TOP 10 THINGS I'VE LEARNED THIS YEAR.

1.  My husband is a saint.  No really.  You should meet him.  He is the template for the kind of guy I hope & pray our girls will marry.  He has a dry sense of humor that he uses at all the right moments, yet listens and gives great advice.  He will let me hide behind him when needed, he will take the fall, he will stand back when he knows it's my turn to fly, he will hold me, he will wipe away my tears (both happy and sad), his talent is unparalleled, he is the strongest man of God I have ever met and yet will never tell you about any of these qualities….humility and integrity he lives out but never announces.  See? A saint. I have grown to love him even more this year (if that were even possible).

2.  Friends are like a box of chocolates.  All completely different but completely necessary for different events, moods, deep talks and laughing.  Every girl needs a variety of friends with different perspectives and personalities to hang out with for a myriad of reasons.  Some will keep you grounded.  Some will let you dream and some will dream with you.  And, heck, every girl needs all of that, right? Oh, and consider getting rid of the bad ones for you...who likes the flakey coconut ones? Yuck. 

3.  Forgivness is choice. Period.  People can wrong you. People can hurt you.  People can say words that cut deep into the core of who you are.  But at the end of the day forgiveness is a choice and to choose not to forgive only hurts you.  So,just forgive.  

4.  You can't fix the world.  This lesson may spill over into 2014 and beyond.  Oh, the balance in wanting to change the world while realizing when it is time to let go because it is well beyond what you can do.  It’s alright to keep learning this.  It means you want to help...just know the balance and the lines not to cross.

5.  Eat more carbs.  Exercise it off. Count calories again the next day and splurge a bit again….and repeat (oh, and this is done best with a friend).

6.  Find something to laugh about at least once a day.  And give yourself permission to not be perfect but let it go from time to time.  Some rules are meant to be broken.

7.  Yes, you can start something big without a person giving you permission.  You can be a world changer and nobody but God gives you definition or permission to do so.  Another man is just that…another man or woman.  Only God alone has the plans for your life seek Him for that and nobody else. Not everyone is going to understand your actions…that's alright…you have to answer to God not the naysayers of the world anyways.  God defends. Let Him do that while you walk out what He tells you to do.

8.  Protect your child's innocence even when all the other parents are saying something is alright….go with your gut if you feel that it isn't! Remember in jr high when all the kids would tell you, well everybody's doing it? Did you listen? No? Good for you, repeat and teach your kids that kind tenascity and resolve.  Yes? Well, nows the time to redeem yourself and teach your kids they don't have to listen to peer pressure….God gave you those little kids as gifts, protect them and their innocence with your life.  It's your main job. Do it like there is a huge bonus on the line.  Because there is.  It's called their eternity.

9.  While on the topic of kids.  Love God in front of them.  Love your spouse in front of them.  Not with your words necessarily, but rather with your life and actions.  Kids listen better with their eyes.  You can impact and inspire them without ever saying a word.  They are watching and doing what they see play out in front of them at home not what they are told.

10.  Love unconditionally.  Love deeply even when others aren't looking or when nobody understands your reasoning, show love anyways.  Give your life to something you believe in.  Give to others.  Allow yourself to feel your pain, and heal, then feel others pain enough to share the hope given to you by God that not all is lost but rather there will be joy again in the morning. Sometimes things are learned best during your darkest hours only to share what you've learned in the morning.

Rinse and repeat in 2014.

The LOST forgiveness.

I was watching an old episode of LOST a while back and it was a scene where Sayid was captured by a husband of a women he had formally tortured.  Her husband was going to bring justice by torturing Sayid now.  After many beatings, the wife walks in and sits as Sayid begs to let him go and pleads with her that they have the wrong guy.  She begs him to remember her. To validate her pain. To acknowledge the anquish he put her through.  He finally acknowledges it and breaks down crying stating that he has seen her face in his minds eye every day since he tortured her and there were no words that could express his sincere apology accurately.

You then expect her to bring her husband back in and beat or kill him but instead she says a line I remembered from the last time I watched that episode years earlier but was reminded of again.  She said.  

I will let you go.  

I will tell my husband we have the wrong man. You will be free.  He was crying and with a puzzled look on his face he simply asks a question. Why? Why are you letting me go. Her response? Because I refuse to stoop to your level and hurt you like you hurt me so as to be a captive by unforgiveness.  I forgive you for what you did to me. You cannot make me a prisoner to unforgiveness any longer. I forgive you. Now leave.




It was a powerful moment of extreme forgiveness and her determination to not let unforgiveness hold her back or captive to it.

The night in which Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and broke it....

We have heard this scripture a million and one times if you have grown up in a Church.  But it hasn't been until recently that I realized the weight of that first line.  The writer wants us to know something pretty amazing here.  The very same night when they were all coming together and sharing a meal Jesus knew this was His last supper but He also knew Judas was going to betray him by taking money and giving Him over to the Roman guards yet He served Judas anyway. He was (is) God.  He knew who was sitting at the table with him.  He served him anyways.  

He forgave Judas before Judas even needed forgiveness.  The coming betrayal was something we needed to read.  We needed to know that Jesus knew that.  Yet in that same night, despite His coming betrayal, He broke bread with Judas anyways. The very same night Jesus was betrayed was the same night He not only broke bread with his betrayer,  but Jesus didn't let that hold Him back from what He was called to do that night.  He goes on to die and rise again for all of humanity....despite their sinful humanity to be set free from their sinful humanity.

There are bumps and detours in our lives.  There is pain, devastation, abuse, brokenness, wrongs done to us.  Words spoken to us. Intentional and unintentional wounds inflicted to us by other. Losses. Betrayals and flat out lies, at times, made up about us.  Broken friendships, marriages and families.

If we are to model Jesus' life. We are to forgive.  None of us are being betrayed unto death.  But harboring unforgivness can be a spiritual death. It can devastate a life.  It can hold you captivate.  It can isolate you.  It can trip you up by focusing on what was done to you.  It can get you stuck in an endless cycle of trying to right the wrong.  To fix that person and get them to get them to understand what they have done to you.  It can get you to come down to their level, making you just like them. A captive to pain and unforgiveness.

Let it go. Forgive.  Even when they don't deserve it.  Even when they don't understand or sometimes even acknowledge the pain they inflicted upon you (that is the hardest thing to do, I know, you feel like forgiving them gives them the upper hand that, in some way, you forgiving them tells them what they did to you was alright).  It wasn't alright, but God will deal with them.  You are only responsible for allowing God to free your heart of unforgiveness and move on in all that He has called you to.

Forgive them today.  Don't stay down there with them.  Be set free today.  Forgive them, let it go.

It is what Jesus calls us to do.  It's what Jesus did and continues to do with all of us. There is freedom for you in forgiving. Take that step.