Tag: true worth

relationships, teach

Teach It and They Will Know

livingwholecoaching

I was having a wonderful conversation with my fiance during linner (time right after lunch but before dinner) today about relationships.  From the beginning we have shared our life lessons through the relationships that we have been involved with.  Needless to say he always helps me learn more and more about the male perspective than I have ever known in my life.

But what I told him was that I didn’t understand why other women in my life hadn’t taught me about the fundamentals of relationships and the way that I should approach them in a godly manner.  I’ve come to the conclusion that no one ever taught them so they didn’t have any information to share.  Sad but we tend to mimic what we see and know from growing up and we don’t know any different if we aren’t taught any different.

As I looked back over my life I don’t ever remember my mother sitting me down and telling me things about being in relationship.  Most of the things I remember from my mom is her standards.  I knew without a doubt that she wanted me to live my life with standards.  I tried to do that but the problem came in when I didn’t know what standards were good and which ones were bad.  I didn’t know my worth as a woman and so I lowered my standards to fit in to a relationship.

Seriously it wasn’t until recently that I sought the Lord for explanation on my “true” worth and He completely showed it to me and now I know.  All other things, relationships included will need to fall into line with that.

Another astounding revelation was that I have grown up in the church most of my life.  To be recollection I don’t remember being taught anything that would come close to knowing my worth in God and certainly not how to be in a relationship the way that God intended.  But why?   Why doesn’t the church teach the young ladies and young men their true worth and roles as children of God and in particularly in relationships?  They need it!  What happens is they go into relationships from what they see in the world.  And like me, we suffer useless pain and often times devastation because of our careless, untrained ways.

I want to challenge churches today to be that place that people can find what they need – yes God, and beyond that how to live a life that God intended.  We don’t need anyone to tell us don’t do that because that is not right.  Please tell us why and don’t forget how.  Why can’t we meet people at their point of need like Jesus did?  He taught in parables because that is what the people could understand for their own lives.  They understood Him.  The same holds true today, reach people right where they are and help them to understand the way God intends for us to live a blessed life in Him.

I can remember all the stories of the Bible with vivid details, but a few short years ago I may not have been able to tell you how it pertained to my life.  It is our job, you and me, the ministers, the church leaders, and the sunday teachers to teach so they will know.

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa

book, God, love, relationships, the butterfly journey

Relationships: You Still Have Time

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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

 

affirmations, book, love, The Help

You’re Important!

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When I read the book The Help one of the things that stayed in my mind was not the horrible way they were treated, but the way in which they carried themselves in the midst of so many injustices.  The one “help” named Abigail was raising the daughter of her employer and I was so happy that the little girl had “Abbie” as she called her in her life.  The little girl’s mother didn’t even want to be bothered with the child because she was a little chubby and not the most pretty little girl of the bunch.  But what Abbie did everyday was told her  positive affirmations about herself.

Abbie having lived in a time when she was treated differently and sometimes unjustly because of the color of her skin she knew all too well the negative affects it can have on a person.  She wanted to make sure that if there was something that she could do to change someone elses self-worth that she would, just by saying those same little affirmations to a little girl in hopes that she would continue to believe them as she grew up with a mother that didn’t seem to love her.

Those little words of confirmation, uplifting phrases that we can deposit into someone elses spirit can mean a whole difference in that person’s life.  Hopefully, that little child grew up remembering those words that Abbie spoke into her and she believed them no matter what life threw her way.  I hope that deep inside those words would reverberate back to her remembrance in those times when she didn’t feel so beautiful or loved.

The same concept holds true for most of us today and that is why I believe it is so important for us to tell our children, grandchildren, and even someone elses child that they are wonderful, smart, and important.  You just never know how important those words can be for them in life.  We can still deposit positive affirmations to one another in our adult life.  It holds the same strength to an adult as to a child.  Just like the effects of negative verbage that comes to us through life experiences whether true or not we begin to believe what people say to us and about us.

That is why I love the Lord so much because His love is so perfect and He affirms us with it everyday.  He doesn’t change His mind about us even when He should.

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa

change, destiny, Down the Path of Worthy, God, God has ordained, hurting women, journey, life, purpose, the butterfly journey, worthy

God Is Not Through With Us Yet

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Several women joined me for a virtual journey this month called – Down the Path of Worthy.  This week marks our final trek.

We have only begun to scale back the pieces of our worthiness during this journey.  There is so much more work that we need to do.  We have found out that it is not an easy task walking back to places in our lives that have caused us pain.  But we had to go there in order to re-write the scripts of our lives back to the original content that God had written for us before we were even a thought in our mother’s womb.

We have realized that this process of finding our true worth in God was more exhausting than we thought it would be.  But we are dedicated to reaching the place that we most desire and that is figuring out our purpose and destiny.

Sometimes the emotional journey is too much and we have to rest along the way.  It’s okay, we understand that we have to press to reach the top of the place that we want to be.   We have to dig deep!  We trek on!  We won’t stop here we will push ourselves with the strength that God gives us to make a difference in our lives and the lives that we touch.

We are not convinced that everyone will understand the process but we hope that all will trust it.  We share this experience because it is the very thing that has helped us; it is our testimony for others to know that it can be done.  God can and will turn our ashes into beauty!

We encourage all women to join us in this journey of a lifetime.  It is not about changing our habits, but it is about transforming our lives for a better life that God has ordained for us to live.

Be encouraged, God is not through with us yet!

The Butterfly Journey – Lisa

Day 6, the cross

The Journey Day 6

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Thus far on our journey we have exerted a lot of emotional energy, but we realize that in the end it will be well worth every minute.

Once we reached the top of the hill of evaluating our measures of worth we were exhausted.  We decided that on each 7th day we would rest and reflect.

On Day 6 we had to peek inside a scary cave of information.  We had to get a true sense of the worth that God has connected us to in Him.

We have all read or heard about the crucifixion of Christ.  We have been moved by the account of His death that had been foretold in the Old Testament and New Testament in the Bible.  But did we have a clear view in our mind’s eye of what really happened to him that day?

We read a full medical account of what Christ had to physically encounter on that day.  I will not be able to write everything in this post but if you desire to read what we read about that day please email me directly and I will send you a copy. (lisa@butterflyjourney.net)

After reading that account there is no way that if you are alive and have blood running through your veins and have a heart of just a little compassion can you not know how worthy you are to God!

I personally went away with a new thanks in my heart for what God did for me that day!  I can’t even express it, it is too deep.

We hope that you will continue this journey with us!  You can connect with us via the social media tools that we use that are on this blog page.  We hope to see you  on your path to worthy!

The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa

change, Day 5, Down the Path of Worthy, God, journey, purpose, the butterfly journey, worthy

The Journey Day 5

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On Day 5 we had to trek up a steep hill.  So we grabbed some protein bars and plenty of water, took a deep breath and made our way.

Today we had to really dig deep and we were not sure what we would find, but we needed to go deep inside ourselves.  We had to communicate how we were evaluating our worth.  We had to share what were some of the temporal things that we were connecting our worth to.

Many of us had a hard time with this one and it took us awhile to get to the top of that hill.  It was a daunting task.  Again, we had to go over that hill in order to reach our next destination on the path to worthy.

The butterfly’s journey is not an easy one.  When we see the beauty of the butterfly and amaze at its ability to be free to fly and dance among the flowers of the field, we fail to realize the journey that it had to take to get to that scene.  It has to change.  In its process it actually liquefies while in the cocoon so that it can become what it is intended to be!

That is where our journey took us on this day.  We had to look deep inside for all the flawed ways that we have equated our worth.  We are so used to connecting our worth with temporal things of the world which may be counter productive to the way that God values our worth.  Because of years of evaluating ourselves that way it is hard to then change.

This exercise was super important to this pivot part of our journey.  This is the part where the scales on our eyes can start being removed and in turn we can begin our transformation to our “true” worth and purpose!

Keep moving we will meet you there!

The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa

Day 4, destiny, Down the Path of Worthy, God, journey, love, the love chapter

The Journey Day 4

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Day 4 of our journey to find understanding about our “true” worth and we are doing pretty good.  Our energy level is high and we can’t wait to reach our destiny!

On Day 4 we completed an exercise that I found on another blog (What Would Jenn Say?!) a few months ago.  We read 1 Corinthians 13 (The Love Chapter) and we had to then re-read it and insert God were the word love was used.  We also had to insert other names in the place of the word love to see how those around us measured up to the word of God!

This was an eye-opening exercise for most of us.  Just starting with replacing the word love with God gave us an instant understanding that God truly is “love” and He wants the best for us.  Moreover, when it came to inserting our own names it was a humbling experience that showed we all have work to do in the love category.

We have all heard this chapter read many times, especially during weddings.  But have we really measured what it is saying to us?  We discovered the depth of what this chapter is telling us what “love” really is.

Many of us said that when we hear this scripture read that we will never hear it the same from this point on.  It really came to life for us and it will be used as our measure of real love from this day forward.

Try this exercise for yourself and you will be amazed of the understanding of  “real” love as God has ordained it to really be!

The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa

change, Day 3, Down the Path of Worthy, God, journey, letter, New, seeking God, the butterfly journey

The Journey Day 3

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We are really moving now!  Day 3 we wrote one last letter.  We wrote a letter to God from us.

In this letter we had to express to God everything that we are, what we were not and all the little things in between.  We took this opportunity to ask God questions about our lives.  The things that have happened to us that have shaped the person that we are today.  We asked about the things that happened to us that we did not understand.

Even though we understood that God already knows these things it was important for us to write it out for ourselves.  The exercise allowed us to reflect on our lives the good, the bad, and the ugly and just let it all out on paper.  We believe that it is very therapeutic to write.  It allows you the opportunity to express what may be inside but no other opportunity to release.  We must purge those thoughts and pains out in order to allow the good things and new things into our spirit and heart.  We will now be able to allow our minds to receive the new ideas to flow into us so that change can transform us.

We told God how we viewed Him in our lives and then gave thanks for the things that He has given unto us through out the years.  It was a time to give thanks!

What do you need to tell God?  Write Him a letter today!

The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa

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The Journey Day 2

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We are well on our way to understanding our “true” worth!  Day 2 we wanted to discover how we “think” that God feels about us.  We wrote a letter to ourselves from God.

We took this opportunity to reflect on how we feel God sees us.  This was a very sobering task as we had to reflect on the things we have done or not done; things that perhaps God would be pleased with or not so much.

This exercise made us think about the blessings that God has given to us even when we may not have deserved it, but yet He still blessed and loved us.  We are hot now on the pursuit of finding that “true” worth.

As the letters came in we could see that everyone found that sweet spot of how God loves us any way we are and that my friend is “true” worth.

What would God say to you?

The Butterfly Journey ~ Lisa