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Tag Archives: Freedom

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!

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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!

thomas-jefferson-quote-969x600

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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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!  

a-liberty-and-freedom-quote-with-picture-of-classic-man-freedom-quotes-collection

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!  

Freedom-Quotes-1

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

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.

Love-is-patient

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

Freedom’s Flag . .

14 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Celebration, Freedom, God, Gratitude, Pride

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Flag, Freedom, Pride

What an honor it is to see that banner flying high and proud! I look for it when I take the drive along the I-10 West, there at Vicksburg Rd; it stands out majestically over all the vast and empty spaces, flying for all to see. I partake of its grand beauty when driving one of my favorite shortcuts home near the Kierland area; it flies so obviously in front of an office building there by the fountain. There are two of them flying on a corner nearby my neighborhood. I look for our flag, happy and joyously spotting them wherever they are and whenever I notice them! And I am happy to say, our flag can bring tears to my eyes for its history and its majesty; I get emotional and well up with pride for what it means, especially when I consider the options and all the possibilities were it not to fly and were it not flying for freedom’s sake all around the world.  american_flag_cross_z5mi

I suppose there are many who don’t see it that way; they would no sooner shed a tear in its honor than they would seek it out with hopeful eyes. But I cannot worry about those who don’t grasp all for which it stands; and I surely cannot grasp their lack of appreciation for the many generations of freedom over which it has flown. I merely know in my own heart and mind why Old Glory flies for the sake of this nation! It surely indicates our national acreage, land and properties, but it also flies as testimony to our hope for freedom at its very core – within the human heart, mind and soul!   vintage-flag-day-3

There would be no freedom in the world right this minute if not for this nation, the USA, standing watch over such an aspiration as freedom for nearly 240 years now! May God keep us centered in our focus on freedom’s preservation, knowing it is the goal of every human to walk in freedom’s light by His Divine hand of creation! May we treat our majestic flag with honor and reverence because it stands for freedom! It reflects the hope of all humanity to live in freedom both here and around the world! And it reminds us of all those who gave everything in service to this nation, in upholding freedom’s priceless call upon the human heart! God bless this nation on Flag Day, 2015!   Signature02

Autonomous and Free . .

30 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Attitude, Character, Choices, Commitment, Confidence, Happiness, Lessons

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Freedom

There’s a propensity these days towards making people less free by correcting and asking others to change for us in lieu of correcting and character 5changing self. We mustn’t lose sight of our own fallibility; we must not hold ourselves less accountable for the state of things by judging others by their actions while judging ourselves on our intent. We should give to others the respect of making their own choices based on their individual autonomy, as we desire for ourselves. We’re too often lashing out at others for the way they’ve chosen to live their lives all while neglecting to notice that we’re imperfect creatures living ours!
Do we honestly believe we know best for others? Or have we forgotten that often we don’t even know what is best for ourselves?? The first thing we should do when things aren’t going our way in life is examine our handiwork, our choices, our role and our place in this life. Only after we’ve exhausted ourselves in self-development, self-critique, self-improvement and self-responsibility for our own choices should we decide it time to examine others. Only then. Unless someone is openly intent upon harming us, we should accept their right to live autonomous as well. That is the surest sign of maturity, self-control and self-confidence . .when you can first turn to self for all manner of appraisal, but also for all manner of personal and responsible correction; without impugning that same right to others.
aa_live_and_let_live-50What gives us the right to say we’ve mastered self enough to start correcting others? It’s not our right to decide what is most right for the lives of others, it is theirs. Even if we deem them as mistaken in their personal choices, we haven’t a right to attempt to silence them, nullify them or convey upon them our will instead. It is only when they are willfully harming others that we have a responsibility to step in . . otherwise, we must convey to them the same individual autonomy as we ask for ourselves.  Individuals will never fully agree to every single thing or agree on every manner of choice because they are inherently “individuals” . . unique, different, with varied morals, preferences, histories and beliefs. If it’s not harming us directly or if it’s overtly illegal or criminal, we should live with an attitude of live and let live; which is usually the level of respect we would ask for ourselves in return. Arrogant bullying and controlling others is just that – it’s not individual freedom!    
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So Many Choices

04 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by Cheryl Ries in Choices

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Choices, Faith, Freedom, Learning

So Many Choices

The best part of life is having choices whereby we can make the most of our dreams.    The worst part of life is having so many choices whereby we can become lost in all the confusing options we encounter   trying to make our dreams come to fruition!  I don’t know how we get into stages of life with virtually no sense   direction, but we do sometimes.  We can honestly be so overwhelmed with our own freedom, so frightened by the sense of absolute emptiness   in our life, that the very knowledge of rebuilding from the ground up is just too much to take!  I’m at that place . . I’ve been in situations which have now come to a closing point, and at this moment, I would seem to have the entire world as my oyster!  That would be an idyllic state for most people, but it can be completely disturbing too. I’m in over my head, I haven’t direction at all times, and I seek maps and landmarks to help me make my way! It’s not always easy to see the directional indicators of life, those that seem to lead us, to guide us, to point us through the times of uncertainty.  Where are the signs?  What should I look for?  Where do I turn?  Well, in my overwhelmed state, the only place, yet the best one,  I know to turn is God.

 I heard it said that in anxious moments though, we can lose our ability to hear His voice of leadership.  I pray that this is not the case, as there is so much pressing upon my soul and spirit right now, I wish I could hear Him guiding me in everything!    My heart longs to know what lies ahead. I’m surely feeling adrift. My faith is the only thing I have in these moments right now . . faith don’t fail me now!  As I ponder what lies ahead, I consider for the first time in a long time, what is it that will make me happy?  I haven’t thought as much about my own happiness in a long time.  I’ve been putting others first and that is not advisable, as we lose our own focus and direction when we give ourselves last billing in our lives!  Make yourself important enough to be the absolute center of your life … others who want to be there will either agree or move on, but you have to remain true to yourself nonetheless!    Without knowing what you want, doing those things which bring your soul joy and soothe your spirit, you will live a lesser life. That would be a shame, and you would sadden God to do something so selfless. It’s in your own ability to find what makes your spirit soar that you allow His will to be done in your life! He has given you gifts in line with your spirit’s desires, if you do what you passionately are implored to do, you will find your heart’s contentment!

 I’m there right now . . I’m in the place of learning what will make my heart joyous!    When I discover that, I will surely let you all know.  Possibly you will have already seen it or noticed me doing something which brings me great joy, thus you can be assured I am onto something!    I’m just making my way through all the choice open to me, exploring my options and deciding what it will be that will bring me joy in this life!    Seek yours and you will never leave with regrets on the last day, wondering why you didn’t do what you were meant to do!

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Cheryl Ries-Author & Model

Cheryl Ries-Author & Model

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