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Category Archives: Freedom

We Live In A Time When…

21 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Character, Courage, Freedom, God, Life, Maturity, Self-Control, Strength

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Diversity, Individuality, Uniqueness

 

We live in a time, courtesy of technology, social media and the internet, when our ideas, our beliefs, and our way of living is almost instantaneously subject to an indeterminate body of angry, hysterical and often violently inclined critics, aka the mob, who rather than just silently considering us, ignoring us, rejecting us and leaving us be, would have us vilified and even destroyed in the public arena for amusement’s sake as though we were a long-known and despised enemy. For our beliefs or our thoughts, we must be made an example so that others will not dare follow us down that dangerous pathway against the mob. It is unreal and vulgar, watching people randomly subject their fellow human beings and citizens to threats of physical harm, verbal abuse and vicious taunts calling for some intervention in their lives for the sheer purpose of destroying them in the court of public opinion, silencing their dissenting voice of opinion, or to keep them from living their lives based on some random set of subjective opinions the mob has deemed superior!  
Consider that this is a means of creating a nation of non-dissenting, homogenous thought – an effective way, by example, of silencing those who would think for themselves outside the boundaries of what is considered “acceptable” by the threatening and threatened mob. It’s punishment for belief, for practice, for pursuit, and for free thought which refuses to conform. It is an admittance by each member of the mob of insecurity and an inability to control others who aren’t like us. All this incessant bullying is really just totalitarianism disguised as virtue signaling, political correctness, and shaming non-conformists who refuse to toe the line. It’s really the exact opposite of God’s intent for us by design, in my opinion, which was specifically making none of us so similar that we would share the same thoughts, experiences, or whatever comes from our hearts by virtue of that uniqueness of our journey!  
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Speak the Truth…

09 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Character, Choices, Courage, Empathy, Encouragement, Ethics, Faith, Freedom, Inspiration, Kindness, Life, Love, Maturity, Strength, Trials, Truth

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Decision-making, Honesty, Knowledge, Lying, Reality, Truth

Sometimes we sugar coat things, thinking we’re sparing others upsets or upheavals. But, if we choose to deny anyone the truth by withholding from them the reality of a situation, we don’t really do them any service at all! Speak the truth, give the facts as you see them, relay honest appraisals whenever possible. Trust and deliver the difficult truths with kindness, compassion, and an earnest heart determined to help others.

Our challenge shouldn’t be how we can hide facts and the truth, for now, to protect someone we love from possibly being hurt, but rather our consideration should be how we can best deliver or present to others what they may need to know to make the most optimal choices for them, to face their dilemmas head-on as they are presented in life, while standing up to what they must! Some of the purposeful omitting or concealing we do may seem to soften a blow to others, but truthfully, it might also be that we don’t want to be responsible for having to give bad news or to burden another when they’re under significant duress! It might also be that in white-lying, omitting, or actually distorting reality, we are making assumptions about others which suggest that we believe them weak or incapable of facing reality. And that projection upon them might be a serious disservice to them!

The truth is truly what each of us deserves to know, process, and ruminate, even when that truth seems like a bitter pill to swallow or a hard left to our already-battered head! Some of the storms we face in this life actually provide great lessons and the impetus for significant and positive change, but if we’re always hiding in a shelter of our own making or in one provided too readily by others, we run the risk of missing those important life lessons! Not all storms can and should be evaded. They serve as necessary opportunities for individual growth and personal development! We have to give that chance to ourselves by facing each obstacle and trial in life head-on, but also others deserve that same opportunity! Honesty, reality, and truth are the power of knowing what to do, where to go, and how to proceed. The light of truth reflected in life is always preferable to the darkness of uncertainty and ill-preparedness. 

Insecurity is Visible…

29 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Blessings, Character, Confidence, Contentment, Freedom, God, Maturity, Offense, Peace, Self-Control, Self-Esteem, Strength

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Confidence, Insecurity, Narcissism, Self-Esteem, Self-worth, Value

So many people these days are insecure, riddled with self-doubt, and unable to positively identify themselves by decisive means. They are lost, meandering through their lives looking for validation and for acceptance! It’s really sad to watch seemingly successful, established, attractive people flailing about looking for the approval or esteem from outside that should be naturally flourishing from within!

You probably have seen these people around you every day. They may have jobs, careers, families, friends, and present themselves as well-adjusted and successful at reaching their goals in life. But, in fact, they are struggling with insecurity. This insecurity stifles their creativity, befuddles their pursuit of goals, and hinders the real progress they could make in relationships as well as personal development. 

Insecurity is visible! It shows up as narcissism, jealousy, anger, envy, intolerance, excessive criticism, and in those who are always easily offended by others. Insecurity is when we don’t quite believe we’re worthy, or that we’re attractive, talented, capable, our opinions or beliefs are valid, or that we’re loveable. It is any sense of our lacking when we’re estimating the value of others in comparison! Are we as popular, pretty, slender, wealthy, successful, talented, smart, (or whatever measurement we’re using to compare and contrast our life with the lives of those around us)?!

We’re meant to get our value and worth from the knowledge and assurance that we’re beloved children of God! He’s our Creator, so He made us as we are with inherent human value and worth to achieve the purposes He has designed just for us! But many of us don’t believe in God’s dominion over our lives, and so we don’t know that our value is derived from knowing who we are through Him! We instead get our value from other places then, from other people, from the things we’ve collected and boasted of routinely, from the position we hold, from the level of our personal or professional achievements, from how attractive others think we are, from our ability to do certain things, or to hold particular positions. Without having that relationship with God, as Father, we are always going to live our life comparing and contrasting, competing and defeating, dwelling and then repelling all the subjectivity of flawed and irrational human thinking, our own and that of others! We spend a lot of energy and time dealing with insecurity as a result, which takes us from our life pursuits, the purposes God has in mind for us. And when we’re insecure, we spend a lot of time finding fault with others in an effort to raise our own self-perception! 

When we know that we matter, we’re loved, we’re loveable, and that we were created as we were meant to be by the Lord, we don’t need to feel insecure about our appearance, our thoughts, our beliefs, our talents, our bodies, or our level of achievement in any area of living! We can go into anything certain that He goes with us, He has prepared us or will for whatever we face, and that we needn’t doubt our ability or any other facet of our being. He leads us, He goes with us, He is our strength, and He is our guide. Now, it’s true that those who don’t believe won’t grasp this difference! That is obvious. But they also don’t see the nature of issues with insecurity rising in this nation as we push God further from our personal lives! Such rampant insecurity is a clear indication of lives lived without the sense of God’s value known for certainty within them! Even believers struggle at times with thoughts that can erode our confidence and our assurances! When you know you matter as you are though, then someone else’s wealth, acclaim, position, race, sexual identity, possessions, and beliefs won’t seem threatening at all! And our own struggles to achieve the success we think we should attain won’t become such an overwhelming weight upon our souls! Knowing God is our designer sets us free from the embattled sense of entitlement, jealousy, envy, narcissism, greed, self-doubt, self-obsession, constant self-promotion, and any other eroding measure! Struggling is part of life, but to wrangle with insecurity, lacking confidence in ourselves as God’s invaluable creation, is to struggle needlessly even more so!

America’s Indefatigable Exceptionalism!

30 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Beauty, Blessings, Celebration, Commitment, Freedom, God, Gratitude

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America, Constitutional Republic, Exceptionalism, Freedom, Independence Day

I have to admit, I’m a bit confused as to when it became popular to find America and our societal values so disagreeable? When did bashing our prior history to the point of attempting to erase it become so en vogue? In which year did the subtle erosion of American ideals and the disbelief in our national exceptionalism begin? Are they teaching this in our schools now? I grew up having America’s exceptionalism reaffirmed in common places and regular intervals, we closed our days by reaffirming on our television sets that our nation’s banner flew proudly over a united, grateful nation and that God’s blessings upon us were assured! Patriotism was not seen as a nagging character defect but rather an inherent part of a typical American’s DNA! Most of us seemed proud enough to place our hands on our hearts whenever we saw Ol’ Glory wave in all her majesty or whenever we had the chance to proclaim it through our national anthem! I just don’t comprehend this brewing anti-American sentiment which is inching forward through each generation in popularity, popping up often in groups yearning to proclaim their eager victim status, inflamed by unsettling rhetoric. None of this makes sense to me, even with a federal government which doesn’t always align exactly with my political beliefs, I’ve always seen American bi-partisan interests at work through a people united for the sake of America’s continued success. But recently, all of that is changing. A large swath of our culture seems to want to change America of late, it just wasn’t working for them. So that is what they set out to do more avidly within the last decade or maybe even well before that. Now those social justice warriors and their dissatisfied predecessors (who probably began this pursuit well before this generation) have succeeded in changing my beloved nation into something I almost no longer recognize as readily as the America of my youth! Our nation now seems intrinsically more broken as we approach this year’s Independence Day celebration. I’m concerned in ways I’ve never been before about our stability and our unity, as I never thought we’d actually have so many American citizens who seem to loathe their own nation! They look to things in our nation’s past as sins, unforgivable and insurmountable. They see our intricate system of governance as dated and passe`.  

I am of the other school of thought, that which believes, and always will, in America’s indefatigable exceptionalism! I grew up in a time when that was still presumed the case by a majority, as it was known in my home, practiced at all my schools throughout all my grades, and echoed routinely in most public entities by way of our culture’s common norms and values. This concept of American exceptionalism was seemingly settled for most of my life, its existence and origins were known to most everyone I came into contact with.  After all,  it derived not from some benevolent human pronouncement, but rather from a nation sure of its inception based on individual freedom which only God can bestow! Our founding fathers knew that human beings were only free when no tyrant or ruling party could dictate their every willful matter, especially their choice of religious practice or by impeding people’s ability to speak their minds. In modern terms, that would mean the founders knew inherently that a limited and smaller federal government was the only possible way to govern a nation truly desirous of maintaining such an imperative concept as that of individual liberty. Our American exceptionalism is derived from putting the individual and individual freedom ahead of a vast, dictatorial state body of some type capable through their size and/or power of overruling such God-given individual rights. The individual is the basis of our form of governance, that’s the most important entity in a Constitutional Republic like ours. In our brilliant founding, the government exists to serve “we, the people”, and not the opposite! The individual liberty we all inherently have through our Creator is the impetus for protective representation at the state and federal level, as well as for the integral balance of power of the three separate but equal branches of government at the federal level to protect the overall united Republic and its governing processes, quintessential to the founders’ design when drafting the documents which assured our nation’s first foundations of unity and governance! After all, most of our founding fathers and those who fueled our fledgling independence from England had witnessed state-dictated religion and actual serfdom to some oppressive ruling body such as a monarchy. They wanted no part of being ruled again!  

Now, this form of governance does not come without personal responsibility on the part of its citizenry. Our nation began with brilliant minds confirming our inherent right to live freely, to determine our own individual destiny! We must continue to participate in educating those who come after us as to what we are and how we are comprised, compelling each generation’s interest as to the vital importance of preserving and protecting our Constitutional Republic! It’s not a trite outmoded concept based on stale, outdated documents! Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are the backbone of this living unified being we call the United States of America. Without our Constitution and the Amendments which affirm our inherent freedoms, the brilliance of our founding eventually morphs into a chaotic governing body disavowing of individual liberty, which leads to a vast, impersonal state able to usurp our precious, invaluable, protected freedoms! God help us if any more of our citizenry become so enamored of this seemingly suicidal belief that America is not an exceptional nation, such that more of us throw our liberty to the winds of time and fate by welcoming an even larger, more contemptuous federal bureaucracy than what we already have to rule over us! Or that we would further hang our heads in shame for whatever we’ve done throughout our history, as though we haven’t actually earned any praise battling against the enemies of freedom all over this planet, bleeding profusely via both our flesh and treasure, sacrificing routinely, greatly, and often for liberty’s sake! We’re an imperfect people running as perfect a system of government as imperfect humans can devise and manage, with a most brilliant Constitution as our base! We must do our best to perpetuate as a Constitutional Republic. And we must never let liberty’s torch fade in the cold draft of our indifference, corrupt influences, or an intolerance for our very own well-being! America is something special, it always has been and it always will be if we insist upon educating those who follow as to why it is we dare make that claim!  

This Independence Day, let us Americans try to remember why our founders dared to draft such brilliant founding documents to protect and secure our individual liberty, why so many of us have fought, bled and often died throughout our history to protect these shores and our interests abroad, and why we have always affirmed our principled values united as willing patriots, regaling our beloved banner, eager to preserve this great nation with our spirit of gratitude and perseverance! As President Ronald Reagan once so eloquently and prophetically stated, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.” God bless America, and may God keep America in the palm of His hand, safe, prosperous, united and ever-grateful for such abundant blessings and such obvious exceptionalism!

Time Is Leaving Their Memory Behind . .

28 Sunday May 2017

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Blessings, Courage, Freedom, God, Gratitude, Uncategorized

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Gratitude, Memorial Day, Military Service, Remembrance, Sacrifice

Today I had the tremendous honor of personally thanking and embracing two World War II veterans, who were called to stand for acknowledgment in front of the congregation at church, in honor of Memorial Day tomorrow. It surely was a momentous moment for our church, given how few of those from the greatest generation remain! Both these gentlemen, members of my church, are in their 90’s now. Time becomes more precious each and every day we are fortunate and blessed by their presence in our lives. And when speaking with one of the men named Joe, he mentioned how much more proud he becomes of his service in both WWII and the Korean War as time passes! I responded that my gratitude for all those who’ve served this nation has increased with age as well, given my heightened understanding of what such a sacrifice entails! It means time away from loved ones, the risk to life and limb, and it requires a heart of unselfish discipline often under unimaginable conditions!

Although Memorial Day is set aside for remembering our fallen servicemen and women, our church congregation chooses to single all veterans and active military out on each of the national holidays which honor our military. At the start of each service prior to, or on such an occasion, the minister(s) asks for those who’ve served in each conflict and war to stand to receive our grateful applause. Now some people object to confusing Memorial Day’s fallen recipients of honor with Veteran’s Day, which honors all those who’ve served – living and dead. But I believe there’s a pressing need to honor service whenever possible! In the case of those who served in WWII, time is leaving their memory behind and fewer veterans of that conflict are alive to serve as obvious reminders! I personally would rather be honoring their service and celebrating their presence among us rather than standing graveside with those same sentiments after they’ve passed! Too many of those who’ve served this great nation have gone to their deaths unaware of how very esteemed and infinitely valuable to the preservation of liberty their sacrifices were in service to our nation! What a shame it is to imagine how many men and women have sacrificed everything for the sake of securing and protecting this nation’s freedom without really knowing our full measure of gratitude! 

My heart aches for such overt love, as is mentioned in the Bible: John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.   And in this life, we are all “friends” in our common humanity. Surely those who sacrifice everything for this nation in the military service branches do so because they value their families, their loved ones, their communities, their neighbors, this nation and their freedom more than life itself! Preserving and protecting our precious freedom is reason enough for so many to choose to voluntarily enlist these days! Liberty persists because of the sacrifices of all those who serve this nation and for that, we cannot possibly express ample enough gratitude!

Memorial Day is a special day set aside to honor those who died in service to this nation and our hearts should be filled with somber gratitude and remembrances of them all. Such a history of personal sacrifice through voluntary and involuntary service to our nation throughout our history have cemented for us a continuous freedom, prosperity, and peace unrivaled by most other nations! Our nation’s history is filled with amazing heroism, valor, and personal sacrifice for the sake of preserving and protecting America for generations to come! But forgive those of us who take the opportunity to include veterans still living in our remembrances on this special patriotic day, especially those dear souls advancing in age who are within earshot of our accolades and our applause! We must take advantage of every opportunity we’re given to show them our gratitude, being thankful for their long, indelible lives as part of our nation’s most honorable contributions to the prevalence of freedom in the world! I wish you all a blessed Memorial Day! I pray for the families, loved ones, and souls of all those who perished in service to this nation, may God be with them all!  

 

Welcome to the New Normal . .

18 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Change, Character, Ethics, Freedom, God, Maturity, Offense, Prayer

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Civility, Constitutional Exceptionalism, Freedom

Welcome, my friends! Welcome to the new normal! We seemingly have forgotten how to be civil, not just in our physical contact, but in our discourse as well. We Americans are so attached to our divided sides in matters now that we often take on the role of mob member and willing participant in our verbal, or even physical attacks on others. The mob decides who is right. The mob decides what is right. The mob with the weapons, the mob with the media exposure, the mob with the most judges, or the mob with the paid assemblage of thugs is always the victor. We used to discuss and even debate issues in this nation. We used to laud our nation’s protective stand for the precious and infinite value of free speech, varying opinion and the right to speak in direct contradiction to one another. We mostly did so civilly, without attack and without using the tools the mob uses to silence others. We used to value our electoral process and the correlating inherent philosophical differences which created at least two sides of the coin in the first place. But no more. We now bash the freedoms which made this nation something exceptional. If someone says or does something we don’t like, we want to silence them or shut them down! We take the very liberties which are God-given and impugn their existence in those with whom we have philosophical differences. We choose sides, only now the sides often have sticks, bats, clubs, aggressive networking tools, paid participants, and blood-lust agendas to enforce their side’s point of view, and to ultimately render silent or destroy any opposition.    

Our melting pot’s civility and desire for freedom’s preservation have always been our bulwark. We even allowed groups deemed highly offensive by the majority of our citizenry to share their voice as long as their voices weren’t the tip of a more brutal iceberg for inciting violence. But now, sadly, we have many citizens who cannot handle even the most mild-mannered voice if it represents dissent from their prevailing opinions. They assemble in mobs under the guise of peaceful protest to silence the speakers with whom they disagree. They destroy property, physically cause harm to other people, and breach their promise of civil protestation all to make their point. They desire such unanimous, non-diverse expression of opinion, that only their’s matters and so all others must be rendered unable to even speak! This forceful suppression is happening now on many college campuses, in many venues, and upon many streets in our once liberty-conscious nation. It is the growing trend towards mob rule in our neighborhoods, in our towns and cities, upon our college campuses and in our populace as a whole which threatens our Republic’s existence.   

It’s hard to watch the decline of my great nation by the hands and will of those who don’t actually value America for what we were and still are. It’s that willful abhorrence or apathetic ignorance as to America’s standards for maintaining liberty for all and preserving our inherent rights which are the catalysts for our destruction. We simply cannot exist in lawlessness, chaos, or by mob rule. We cannot accept civil disobedience, purposeful judicial or legislative abuses, and mob mentality as our normal construct. If we are to maintain our inherent freedom in this nation, we must agree to disagree without impunity. We must accept that there are voices, beliefs, opinions, and ways of doing things other than our own. We must not shut others down to give our own raised voice more importance, more distinction, or more credence. If we cannot agree, we at least must be civil in our disagreement. Most of us have had to accept that not everything will go our way all the time, and we don’t take to the streets punching others or destroying their property as a response to that! If we must disagree, then let our protests reflect our intellect, our ideas, and our ability to persuade rather than our desire to silence, to browbeat, or to brutalize others for who and what they are.  

It’s very difficult watching the demise of our exceptional nation through divisiveness because we are losing our ability to peacefully and willfully be different, unique, and to value the individual and all of our individual expression. Our nation is exceptional because it begins first with the individual, the inherent freedom to be a unique individual first and foremost. Our nation’s founders knew that no individual should be so constrained or modified in thought, word or deed by a governing body as to lose the freedom’s inherently bestowed to them by God. We must be law-abiding, civil, and desirous of that state of peacefully cohabitating this chunk of land known as the United States of America in our individual states of being. Otherwise, we become mobs of discordant, unruly, and dangerous unravelers of the very freedoms which weave this nation’s melting pot of citizens together! We must agree to disagree, we must look past our differences, and if we want to stand up for our own points of view, we must respectfully not endeavor to bully others, to beat them down, or to sue them into submission. We cannot accept another’s forced silence as our victory, as silence means we’ve rendered all perspectives and opinions but our own as null and void. That desire to submit others to ourselves is always a reflection of our own insecurity in who we are! We should securely tolerate and even encourage open discussions, criticisms, and even arguments knowing that to do so doesn’t take from us any measure of our self-respect, intellect or value. We must maintain our civility and respect for others while doing so, as that individual humility is necessary to maintain our collective national civility amid such diversity of personal culture, opinion, and behavior!

I pray each new day for civility to return to my nation. I pray for people to concede that political correctness and suppression of free speech are the poisons which are stripping our inherent, God-given freedom to believe, to think, to opine, and to behave as we believe and desire. And I pray that we each again choose to individually accept our share of personal responsibility for preserving freedom by also individually accepting the consequences of our personal choices in that regard. We only all prosper if we are able to be uniquely and individually ourselves in these United States. We only stand united through our civility, our lawfulness and our desire to preserve our Constitutionally-protected, God-given, inherent individual freedom. Mob rule has no place in our exceptional Republic comprised of individuals desirous of freedom and liberty! Peaceful protest is our nation’s birthright, but such protestors don’t throw stones, hide behind masks, accept payment for participating, or seek to physically bully others into submission! I’ll keep on praying.

An Intervention!

22 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Blessings, Choices, Freedom, God, Maturity, Self-Control, Strength, Success

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America, Freedom, Great, Intervention

Sometimes as kids, we got caught up in the wrong things or got headed in directions which our parents knew were not good for us. We didn’t know the peril we faced, or we just risked it anyway to have our fun or gain our rewards. But our parents realized or feared that we would suffer in the end if we continued on that course. Perhaps we had already gone a significant amount of time in that misdirection before they intervened or before they were aware of how dangerous our future would be if we continued. But like all parents who accept their responsibility as guardians and caretakers, they stepped in when they spotted trouble ahead for their children. It is their duty as parents to watch over and protect those who they believe are vulnerable, in need of more maturity, unable to yet make the right choices, or are not yet fully aware of many of life’s realities. Surely we don’t always agree that we need their intervention in our lives, after all, don’t we all like to think we know best for ourselves what is best for us? But even as we mature into adulthood, our parents or others who are more aware of what is happening, often come to our rescue by way of an intervention if and when we falter in our choices. It is the role of family, community, and the inherent support structure of human beings. We are all closely intertwined and connected because sometimes our actions affect others whether we think it, know it or believe it!

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When many of us unite in dangerous behavior because we make bad choices collectively, whether purposefully or through our own ignorance of the inherent dangers to ourselves or others, we put others at risk too. So often, what we’ve done, even for a significant time, might now require a sudden or emergency intervention. And so it is in our nation right now. For too long, those who either don’t know the best direction for America or are making flawed choices on purpose, have been enacting policies which are taking us all down a harmful course. Through their elected roles as the fiduciary for the people, they have spent us into significant risk and a dangerous debt in the trillions of dollars, among other missteps. And so, someone has to step in and intervene. Someone or some “body” has to be more disciplined about the choices America has been making through our elected officials. We are dangerously close to a tipping point of no return! Unfortunately, many haven’t yet caught on, but fortunately, many have! Our federal government is broken as a system right now. It has become far too corrupt and those serving the people – often for decades at a time – have become a part of the corruption, feeding and self-prospering off the people rather than making decisions which serve to prosper all the nation. So the part of this interwoven, reliant community we call America, which is on heightened alert to the dangers ahead on this continued course, now are responding to the group of citizens which aren’t yet awake to the perils, are willing participants, or are complacent about the possible dangers we might all collectively face if we don’t right ourselves from this course we are now on. It’s a corrective response we now must make and take for the sake of our beloved America, much like a parent intervening on their child’s behalf, rather than continuing with the status quo! We cannot continue imperiled by such corruption and such abuse of power at so many levels of government, even if all of us have yet to understand that as our condition. 

Patriotic-Quotes,-Best,-Meaningful,-Sayings,-True-Patriot-

With such freedom as this country espouses, there is great personal responsibility required to maintain it! We must all do our part to see that we enjoy prosperity, but that we also understand that along with it, there is a need for self-discipline, self-control, and a self-impetus to create our share of the prosperity. Now not everyone will believe that others know better at this juncture. But this righting of America’s course is an imperative many are willing to endure for the betterment of all and for our future generations, just like the 3% of the colonial America population who stood up to face the oppressive British imperialism which sought to prevent our becoming a free nation. We should all willingly stand vigil over our freed nation to ensure that it remains exactly that! I believe we’re about to have an intervention for our own good in November 2016! And I pray that God will continue to bless this nation by enabling the willing among us to make America one great nation again, and to make America America again!  

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Roll With the Changes . .

12 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Change, Choices, Conquering Fear, Discipline, Freedom, Peace, Strength

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Change, Faith, Trust

Every day rolls in on new breaths, with new promises, and a lot of unknowns. Why do we allow ourselves to get stuck, feeling we are cemented where we are? Why do we believe we are stagnant, unmovable, and unchangeable when all around us everything is moving and changing? When we realize that we are too, we should see everything in us and outside of ourselves as a part of the flow of life.  0dc4d41d2712d6dd6f288b19d9dc4c2d

 

We and all of life are always morphing into a new state of circumstances and a different state of being. Just when you start to get that taste of stagnation, and that need to step out of a rut, propel yourself with the flow around you. There is nothing which cements you to a place, a way, an idea, a part or to any aspect of life permanently. We fluctuate, we come and go, we ebb and wane through the lives of others and in our own situations. We aren’t holding any space anywhere forever! So if it’s one you relish, make sure you relish it well and appreciate what you have while you have it and where you are while you’re still there!5a649965df19ee878e65f54954fc938f

 

Celebrate it, savor it, and be thankful for it! If it is one in which you have many regrets or feel uncomfortable, then use it as a catalyst to propel you to a new place and a different space! Don’t allow yourself to dwell in the discomfort and the angst of all the change in life, take the positive from everything and build within you a strong, sturdy yet flexible support. Make yourself able and willing, and life will seem more endurable and gentle to you! Today is a new day with new promises and new challenges awaiting you. Be a part, it is only in facing our role as perpetual students in life that we see our ability to grow and to change because of all the challenges and changes, as well as through every single thing!

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Freedom or A Prison For All . .

30 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Character, Choices, Discipline, Ethics, Freedom, Maturity, Self-Control, Uncategorized

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Ethics, Freedom, Self-Control, Self-Discipline

Our nation was built on inherent rights which serve as the backbone of human freedom, but those become meaningless when citizens no longer hold themselves to the standards of behavior necessary to maintain such freedom!  It is indisputable, people simply cannot do whatever they want without regard for the consequences. There is freedom, as we know it from the day we are born, but with maturity, we have to learn to be lawful and civil to dwell with one another sans chaos.  Self-discipline and self-control are essential counter-balancing measures for people to live lives which shun the additional restraints other men seek to place upon them. Someone or some other entity (like a government or a law-enforcing body) always step in to take up the slack for our lack of self-control and self-discipline. And every time that is necessary, a bit of our freedom is eroded!  

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Thanks to the eroding behaviors of the lawless, a free society like ours can no longer maintain the same state of freedom which feels comfortable for the entirety. No man is able to decide for another how he should live his life, but that is exactly what happens in a society in which morality and civility decline! With fewer of us caring to self-regulate our behaviors and accepting personal responsibility for those errant choices we make, external control by some other entity becomes a dire consequence we all must then endure. We all must endure more laws, more regulations, more restrictions and more controls upon our freedom and choices, even though the chaos still grows more noticeable from the burgeoning lawless portion of our society. What is obvious is that the lawless already not obeying laws or self-controlling their behaviors will not respond to even more controls and laws!  

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The answer to our societal problems is always found within each individual, making them responsible for their own actions and behaviors is essential. No one else has the right to say for another how their life is to be lived, unless and until that person has ceded their own self-control and self-discipline by a choice or a series of choices. Otherwise, what we have, as a result, is a national “prison” of laws, restrictions, regulations, and rules which bind the law-abiding right along with the lawless. That is why “we” should stop asking for more laws and controls to be placed upon society as a whole from a faceless, growing government of gigantic bureaucratic agencies unable to keep themselves in check. “We” should start calling for enforcement of the laws already on the books and accountability for those who are truly at fault when laws are broken. If you consistently enforce the value and necessity of morality, ethics, civility, and insist upon lawfulness by insisting that people are held accountable and pay their debt or recompense to society, a society stands strong against the chaos of freedom left unchecked and unbalanced! And this standard must be set from the top down at a universal Federal level all the way down to our communities and households! Each and every single one of us must be a responsible participant and each one of us must be accountable for our choices. Only those who are unable to self-regulate and self-discipline, such as children prior to maturity, are excusable for not exercising self-control. Such freedom as is inherent in us is hard to restore once bound and restricted! And if we lose our freedom here, God help us and the world!  Signature02

Do We Believe?

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Choices, Contentment, Discipline, Faith, Freedom, Growing, Joy, Maturity, Wisdom

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Contentment, Joy, Peace, Spiritual Maturity

I believe that part of the problem of our society today is that we don’t either believe we have to grow up, or we have doubts about the promises in which we have put our trust and faith. Do we believe what we say we do? Or do we spend too much time musing or too much energy fretting on the things we see happening around us here in this world? God is not faltering. He never fails us. Why do we persist in doing things for ourselves because we start to doubt Him? And why do we doubt Him just because things aren’t happening in the time frame or in the way we think they should?

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Rest, be at peace, remain content and joyful . . in spite of the world around you. For IF you believe, why would you be anything but trusting, faithful and peacefully content, resting in Him?! If we say we believe, do we then hold ourselves accountable for actually believing in Him more than the things of this world, ourselves, our own abilities or those of people around us? We either decide to grow up spiritually, letting God be God in our lives totally; or we live a life fraught with unease, worry, doubts and disappointments of our own making because we refuse to do what it takes to grow up spiritually!

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It is not an easy journey, for in growing up spiritually, we will have to let go of things which probably have served us and mean something to us. But the trade-off in our emotional control, as well as our sense of inner peace and joy, is worth all the effort and obedience such a choice requires! Not to mention the great joy we have in our obedient pursuit of growing nearer and falling more in love with the Lord! He’s not asking us to do anything to earn His love; but by our desire to show Him our love, we pursue a life devoted to Him. We can allow many precious days of our lives to be ruined by our own emotional storms, small and great. Do not spend too much time flitting between this world’s travails or in choosing to trust in the Father to take care of you. It is hard to live with one foot here and one foot firmly rooted with faith in Him. Take the leap of faith, fully plant your life totally in His loving care! You will be able to have more days of rest, contentment, peace and joy for the sake of having made that choice today!    Signature02

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Cheryl Ries-Author & Model

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