birth day, God, grace, journey, love, the butterfly journey

Celebrating My Second Birth!

Happy Birthday to me!  Today is my birthday and I am blessed to have turned. . .well no need to go into the details there.  I was reflecting on how blessed I am to see yet another year of my life with all of its experiences, milestones, celebrations and challenges.

I am grateful for having another year of opportunities that  have come across the paths of my life.  I am thankful for my earthly birth in all its splendor.

But I am more excited about my second birth in Christ, where my life really began.  Through the unexplainable love of a God that saw His broken creation and gave me another chance to really live life!  I am excited about this undeserved grace that God extended to me through His son Jesus, so I could live the life that He had originally ordained just for me.

I marvel at the plans that God has for my life today and the vision that He has shown me for my future in Him.   Every part of my earthly journey is preparing me for my eternal journey.  So as I celebrate my earthly birth, I recognize that my spiritual birth is the one that I work toward, the one that will last long after my flesh is gone!

Happy Birthday to me!  Thank you Lord!

Lisa ~ The Butterfly Journey

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

Preparing for Transformation

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

 

 

a place for you, book, depression, God, grace, Healing, healing and deliverance, journey, land of Oz, life, live, love, purpose, the butterfly journey, women, worthlessness

A Place for You

There have been times in my life when I thought I wouldn’t make it to another day.  The feeling of endless sadness and pain.  So many disappointments, far too many to count.  And this feeling of pure worthlessness.  But I knew intellectually that people cared about me and loved me but this feeling grew larger than my common sense.  It drowned my rational thinking like it was nothing.  It had me teetering on the edge of life itself.

I know I have talked about my depression a lot because it was one of the most difficult times in my life.  I never had experienced something so strong that was not a tangible thing that it baffled my normal thought process.  The more I tried to figure it out the more elusive it became.  You can’t even articulate the feelings in real words.  The more you try the more frustrated you become and you just begin to give up.

I suffered in this place of depression for over 730 days and I know other people have dealt with this terrible sickness for years and never really have come full circle from it.  I pray for those people everyday, for the strength to battle this monster with no face.  This enemy of mind and emotion.  This life threatening fog of doubt, fear and loneliness.

Once I received my full healing and deliverance from God.  I was inspired to write about my journey to this place of darkness and back to a place far better than what I left.  A place of purpose and confidence.  A place of undying love and grace.  I am forever grateful to God for saving me from this place of torment.

You really don’t realize that people all around you suffer from some sort of pain that they don’t openly share with others.  We work beside people who have suffered emotional and physical abuse from their parents.  Others that may have been damaged by things that happened to them in relationships.  They hide these things that have shaped who they are today because it is not accepted.  But we all are in the same boat, yet none of us want to open up and cry for help.  We would rather suffer silently and die a slow death inside ourselves than look like a failure or  be judged by the very ones who say they care.

My story, coming soon in a book form is for those kindred spirits that are lost in the land of Oz (depression) or some other sort of terrible place with no avenue of escape; nowhere to run to; to find release.  The Butterfly Journey is a place where you can share and feel safe that no one will judge where you have been or what has happened to you.  You can come to us and get the encouragement and rest that for so long you have needed.  A place of peace!

We can’t walk this path of life alone.  God is always there and we are his vessels in which to show you that you can be free of all that “stuff” and walk down a new path with your head held up, shoulders back and with an assurance that you do matter and you have purpose in this life.

Won’t you join us?  www.thebutterflyjourney.com or www.facebook.com/thebutterflysjourney

We have a place reserved just for you!  The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa

believer, blessed, book, change, finding God, God, grace, hope, message, purpose, seeking God, success, the butterfly journey, vessel

Seeking God!

I have been working on writing my first book for almost a year.  I was writing steady in the beginning and as I approached the final part, I have stopped writing at all.  Coming up with excuses, becoming busy with all this other “stuff” and my energy level has basically plummeted to zero!  What happened?

I am scared of the outcome; I have become afraid of the success of the message.  But God reminded me as I sought after Him this morning that it is His book.  He wrote the words, I have just been the vessel that He used to get the message out.  I have lived out the message in my own life to be qualified to share this message of hope.  I need not be afraid of its success because it is not about me personally; it is about someone finding God for their life.

I realized that during the time of not writing I was not seeking God for direction or clarity for my life.  I started relying in myself and others.  I was stepping away from the true purpose of the book and my life’s mission.  I was delaying the positive effects I know this book will have on the lives that are waiting to be changed.

But when  I sought after God, He showed me everything that I needed for my life and the completion of this project.  He gave me clarity on my purpose!

If you are a believer, then you know how important it is to stay connected to God and seek Him in all things!  You can’t rely on Him for only parts of your life, He needs to be in every aspect.  So as  I live and grow in His grace, I understand more and more I can’t do anything without Him and I don’t even want to try.

If you are going through anything today that you can’t figure out, seek God!  He has the answers that are so much greater than your own.

Be blessed so that you can be a blessing!

The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa