A Seed of Hope

I wanted to take today's post to give an update of what "A Seed of Hope" Life Coaching is up to.

This blog was created to give readers tools to bring improvement to themselves and their lives in everyday life. "A SEED OF HOPE" is also the name of my Life Coaching business. I thought I would do a post today to introduce two of the ministries that I am contracting with at this time.

First, is "PathSeeker Center" http://pathseekercenter.org/. If you look under "staff" you will see what I do there and all the other counselor that work there.

PathSeeker Center is non-profit Christian Counseling and Therapy ministry. They offer counseling, therapy, life coaching, education, and support groups. They charge on a sliding scale and their number is: 877-273-3548

Second is "Faith and Hope Care Center" http://faithandhopecarecenter.org/ Again, if you look under staff you will see what I and all the other staff do at that center.

Faith and Hope Care Center is a healing center for individuals seeking a safe and encouraging place where they can be restored and comforted from life's hurts. The Care Center is a solid, balanced, inter-denominational ministry that is a recommended by both Christian ministries and alternative faith-based health and healing organizations. Their number is 813-887-3354.

I feel very blessed to be part of these two organizations and the people that I work with within each ministry.

Keep posted - I'll be starting another 30 day blog in May - not sure what the topic will be yet
Any Suggestions???

Last Day of 30 Days of Character Blog

Well, I certainly did not keep up with this one as well as I did the others! Maybe it was that whole character thing. But I did want to conclude our character building journey.

I thought an appropriate ending would be PERSEVERANCE.......
Here is one of the best examples I have ever read about....

Abraham Lincoln & Perseverance
In 1831, Abraham Lincoln failed in a business venture.

In 1832, Lincoln was defeated as a candidate for the state legislature.

In 1833, Lincoln failed once again in another business venture.

In 1835, Lincoln's fiancee died, shattering him.

In 1836, Lincoln suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1843, Lincoln was defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Congress.

In 1848, Lincoln once again was defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Congress.

In 1855, Lincoln was defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

In 1856, Lincoln was defeated as a candidate for U.S. Vice President.

In 1859, Lincoln once again was defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th President of the United States of America.

So what is our take away from this example?
Keep these tips in mind as you strengthen your perseverance:

• Don't Give Up. When you have an ultimate goal, you owe it to yourself to completely follow through. There are going to be plenty of bumps in the road. Don’t let any of these bumps bring you down. Always be seeking new ways of approaching problems.

• Keep Positive. When things have become overwhelmingly negative for you, seek out positive things in your life.
  

• Take Action. Do whatever you can to inspire yourself to take bold actions toward your goal. Fight the urge to procrastinate or settle for less.
  

• Ask for Help. Be wise enough to know when a situation warrants help from others. You don’t need to take every single thing into your own hands. Instead, choose to follow advice from the people you trust.
  

• Know Yourself. When you know where you’re going and the steps you need to take to get there, that’s half the battle. That’s why you need to take the proper amount of time for self-reflection.
  

• Change your habits. Do everything in your power to put a stop to bad habits. If there are certain behaviors you’ve identified that are keeping you from achieving your goals, you need to get rid of them. This could be simply negative thinking or you might be fighting procrastination.
  

• Step By Step. Take one step at a time. Create small doable goals then when you reach those goals set the next step goals.

Gal 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. (KJV)

30 Days of Character Development - Courage

Well, I'm back, and the whole jury thing was actually a great experience except that after 5 hours of listening to the lawyers arguments and coming up with my conclusion I was told that I was the alternate juror and could leave. I was devastated! I had invested 2 days of my life into this process and they didn't let me finish it! Oh Well, I guess there is some lesson in there somewhere but I haven't figured it out yet.

So on to our topic of Courage. Well, if we are going to work on building courage in our life we must first look at the opposite - which is fear. Fear is a terrible thing because it will stop us in so many ways - it hinders our creativity, our productivity and even our relationships. It can cause health problems both physically and mentally. Fear also has some companions and they are worry, anxiety and lying.

Let's take a look at each one and the effect it has on us. Today we will just focus on worry because this is a BIG one.

The definition of worry is to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret.

Worry creates what I can "circle thinking" it is a thinking process that goes around the same fear circle again and again with no resolution. For example you worry about a future event, all the things that could happen, magnify anything you have ever heard or experienced about this event in a negative way and imagine the worse case scenario, when you get to the conclusion you start all over again.

The French philosopher Mantaigne said, "My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened." Corrie ten Boom wrote, " Worry does not empty tomorrow of sorrows, it empties today of strength."

We talked about how Beth Moore handed worry in our last post but here is another tool to help you if you struggle in the area, as we all do.

The next time you are worry about an event in the future, ask yourself these 4 questions:

1. What event am I worrying about?
2. What's the worst that could happen? If the worst happened they what would happen?
3 What are the chances, according to the law of average, that what I'm worried about will ever occur (do a google search :)
4. What can I do about it?

Another way to do this is:
Take an event that you were very worried about and right down all the things that you were worried were going to happen - then write down what actually happened - keep a log of this and over time you will see the things we worry about almost never happen.

"Do do not worry about tomorrow, it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings." Matthew 6:34

Jury duty

I'm doing my civic duty today and sitting on jury trial so I'm sending this short blog post via my phone.

I will continue the topic of courage tomorrow.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

30 Days of Character Development - Courage

Courage

1.the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.

2.have the courage of one's convictions, to act in accordance with one's beliefs, esp. in spite of criticism.

Today we will talk about Courage - Notice it doesn't say courage is the absence of fear but it withstands fear. Joyce Meyer had a saying that I think relates well, "Do it afraid." That is basically what courage is - it is doing it afraid - whatever "it" is.

One of the greatest biblical examples we have of courage is Queen Esther. Esther was just a ordinary woman, an orphan raised by her uncle who because of her beauty became queen. But Esther had much more than outer beauty - she also had great inward Character. She had Courage. There comes a time in the story of Esther that she is called upon to stand up for her people. Because she was queen her uncle asked her to go before the king and save her people from destruction. Esther knew that she might die by going before the king without being summoned (Esther 4:11). She initially resisted because of fear but then she took these three steps which we can also apply to most of our "fearful" situations:

1. She used her fear to find her faith - it is during times of pain, difficulty and fear that we draw closest to God. We begin to realize during these times what our faith is made of. Is it real? Is it solid? or was it just something we talked about but didn't really live. Difficult times brings the answer to these questions to the surface.

2. She prepared herself and asked for help - Esther used a pause of three days to think through and pray about her plan , asked others to pray for her and with her. This is something we all need to do during trying times. Sometimes we need to just get alone with God and pray and come up with a plan. We also need to ask those who are close to us to pray for us and with us.

3. She changed her focus from concern to herself to concern for others - First Esther was worried about herself being destroyed then she began to worry more about her people being destroyed. As we are enduring hard times it is easy to get "tunnel vision" about our problem but as we begin to look beyond ourselves we can take great courage in helping others during our times of greatest need.

Beth Moore had a great way of looking at fear. She told of a fear that was gripping her, it was tormenting her and finally God spoke to her heart and said, "Beth, What if it happens. What will you do." Beth replied, "I will be devastated! I will hide, I will cry, I will feel like my life is over." Then God spoke to her heart again and said," Then what" she replied," Well, I will tell people how bad it is, I will grieve, I will feel like I could never minister again." so He said, " Then what?" so she said, "Well, eventually I would start praying and reading your word and get back up and start moving forward because I know that you will help me and give me the strength." And then Beth said she realized what she said and that is was all true. Even if her worst fear came about, and usually they don't she would have the Courage eventually to get back up and keep going.

When you feel fearful, ask yourself what is at its source? Walk through Beth Moore's scenario of fear and see if your outcome isn't the same.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9

30 Days Character Development - PATIENCE

Last post we talked about PATIENCE with situations and circumstances in our lives but today I'm going talk about PATIENCE with the people in our lives. For some of us this is a much harder assignment than the other.

What is the root of impatience with others? Usually, we become impatient when someone disagrees with us, when we don't get our way, when we are too tired or hungry or because we are oversensitive.

So knowing what the root of impatience is, which is mostly a lot about us, maybe a little pride and self-absorption or lack of self-control (not eating or sleeping like we should) we can once again realize that being PATIENT with people is like most character traits we have discussed, it is up to us - it is a choice - a habit - a discipline. Don't you just hate it!!

One thing to note is the people that irritate us the most will be people we don't understand. Either we don't understand why they are acting like they are or we don't understand their type of temperament.

So How Can You Become a More PATIENT Person?

1. As with most things it begins as changing our thought process, instead of becoming gripped with tension and impatience at something someone is doing or saying to you - change your thoughts, think about the possibility that this person is going through or has gone through something really hard. We live in a difficult world at a difficult time and we have no idea what people are dealing with right now. Even people we think we know well many times have overwhelming problems in their lives that they may be ashamed to talk about even to those closest to them.....so give people a break, give them some grace.

2. Try to think from a different perspective, we usually think what people say means the same thing as we mean when we say something. You can't know others motives until they reveal them and you can't know what they mean until they clarify them. Ask clarifying questions and then really listen.

3. On your own, you must decide to be patient. You alone, must make the decision, and can not expect anyone to give you patience. This can be the hardest part, so you can help yourself by writing a note on your mirror, on your fridge, somewhere you will see it every day, that can simply say 'Be patient.' A simple reminder such as this can make a big change in your life.

Ask yourself which ones of the below statements you need to work on the most.

When I feel impatient do I try to remember that I probably don't know the person's motives?
When I feel impatient do I try to assume that I probably don't know what the person means?
When I feel impatient do I seek first to understand?
When I feel impatient do I ask clarifying questions?
When I feel impatient do I give the person a break?
When I feel impatient do I listen before I speak?
When I feel impatient do I remember God accepts me so I need to accept others?
When I feel impatient do I ignore small insults?

A person's wisdom yields patience; it is to one's glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 19:11

30 Days of Character Development - Patience

I have been dreading this one. But in building and developing Godly Character this one is a must! Patience is usually defined in two ways, either waiting under difficult circumstances and the other is being patient with people.

Patience is:
1 – The quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
2 – An ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.
3 – Quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.

We all have been in a place in life where we had to "wait" through the circumstances. Especially when those circumstances are difficult and you don't understand them. Some examples may be, waiting to get out of a difficult job situation, a dream that is not unfolding in your life, an illness that isn't going away, a marriage that isn't improving or if it is it's not as fast as you want it to, children that are in a difficult stage of life and you want life to hurry to get past it.

Some examples you can find in the bible of waiting through circumstances were

• Joseph waited in a pit and the in a prison for a total of some 12 years before life began to work out for him.
• Sarah and Abraham waited for a baby for many many years
• Ruth waited for a husband
• David waited to be a king
• Moses waited in the wilderness for years

Well, one of the things that are happening to us if we let it during these times of waiting is we are developing PATIENCE. Times of developing patience are usually not fun. We as people in general tend to complain, get confused and lose faith when we have to wait for things for too long.

The truth of the matter is if you are in a waiting period for something, no matter what it may be, complaining, worrying, becoming anger and frustrated are not going to hurry the process. In fact, it may make it slower.

So how can we learn to be more patient and continue to enjoy life during the wait:
1 – Develop realistic expectations
2 – Realize that setbacks are only temporary
3 – Employ a problem solving attitude instead of choosing to be a victim
4 – Avoid bitterness
5 – Have faith that you can overcome a difficult situation, allow it to be a time of deeper relationship with God
6 – Be aware of triggers that cause you to become impatient. If it’s something you can change, take steps to change it. If not, then adjust your attitude and mindset accordingly.
7- Use this time as a time to grow as a person both inside and out-God is more concerned about the character that is building while you wait then about hurrying the process.

There is a saying I heard somewhere and it is so true, "You are going to wait anyway so you might as well be happy while you wait." and develop the character of patience while your at it.

"God makes everything happen at the right time." Ecclesiastes 3:1 "I am the Lord; no one who waits for my help will be disappointed." Isaiah 49:23