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Monthly Archives: January 2016

Don’t Take It Personally!

28 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Choices, Contentment, Freedom, God, Humility, Joy, Love, Maturity

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Contentment, Forgiveness, Freedom, God, Joy, Peace

So many people take things personally, they feel unforgiving and unrelenting about hanging onto that which they presume hurts them. But in the end, is that an easier choice than just giving others the benefit of the doubt or forgiving them for their lapses? The older I get, the more I learn to let things roll off my back like water on glass. I don’t let things absorb into me as easily or as readily as I once did. I’m still reactive to things in part; but I am trying harder, and with more purpose, to think before I react to what I perceive as hurtful.

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It’s not my doing, but this sense of letting go and forgiving more readily comes from growing closer in relationship with the Lord. The more I stem my own self in surrender to Him as the center of my own life, the more I understand the necessity for this. If I’m not the focal point of my own life, then I needn’t take things so personally or seek my own vindication! And if not every thing is about me anyway, then it’s easier to presume others aren’t focusing on me deliberately. Hurts, wounds, and supposed injuries aren’t as common an infliction for me as they once were; simply because I don’t put myself in the center of my universe, my needs aren’t paramount and my feelings aren’t as important or even sure! Maybe forgiveness comes easier to us when we’re not placing ourselves so high up on the scale of importance? We’re able to let others slip up, make their mistakes and live their imperfect lives. And perhaps we don’t assume the worst about others when we’ve learned to relegate our own special interests to a lower rung? It’s not as if others are always aware of us or our expectations, much less so willing to put our needs ahead of their own. If we’re all measured equally in God’s eyes, then why should what I feel or think or do or say be of any more or less importance or value than what others do or say? It shouldn’t!  releaseenergy

 

There is freedom in living without such random triggers of insecurities, doubt, fear and worry; sans my own need for vindication or my measure of joy being contingent upon the words or actions of others! It’s not, my value and my worth comes from God; my peace of mind and joyful spirit are a result of living with trust in Him. I’m not any more or less important in His eyes, so what happens to me is not as important as I may assume. Wanting to move closer towards Him, makes it easier to focus on the many ways I need to mature within! I’ve learned that being wounded, hurt, easily offended or so quick to be angry because of others is not useful to me. I can control my own emotions and relegate them accordingly, because not everything is about my sense of pride. Forgiveness is key, but so is not seeking to find wrongs in everyone else around me! Loving other people means I learn to accept them with more humility; thinking less often of myself and more often of them. Placing myself in the outer ring along with everyone else, while placing God in the center, makes this all so much easier to practice!   Signature02

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The Price of Meandering . .

26 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by Cheryl Ries in aging, Choices, Discipline, Growing, Lessons, Maturity, Wisdom

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Purpose, Spiritual Maturity, Timeliness

This journey called life is not meant to be an aimless meander; but rather a purposeful, forward trek for the sake of fulfilling God’s will for us and completing His plans. In it all and through it all, a greater puzzle is being pieced together around us and with us, whether or not we ever know how much of it is finished or what the end result of all of that will be. The ultimate puzzle of this life and this world’s lifetime is being pieced together, regardless our choice to realize our role or its conclusion.

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So better our decision to be active participants in the process, anticipating the puzzle’s completion!  And knowing that is happening, is better than being an unwitting rambler; reacting to things which happen around us and to us, with no consideration of this most precious matter of time lapsing towards some distinct finality. Do we know the number of our days? Do we understand the meaning of those days? Or do we waste so many, not willing to accept their limited number or our role in the puzzle being pieced around us? One day, this will all cease to be. And our eternities will be decided in a moment.  

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For us or with us, that is surely what we know of God’s plans for this world. There is an end coming, for this stage of life for us and for this life as this world knows it. In the Bible, there is a promise of the return of the Lord Jesus, which ties the ribbons of this whole package of creation together in a conclusive manner! So is meandering still meaningful? Or must we decide to finally grow up in Him and with Him as soon as we possibly can? Make time an imperative for the sake of your own soul and spirit! For His sense of time and ours are not equitable. We don’t know God’s plans, but we should know that our life is not a random accident of human conception on some compendium of time. We’re here for a purpose, that being to serve His will for not only us, but for the world as a whole! Value this life and your numbered days for what it means for your eternity;  it is all a constant, purposeful opportunity to learn, grow, change and develop  deeper spiritually into a lasting relationship with the Father!   

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Open-Concept Living . .

12 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Choices, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, God, Lessons, Maturity, Wisdom

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Control, Jesus Christ, Obedience

It’s nearly impossible to compartmentalize your life for long. Especially when it comes to being a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ. I tried for many years to keep God, my faith and my growing relationship with the Lord into the neat compartment of the occasional Sunday morning; some years of my life, I even kept it strictly to emergencies and holidays! I will tell you that at the time, it seemed to be working; but always there came a reason and a desire to move closer, to draw further in. And eventually, the closeness and proximity to Him made it impossible to stay away for long at all! And in increasing my time with Him, in drawing closer in relationship to Him and in giving more of my life to Him, I was unable to separate areas of distinction in my life from Him! My life with the Lord became open-concept living . . no “rooms” I struggle in vain to keep separated by closed or locked doors!

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You cannot ask the Lord to be Lord of your spirit and soul, but then deny Him access to your other parts! And you cannot hold the door closed on Him when it comes to relationships and social activities, all while asking Him to watch over you and the rest of your life, the rest of the time. The surest manner of being born again, of having a relationship with the Lord, is to go all out! You must relegate yourself subordinate to Him in every way possible to give Him the rightful place as Lord and Savior over all your life and being. And that is sacrifice, that is complete and total surrender; and that is certainly not easy sometimes! That is the committed will to let go of any control over any part of your life, trusting completely in the Lord. Let go, let God! In every area. In all ways. There are no compartments in which He doesn’t have clear vision, awareness or control anyway; so why persist in holding back from giving Him the wheel? If we’re keeping some areas in our lives over which we are determined to sin, to go astray and to be out of His will, then we are keeping ourselves purposefully apart from Him. And although He doesn’t require our works to love us, to have died for us or to offer us salvation, we can show our love for Him through our obedience and surrender. Hopefully, as we draw nearer to Him, our love and obedience is something freely-given to Him because it seems a joyous choice to make anew each day!

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What we do after we’ve been born anew in Him is how we honor Him, give Him glory and love Him faithfully in return; it’s also how we fulfill His purposes for us. It is not possible to neatly compartmentalize our lives while so deeply committed and devoted to serving Him! Seek to grow nearer to Him, though it not be easy, it is the most rewarding aspect of faith to know the Lord better! I can only attest that is exactly what has happened to me; through my drawing in towards the Lord, I have felt Him drawing me in. My trust in Him has grown and my peace has increased; I know absolutely that I am loved!

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Who Controls the Rain?

07 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Choices, Christianity, Contentment, Faith, God, Maturity, Peace, Wisdom

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Faith, Peace, Rest, Spiritual Maturity

Wouldn’t it be lovely if for every drop of rain that fell, the world around us was cleansed of some of its evil? Maybe that was God’s intent for the rain, not only that it restore, replenish and provide; but that it also cleanse the inner man as well as the outer world! We just cannot say for sure what only He knows! Yet we have been trying consistently to render silent the very Creator of all of us and all of this. We cannot give up on God and push Him any further away and out than we as a society have already, especially when all of Creation is His! Can you stop the rain when you decide it’s enough? Can you start the rain? Can you bring the sun up this morning to warm your sky? To imagine such a thing is in your realm of possibility is truly beyond the scope of sanity.  To believe in some randomness and purposelessness in all of this . . just because the Divinity of it all cannot be verified, tested, controlled or proven to some human’s standard of proof . . is to limit the possibility and value of all creation and life itself! 
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So why then do we dare to even imagine He isn’t the very Maker of all that which stands out so comparatively in testimony to our abject lack and seeming insignificance? His plans, purposes and desires for the world are not ours to understand or to even fathom. We are here solely for His purposes and for His will. God help us for trying to usurp His role, for doubting and testing His sovereignty and His might; forgive us Father for negating Your will by ignoring Your role as the Almighty Creator of the universe! I know I cannot do what He can do, so I have learned to give Him control over my life! I am just a speck of dust in the universe, but I am a beloved child of the Almighty! When it rains like this, day after day . . I don’t doubt Him, or fear that I cannot control it, or imagine some outcome because of it. I trust in my Lord and Savior to be doing what ONLY He is able to do, for His purposes. And so, I have peace in my life. 
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The reason the expression “let go, let God” is so popular, so oft-heard and so prophetic is in its truthfulness, constant and assuring! Only God knows all. Only God can provide. Only He can direct the clouds to bring the rain. Only God. Trust, lean on, rely and depend totally on Him for every aspect of your life through prayer and in rest. Here is Scripture from Matthew 6, which truly directs us in our daily manner of resting, letting go and letting God, verses 25 – 34:
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.   
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My Favorite “Gift” . .

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by Cheryl Ries in aging, Attitude, Celebration, Choices, Christmas, Contentment, Family, Happiness, Joy, Love

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Christmas, Family, Gratitude

My favorite “gift”, over the recent holiday week between Christmas until just after New Year’s, was hearing from my family/friends that they appreciated the homemade treats I prepared for them and the home-cooked meals we shared together during that week. It’s nice to know that just the act of preparing a meal, sitting down together at home and appreciating the tastes  tailor-made for them was so welcome and worthwhile!   4a16ea037f3b62fc0dde89e57bdb6d5b

 

We set times for those meals and sat down at those times; then we prayed and took our leisure . . sans gizmos, outside influences and disruptions . .  to dine in peace, together. It was lovely! I think it helped to take the rush out of our days; and it gave us invaluable time being together eating and conversing! It really was a reminder of a different period of life, years ago, when our family and loved ones dining together throughout the day was a regular part of our lives. Now, we’re older, busier and strewn across the nation working on our careers; and some of our family and friends have passed on. It is not possible to share in those same precious moments of bonding and reunion each day. So it truly meant something to have the chance to recreate the experience during such a momentous and special time as Christmas with those who still could be together. We also did the same type of thing at Thanksgiving, but not to the same extent we did it at Christmas. With ten days off together between Christmas Eve and the weekend after New Year’s Day, we didn’t eat out once or skip one meal being together. We planned times and made that effort to share our meals, regardless the schedules we had to keep or the errands we had to run. 

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Some people might balk at such an effort these days! After all, don’t we all enjoy time away from one another? And surely, when we have our divided, blended, absentee, broken and any other manner of family, it would seem corny or almost impossible to do such a thing as bring family together at meals! Well, with time’s passage, I care more about what matters to my family and loved ones. And we valued this time, these efforts to connect and be with one another; and we also know that nothing, including time, is promised or guaranteed for any of us in the years ahead! We wouldn’t have traded that time and the simplicity of meals at home for any other manner of sharing this recent special week together! I’m so thankful for one more year having had that opportunity with dears, cooking and taking care of them in ways they don’t get to appreciate often, if at all, during the rest of their year. It meant something, it invoked sweet memories of loved ones who’ve passed; and it will serve to connect us with new and treasured memories of this year’s holiday! Family and friends are truly the best part of the holidays; and “gifts” such as knowing their appreciation and gratitude for that time spent together is truly priceless!  Signature02

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Cheryl Ries-Author & Model

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