for me. I called myself a chameleon.  I would change myself into whatever type of person that relationship wanted.  I hid my heart, my dreams, my desires and wants deep inside.  It really didn’t matter, no one seemed to want to know the “real” Lisa anyway.  But just like any other woman I wanted a relationship where I could be me; the real me.

It didn’t come until after the healing process started during my depression that I began to understand the why’s of my unhealthy relationships.  God had to show me that I was worthy.  Me, Lisa, was worth something more than what I had experienced in these unhealthy relationships.  But I didn’t know that then and that was my problem.  I equated my worth with how pleased the other person was with me.  And since I wasn’t even sharing the real me I didn’t realize that what they were giving me in return was not equal to my worth.  Whatever they offered I thought that was all that I was worth!  But God said no!  That is not who you are, you are beautiful, lovely, and unique because He made me that way.  I was worthy of great things because God said so.

When God gave me the man of my dreams, I didn’t know if I could pass the test and use my new-found wisdom to cultivate the relationship in a healthy way.  And sure enough the old me came slipping back into play, but God stopped me every time I tried to revert back to my old ways.  Craig, (my fiance) is a wonderful man of God and he was very patient with me in my learning stage.  He has taught me a lot about love, patience and friendship and today he is my best friend!

I explain more about my experience with relationships in my upcoming book: The Butterfly’s Journey coming soon!

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa

 

facebook, God, peace, satisfied, the butterfly journey

Are You Satisfied?

livingwholecoaching

This was the burning question that I posed to our Facebook fans this morning.  Are you satisfied with you life where you are?  If I had asked myself this question a few years ago, I would have answered a resounding NO!

I have been a Christian since I was 15 years old and though I believed in God, it wasn’t until I was well into my life that I really understood how much knowing Him and having a relationship with Him could make me feel so satisfied.  Being satisfied with my life doesn’t mean that I have everything in control or all the answers to life.  It simply means that with God in my life I can depend on Him.  He is there for me when I need Him.  I am not worried about  people, things, or situations that I may have to face, because God gives me the feeling of peace.

The experience of God is so amazing and although I can write about it and share, it’s something that you have to experience for yourself.  I can’t really put the words together eloquently enough to give Him the due credit that He deserves.

Let me tell you, like most people I have tried to feel satisfied with my life without God, but there was nothing that could fill that void.  I was like most people searching for that something to make my life seem worth living.  I searched for it in the clubs, looking for a husband.  I looked for it in drinks, drugs, and sex.  I looked for it in work, in friends, in things.  I couldn’t find it anywhere, all that stuff was temporal and didn’t last but for a specific time period.   But with God, He is steady, faithful, He encompasses the very essence of “real” love.  I didn’t have to perform for Him, I didn’t need to make a certain amount of money, I didn’t need to be perfect. . . He loves me regardless of my past.

I understand why people end up in way that they do, because they have not come to the realization that God is the one and only solution to a satisfied life.  Until we get tired of being on the wheel of life, just getting by and the feeling of the void growing stronger within us, then we will turn to God.  I feel  sad to think that over the years I put Him last, but I am glad that I did finally come to Him and He was still there waiting for me!

I am so satisfied with my Savior and nothing can take His place in my life!

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa

God, Joy, love, overcome, past hurt

I Can Overcome!

livingwholecoaching

You don’t have to allow your past to define who you are today.  Past hurts from people you loved or people you didn’t even know can leave a deep wound upon your heart that you may feel can never heal.  But I am here to tell you it can and it will if you open yourself to the healing process of God’s love.

Most people I know have suffered some sort of pain, loss, or brokeness that have left them in a place of deadness.  It is easy to just stay in a place of mourning than to seek healing and work towards moving past that place.  It takes effort and work and sometimes reliving the very thing that caused so much hurt.

For me it wasn’t a good feeling to have to go back over my life and examine the things that had happened to me by others and also realize that some of those things I caused myself.  But if I wanted to become everything that God wanted me to be I had to go back and bury the feelings, bury my past hurts.  At first I had to acknowledge the pain and the cause.  Then I had to forgive the person(s) and then myself.  Sometimes I experienced as much pain as I did when it first occurred, that was the hard part.  Some things were burned into me so deep that I had forgotten that it even happened to me.  My mind had placed it in a box so tightly closed that I was afraid to even open the memory.

Through it all God was there to help me sort through the toughest parts and together we buried each one.  Today, I have overcome!  I don’t have to worry about those things coming back to hurt me again.  I learned from my own mistakes and I can truly say that I am a new person.  My life changed because of the greatest love that I ever known – God!

I want to encourage you today that you do not have to be defined by your past any longer.  I don’t care what it was that happened or what parts you may have played in your own past mistakes.  I am here to share with you and encourage you that no matter where you are in life things can change.  You don’t have to be in the church building, you don’t have to know all the scriptures in the Bible, you just need to ask God to enter into your life and take control.  It’s not easy!  I will be the first to tell you that your life is not instantly going to be wonderful, but what I can say is that God can turn your ashes into beauty.  He can exchange your tears for His joy.  He will help you bury those terrible things in your life that have caused you so much pain.  I have overcome of my past!

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa

 
depression, God, Joy, people pleaser, purpose, women

Women It’s Your Time!

livingwholecoaching

When I began my “butterfly journey”, I didn’t realize how many women in the world were suffering with the same issues that I myself had dealt with for so long.  But I am noticing that it is a common theme for most of us to lose ourselves, our worth, our purpose, and our faith while doing life.

You know when I think about life it is so much more than just working, cleaning, taking care of others etc.  God created it to be a time to understand who He is, understand of ourselves, our worth, our purpose and each other.  One of His greatest commandments is to love thy neighbor as thyself.  But we fall short on this because we lose the ability to love ourselves.  Our society is full of the message that it is selfish to do things for yourself, especially women.  But we must if we are ever going to reach the full potential of our lives as God has planned.

We are expected to have a career, raise a family, be competitive, have a great shape, complete our education, do the laundry, clean the house, serve in the church, take care of our extended family and whole host of other things!  Whew, that made me tired just typing it out!  And nothing is wrong with any of this, we do have responsibilities, but then where do we fit God in all of this?  That’s the missing link!  We end up doing all this and more and we lose our relationship with the one who can give us everything we need.  That’s what happened to me and I am not proud to admit it but it’s the truth.

My personality is one of “people pleaser” or so it was.  I had to fit in and make people pleased with me and my abilities.  What happened was I could finally take no more and I shut down; emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically.  I was a wreck!  I suffered a deep depression for over 2 years and tried desperately to figure out what happened to me.  That’s when my “butterfly journey” began. When I could suffer no more, God showed me my life using the analogy of a caterpillar’s journey to becoming a butterfly, to illustrate where I had gone all wrong. (The Butterfly’s Journey book to be released April 2012)!

The main thing (a relationship with God) had become a secondary, or really even third or fourth place in my life.  I was literally in a place of hell (separated from God) and it was horrific to say the least!  I didn’t understand my “true” worth in Him; I only knew what my worth was to others and to them I was disposable, even to some I was garbage.

I let the God of my creation heal me from the inside out and my life has never been the same.  Through my pain He gave me my purpose, through my tears He gave me joy, and through my newly established relationship, He showed me my worth!

It’s time ladies to take your rightful places in life and live a transformed life with purpose in God!

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa

encouragement, God

Encourage My Soul

livingwholecoaching

Often times we go along in life with expectations of what we would like to do or see happen in our lives. Sometimes things don’t turn out quite the way we had planned.  Or little set-backs come along to steer us off course.  Things happen to get us down and out and disturb our souls.  Every time something happens that I didn’t plan for (and that is often) I  start to feel discouraged.  Like it is just another thing to hold me back from accomplishing the things that I set out to do.

We must have the wisdom to understand that life is not always good and things do come along to knock you down.  But we must have the resolve to encourage ourselves and others.  Did you realize that when you encourage someone else your own troubles start to feel less intense?  I mean you walk away feeling great about helping someone see the possibilities in themselves.  You actually begin to see the possibilities in yourself!

It amazes me that little words of encouragement can go such a long way.  Just think if we all paid it forward the encouragement that someone has given to you!  What kind of world would we live in?  Where people all over would be affirming one another, coming along helping you to see the endless abilities that you possess.  This would be a wonderful place!  And it can start with you.

If you know God and the wonderful promises that  He has stored up for you, then you can even encourage your own soul!  You can speak to yourself about all the good things that God has given you, has placed in you, has stored up for you and get yourself in a place of expectation!

Please take the time to look outside of yourself and encourage someone along life’s way.  You will be amazed at how it makes you feel.  Encourage your soul today, the world needs what you have!

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa

change, depression, God, healing and deliverance, prayer

Only God. . .That’s All I Need

livingwholecoaching

One thing that I noticed about myself since I was delivered from the depths of depression, is that I am very aware of my feelings more.  I know when I am about to feel that overwhelming feeling that causes me to start to feel defeated.  I don’t like the feeling at all, but I am glad that now I can recognize it very clearly and act appropriately.

God has given me a censor (discernment) to know when I am getting in a place that is not good for me and I stop.  I stop right where I am and I pray and ask God to give me the strength and wisdom I need to push pass that place.  You see before I didn’t understand what that feeling meant and I would allow it to take over me and put me in a place of despair and if I wasn’t careful, it would take me right back to depression.

I am so glad though that God loves me enough to help me in every situation whether big or small.  I am glad that He is there for me when nobody else may understand.  I can depend on Him.  That is one of main lessons that I learned when I came out of my depression was I didn’t have to rely on a person to be there because God was there with me every single day of my 730 day journey in depression.  He was the only one there as a matter of fact and I never would have made it if He wasn’t there with me.

Wow, I could go on  page after page telling you about God’s goodness towards me especially during that time because it changed my life.  But  I will leave that for you to read in my book:  The Butterfly’s Journey, releasing in April 2012.

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa

 

change, destiny, Faith, God, grace, life, prayer, preparing for transformation, seeking God

Preparing for Transformation

livingwholecoaching

Before we can begin to start our “butterfly journey”, we must first prepare for transformation.  How do you do that, you ask?  It’s not easy!

First we need to change our mindset towards ourselves and recognize that we can’t do this alone.  That there is more to life than just living the way we have been.  We need God to help us through and we need each other to encourage one another along the way.  We have to build trust in God’s process.  Most importantly we need to desire the change.  We have to get tired of being tired of the way that things are with our lives.

Our desire to seek our “true” destiny has to be stronger than turning back or remaining in a life that is dead and unfruitful.  We need to acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers to life and we need God to help us.  We need to begin the purging process and that takes a lot of courage.

You will need to dig deep into yourself to identify the places in your life that need to be understood and then buried.  Asking, praying, and seeking God for those answers is our key to moving beyond our past and starting anew.  I literally had to relive those places in my life that were not so wonderful and ask God to show me why I made the choices that I did and how to move past the hurt and disappointment that people had left in my life and things that I myself had deposited in my spirit.  I had to allow Him to purge me from those things that were keeping me from understanding my “true” worth in Him.

We can’t skip this part of the process because it prepares us for the transformation stage; which in itself is a tough process.  You have to put your trust in a God that you can’t see, but you can feel His love, grace, and peace all around you!

It’s time for you to prepare, let’s go!

The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa

 

 

change, forgiving, God, Healing, Position Yourself for Greatness, the butterfly journey

Position Yourself for Greatness!

livingwholecoaching

My mother and I were talking the other day about how people don’t want to do their part in transforming their lives for greatness.  It is definitely a process.  One that requires some things of you.  God is the one who can and will do the transforming but YOU are the one who has to receive it.  You are the one who needs to open your heart to what it is that God is trying to do for you and in you.

God wants us to be vulnerable to Him and the process.  Your heart has to be open in order to receive.  You have to be willing to let some things go in order to receive some “new” things in.

A closed hand will never receive any gifts.  A closed heart will never receive love.  You have to position yourself for greatness.  I believe it is truly a season of receiving all the good that God has for you.  But you must be ready.  Just like running a marathon you have to condition yourself to endure the challenge, you can’t just go out there and run.  You will hurt yourself.

As it is with receiving from God you must position yourself to receive what it is that He has for you.  You may have to deal with some past hurts, you may have to forgive a few people that you don’t want to forgive, you may have to deny yourself of some selfish motives but it is so worth it my friend.  Those bandages are going to have to come off and some healing will need to take place.

Ask yourself this question are you ready to receive the greatness that God has for you?  Is your heart open to change and transformation?  The caterpillar doesn’t have a choice but to be ready to transform because it is a part of his nature to receive the gift of becoming a butterfly.  But we have a choice and we can choose to remain in the same old place or we can choose to open ourselves up to the greatness that God wants to give us.

The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa

 

depression, God, journey, Joy, life worth living, purpose

My Life is Worth Living!

livingwholecoaching

My life is worth living!

Even though my life has been filled with disappointments and trials.  It has had many turns and dips that have left me weary and exhausted.  I have suffered from unworthiness, low self-esteem, depression and a whole host of other negative things.  I have been lied on, cheated on, giving broken promises, but still my life is worth living.

Through every storm there has been a rainbow at the end to show me that God still exists and better still He has been with me through all of the pain.  He has kept on giving me reasons to push on!   Rays of hope and direction for my future!

Sickness has knocked on my door and lingered in my room sometimes too.  But God has healed me each time and strengthen me for the next leg of my journey.  I have had strangers and friends bless me with gifts of love right at the perfect time.

When I consider all that God has in store for me and how much He loves me and wants to give me a life of purpose, joy, and peace, I get excited!  My life is worth living!

Can you count the blessings that the Lord has given you over the year even in the midst of your mess?  Just think about what He wants to do for you and get in position to receive it!  Jeremiah 29:11 says; “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” NIV  Come on get that in your spirit right now!

Your life is worth living, so stop trying to figure it all out yourself and let God show you just what He has for you.

The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa

Christ, family, friends, God, love, mother, thanksgiving

Unconditional Love – Priceless

livingwholecoaching

After spending almost an entire 24 hours in the hospital with my mother yesterday, who was having chest pains early Wednesday, we were blessed to find out that her heart is in great condition!  It was a blessing to spend the day with her even under those circumstances.  It bought to my attention how blessed we really and truly are.  My family and extended friends were there for us and for that I am truly thankful!  It reminds me that it’s not the big triumphs in life that make it all worth while; but it is the little things that we often take for granted.

My siblings and I are not used to seeing our mother in such a vulnerable physical state and it brings to our minds that she is getting older and her body is showing those signs.  We have always seen her as this strong woman of God not letting anything stop her from doing what she needed to do.  Often times putting her on needs aside to tend to ours.  Now she needs us to come along side of her to help her through these physical issues that have decided to change her body.

As I watched over her resting in the hospital bed, the thoughts of her doing the same for me when I was a child touched my heart.  I thanked God for allowing me to have such a wonderful person as a mother and father in my life.  Not only has she touched my life in a positive way but she has deposited lots of love and inspiration into my daughter and my grandchildren.  They are blessed to have her in their lives.  She is our best friend, our advocate, our mom!

Take the time today to reach out to your loved ones wherever they may be what ever the circumstance of your relationship and try to make it right.  Life is too short to harbour feelings of anything but love.  I challenge you to choose to move past any hurt or pain and begin a new life today with God with you.  You won’t regret it.

Today I am thankful for the unconditional love of my mother, my family and friends and most of all the love of Christ who died so that I could be free!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa