God created you to be inwardly strong, emotionally resilient, and to have great relationships.

If you’re not inwardly strong and resilient, it could cost you your soul.

 

 

Stuffing your vulnerable and weak feelings you suppress your emotions. When you keep your tears from ever spilling you neglect your needs, minimize your wishes, and deny your feelings.

 

It may seem like the right thing to do ~ especially as a Jesus follower.

 

He said, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Luke 9:23 ESV

 

The idea of taking up your cross daily and following Him fits with dying to yourself, to your selfish ways and ambitions, and living for God.

 

Dying to self is necessary for including others in your life in meaningful ways.

 

 

Problem is . . . dying to self can turn into a soul death.

 

God has created you for relationship

But, not at the cost of your own soul.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?  Mark 8:36 NIV

 

 

I begin to lose my soul and starve my emotions when I tune myself out.

When I deny my thoughts, and minimize my feelings, pieces of me begin to slip away.

 

But I can bring those lost pieces back to the whole-me when I place value on my concerns, thoughts, and feelings. 

 

~ Self-understanding builds inner strength. ~

 

As you and I learn to listen to our hearts, we become better people. As we listen closely to our own inner conversations we  learn to deeply hear ourselves.

 

Think of it as a muscle. The more you and I tune in to the conversations we have with our self the better we will get at hearing them. 

Journaling, or jotting down thoughts and feelings creates inner awareness which in turn ~ strengthens your inner being. 

 

When I began to think about my feelings, for example, instead of just be confused and led by them, I can stand back from myself and see what’s actually happening.

 

You gain strength, smarts, and wholeness, when you are aware of what’s happening in your inner life.

 

~ Sometimes it’s as simple as giving the feeling a name. ~

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You may have hidden your feelings from yourself so long you don’t know which are real or not real. 

 

As we listen to our conversations within we become wiser.

With a bit less emotion, we view our life and it’s circumstances more realistically.

We can be begin telling ourselves what to do and not do because we are thinking about our emotions instead of being led by them.

 

Human desire stirs my emotions. When I act on these desires, without thought, I am weak.

 

Human desire is infinite by it’s nature; it cannot be satisfied. You must take your stand against it because you cannot satisfy it. You can never get enough money, if you want money. You can never get enough power, if you want power. You can never get enough love, you can never get enough glory. It is impossible. So fundamental is this truth that every person who wishes to follow Christ must understand it. Dallas Willard Life Without Lack

 

Tuning in to these inner conversations gives me an edge. It helps me get a handle on my want-to-self . . . I want to do this, and I want to do that. It is a life led by self.

 

I’ve discovered this, me – myself – and – I, way of living is not satisfying.

 

It begins to make sense when I understand my human desires are infinite and cannot be satisfied apart from God.

 

Dallas Willard continues to explain this further.

Desire is infinite partly because we were made by God, made for God, made to need God, and made to run on God. We can be satisfied only by the one who is infinite, eternal, and able to supply all our needs; we are only at home in God. When we fall away from God, the desire for the infinite remains, but it is displaced upon things that will certainly lead to destruction.

Being quiet enough to hear your inner conversations prepares the soil for you to hear God.

 

We can ignore, neglect, shame, or deny, our emotional hunger for a while, but eventually the denial will bite. The more we ignore our emotional hunger the hungrier we get.

Jesus is the only One who can fill us.

 

If we ignore His intimate presence our spirits can become bitter and toxic.

 

With God’s grace, as we become intimately acquainted with our inner world of thoughts and feelings, we will also be better able to surrender our will to Him.

It’s here we will find deep peace and joy because our wills are made to surrender to God.

 

Questions

 

Do you have trouble hearing your own voice?

 

Have you been honest enough with yourself to say, ‘It’s difficult trying to change.  I don’t know if I want to.”?

 

Do you know what your inner conversations are today?

 

Do you have trouble hearing God’s voice in your life?

How would your life be different if you were aware of God’s continual and perfect love for you?

Pretty cool to think about right?  That’s what He wants for us.

I mentioned in a previous blog about the STYLE Program I created to help you become more aware and receptive of God’s lavish love for you.

The Y in STYLE = you delight me.

Do you realize you delight God just for being you?  It may be hard to understand, and especially difficult to believe in your inner-core.

You delight God.

Nothing is hid from Him.  He made you and knows you intimately.

He doesn’t necessarily like what you think or do, but He delights in the person you are deep down within.  He sees you through Jesus’ eyes.

Maybe you’ve learned to cope in life by using your own wits, and making bad choices that bring you down. Believe me, God sees through it all.

He still delights in the you He created, and He longs for your companionship.

The L in STYLE = listen with all you got.

If you listen with “all you got” you are listening above and beyond mere words.  After all, that only communicates a portion of what is being told.

To listen well, everything in you needs to engage with the other.

For example, what are this persons needs right now? What are they feeling? What is their body language telling you? What is their overall tone?

If you understand their personality and character that goes a long way in understanding what that person is trying to say.

It’s a bit like listening to understand my mother when she was no longer able to speak due to aphasia.

I could comprehend a good amount of her garbled words, because I knew her. I knew her heart and what she was inclined to say.

The same is true of our Creator the more we know His character and His heart, and what He’s inclined to truly say, the better we will be able to hear Him.

Like the towhee I wrote about earlier, I know what God is inclined to say and I creatively listen to the towhee’s song as a reminder of God’s personal love song to me.

For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. Zephaniah 3:17 NLT

If I don’t have a clear vision of my Creator’s character then I may easily misunderstand what He’s saying.

So if I want to hear God ‘s words to me I must get to know His character and heart as best I can.

The E in STYLE = express the positive.

Our Creator longs to express to us the positive things He sees in us. He is hotly pursuing you and me.  He wants to lavish us with His goodness.

Believe it sister it’s true!

To be filled and nourished with God ‘s goodness we must be with Him often . . . feast with Him. The more we dine with Him the more we will get to know His heart and be changed by Him.

Join me on my walk and watch my video here.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. Psalm 34:8 NIV

Yes, a conversation can be wordless.  And yes, a wordless conversation can be powerful.  It may well be one of the deepest blessings you, or I, will receive.

A conversation with gaps of silence, with someone you don’t know very well, feels odd. However, a wordless conversation with the closest of family or friends can be deeply rich.

An uncomfortable or uplifting conversation . . . depends in large part on how well you know the person, and their character.

For example, after my mother suffered a massive stroke, her ability to communicate with words was greatly diminished due to aphasia.

She could no longer utter words that made sense.

Though I longed for them, they were no longer necessary because . . .

I knew them.  I heard them.  Different versions of them.

Even more importantly, I knew her.  I knew who she was, and who she wasn’t.

Her words are carved into my being.  Over and again day after year etched with care.  The things my mother said and the way she made me feel . . . I can still hear and experience them.

As a little girl, I saw joy dancing in her smile as I handed her a fist full of dandelions along with a few sprigs of queen anne’s lace. 

I happily plucked a bouquet of weeds from our backyard, and thought it was a magnificent gift.  Just the right thing for my mama.

She could have thrown them away, ignored them by laying them on the table to wilt, or scolded me for bringing the messy bunch into the house.  Surely I was tracking dirt on my feet, and bringing some kind of outside mess indoors.

Instead she lovingly gave them a place of honor, in a vase on the window sill.

She spoke life into me when I was too little to notice . . .

Sitting next to Mom after her stroke, even though she didn’t have words for me anymore, was like soaking up every single ounce of sunshine that ever existed.

I knew who she was and what she was likely to say.

Her outer words have become my inner words.

Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; . . . If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. John 15:5&7 NKJ

The forefathers of my faith tradition called the bible the outer word, and the prompting of the holy spirit the inner word.

The inner word is written in each believer’s heart by the Holy Spirit, and it is completely identical with that which is outwardly written in the New Testament. The Complete Writings of Alexander Mack William R. Eberly, Editor

We “hear” the words of our parents, spouse, or others, even when they’re not physically with us to verbalize them. We not only know their words, we know their character and essence.

Likewise, if we absorb the bible over the weeks, months, and years it becomes our inner word. We get to know God’s character. We can more clearly hear God’s still small voice when we quiet ourselves to listen.

I love to take long walks because, not only am I getting exercise and enjoying the fresh air, but I also find it’s one of the times I am most atune to the Holy Spirit’s prompting through the inner word.

I shared with you before how the towhee reminds me of God’s personal love song. But, there are many times on my walks I don’t have a sense of new things He might be saying to me. And that’s okay. I know who He is.

And while my mother was wordless, her essence still exuded because I have shared much time with her. Likewise, when God is wordless, His essence still exudes because I have shared much time with Him.

His outer words become our inner words.  And a wordless conversation with Him can be a great blessing when you know Him and His character.

Dallas Willard puts it this way. The most important things about us in our mind. And the most important things about our mind is what it’s fixed on. The most important thing for our mind to be fixed on is the Lord. Check out my video here.

 

 

Do you struggle at times with not having the confidence, or authority, to be yourself in your significant relationships with family or friends?

Do you feel at times like no one really knows you? The real you is lonely, and yet afraid to come alive . . .

Sometimes I am lonely, like you. I’d rather not feel that way, and neither would you ~ right?

Often those feelings bubble up because the relational dynamics with family members, or friendships, are stressful. You’re connection with one another is out of whack.

You can feel it in your gut, but can’t understand why the disconnect exists.

Personally, during those times I’ve found a way to connect uniquely with the great I Am, the Creator of my soul, that reaches into my loneliness and deeply satisfies me.

This soul to soul with Jesus gives me confidence and authority to be myself.

When the Creator of life fills me emotionally, I notice I no longer feel lonely. Instead I live from a full well.

I have less need of approval. And I have greater freedom and capacity to be the joyful me I was created to be.

All relationships need nurturing.

If any friendship, or relationship of any sort, is going to thrive it needs to be watered and cared for like a garden, or like a tree that sinks its roots down deep allowing it to drink life from the nutrient rich soil.

A few years back I created a program (called Moms in STYLE) to help mothers whose central desire was to re-connect joyfully with her grown children.

These moms involved in emotionally distressed relationships with their adult children wanted to learn to nurture those relationships.

The Moms in STYLE Program applies the following truths at its core and informs ways to nurture relationships.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.‘ Mark 12:30-31 NIV

(Your husband is your closest neighbor,)

. . . whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.  And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.   1 John 4:20-21 NIV

Do to others as you would have them do to you.  Luke 6:31 NIV

The LORD your God is with you, the Might Warrior who saves. He will . . . rejoice over you with singing.  Zeph 3:17 NIV

 

Our relationship with our Creator needs nurturing too.

My relationship with my Creator and Lover of my soul is no different. It needs nurturing too.

With this in mind, I’ve flipped the STYLE Program upside down, and rearranged it to help you become more aware and receptive of God’s great love for you.

Instead of guiding you to use STYLE to initiate blessings to others, I turned it upside down to help you prioritize ways you can receive God’s initiative of love for you. To experience His love for you at the heart level not simply the head level.

In fact, when we allow the Designer of our souls to fill us emotionally, that’s when we can be our most confident and best. It’s also when your relationships and friendships will be at their peak.

A heart-filled by Jesus will be a heart that’s working. When your heart is working you will find it to be the most natural and effortless thing to bless others, even in your stressful relationships it will be true. You will have the confidence and ability to love yourself.

The secret to having the confidence and authority to be yourself is found in the receiving of your Maker’s specific love for you at the heart level.

It is key for us to put ourselves in a place where we receive His love because if we are looking to those around us to fill our love need, even with a significant other, we will be disappointed.

As we grow in intimacy with the One who formed our very souls we will feel less shame and be freer to reveal our true selves.

As we are free to reveal our true selves we will have the joy of being known, not have the depth of loneliness we once did, and have richer relationships.

From the safe haven of being loved by the great I Am you will be able to risk greater openness with others because your essence is not tethered to others opinions, but is wrapped in the all-knowing all- loving arms of Jesus.

As His love spills over you it calms and quiets you. It will overflow into your being, and give you greater sensitivity and compassion for those around you. This in itself will strengthen your friendships and relationships.

When your own emotional needs are met in healthy ways you will be more confident. Confidence gives you power to be the real you. Not the performing person you think others will like.

It is key for us to put ourselves in a place where we receive His love because if we are looking to those around us to fill our love need, even with a significant other, we will be disappointed. As we grow in intimacy with the One who formed our very souls we will feel less shame and be freer to reveal our true selves.

From the safe haven of being loved by the great I Am you will be able to risk greater openness with others because your essence is not tethered to others opinions, but is wrapped in the all-knowing all- loving arms of Jesus.

As His love spills over you it calms and quiets you. It will overflow into your being, and give you greater sensitivity and compassion for those around you. This in itself will strengthen your friendships and relationships.

Once these emotional truths begin sifting down deep within your soul, there’s a synergy that start’s to take place.

I inverted STYLE to give you a super charge at the get go. It will give you practical tools to use in developing a stronger, and emotionally healthier, you. You will benefit, over time, by naturally growing stronger healthier friendships and relationships as a result.

Become aware of something small God is doing for you.

The STYLE in LifeSTYLE is an acronym. The S in the STYLE Program is to do something small.  Instead of doing something small for someone else, allow God to do something small for you.

I know this may sound strange. But He really does want to do things to delight you. Becoming aware of how He is doing it is the first step in receiving it. Take some time to think about some small way He wants to connect with you.

Take some time for a walk, a leisurely drive, or if you only have two minutes use those two minutes to be still and ponder the truth that God is for you and not against you.

Think about how God may be reaching out to you. Absorb it.

Don’t worry if you don’t sense anything right away. This little exercise in itself will make you more receptive to how God is reaching out to you in many small ways. Over the next day or so it likely will become more evident to you.

You will begin to recognize how He is extending Himself to you in some little ways which you have not noticed before.

I find the towhee’s song to be something small God does for me. He’s doing it for you too.

The next is the T in STYLE. That stands for together fun.

God reaches out to you with a spirit of joy and laughter

Together fun is the T in the STYLE acronym .

On a new day think about how God is reaching out to you with a spirit of joy and laughter.  How He want to have fun together with you.

It might seem funny at first, but be assured you delight His heart simply because you are choosing to be with Him.

Don’t you feel good when someone specifically chooses to be with you to have fun?

 

It was an ordinary day,  doing ordinary work,             

UNTIL

It stopped wringing the clothes.

The washer.

What a nuisance.

Guess I’ll be wringing clothes out by hand until we get a new one.

Oh bummer.  Another step, and more time.

I wasn’t counting on this.

How in—con—ven—ient.

And annoying.

 

Shortly we’ll have a new one, but it won’t be today.  The dirty laundry’s multiplying like rabbits.   Grrr . . .

 

I usually enjoy hanging clothes on the clothesline.  But, not now.  I’m feeling swamped with these drippy clothes.

“Robert come help me hang the clothes,” I summoned, through the whipping wind to my 14-year-old son.

Whosh  whew  whosh  whooooshhhh

 

The windy day added to my irritation as I tried to fight against it while pinning the soggy clothes to the clothesline.

I just wanted to get this messy job done.  And get it done quickly.

This.  Wind.  Is.  Slowing.  Me.  Down.

“Oh, listen mom,” Robert laughed, “It sounds like we’re at the ocean.  Hear the blowing leaves?  They sound like the crashing waves.”

 

 

“Ya,” I unenthusiastically responded to his comment while we both continued to hang the water-logged pile.

“I think the long grass on the hillside, blowing in the wind, looks like ocean waves,” he happily quipped.

I began remembering our delightful recent trip to the sandy windy beach.  He was starting to attract my attention.  After all, I’d love to be back there instead of arguing with the wind over who’s the boss of the saggy clothesline.

Then it hit me.

 

Remember to express the positive.

I just wanted to be grumpy.  After all I was inconvenienced with a broken washing machine.

 

 

My son was, unintentionally, making it easy for me to express the positive.  To jump into the imaginary sea, or at least put my big toe in.  He was helping me find the extraordinary ocean-like features of our grassy-green back yard.

 

ME, I was fixed on complaining.  I was fixed on ME.

 

Okay Joy, I reminded myself, express the positive.  Join in with Robert on his positive, and imaginary, thoughts.

 

At least smile with him.

 

Squabbling with myself, I thought — why should I? –– I’m almost done.  Just check this mess off the list and move on.

 

Seconds later, while setting my sights on the next project, but before leaving the clothesline,  I realized again why it is important for me to express the positive, and delight with my son in his lovely green ocean.

 

 

• I’ll be happier.
• My son will be happier.
• I’ll be making a relationship deposit with my son instead of a relationship withdrawal.
• My son will be more inclined to help me with future jobs and, while doing so, he’ll have a positive attitude himself.
• Habitually expressing the positive will draw my son towards me rather than repelling him away from me.

 

So I did it.  I took the leap.  Enjoying all the sensory benefits of our imaginary green ocean right in our own back yard.  The sound of the waves in the blowing tree leaves, and the sight of gentle ocean waves in the long rippling hillside grass.

An ordinary day with an extraordinary flair.  Click here for another kind of extraordinary day.

Whosh whew whosh whooooshhhh

 

As we walked away, laughing in the wind, the drenched clothes playfully misted us with ocean sprays making our visit complete.

 

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, ~ if anything is excellent or praiseworthy ~

think about such things.” Philippians 4:8 NIV

 

What if your relationship with your husband could be something that gives you energy to tackle your to do list, and not one more thing to add to your to do list?

Imagine what it would be like if you could say to yourself, “I worked hard for everyone else today, I will enjoy something amazing now!”

 

 

What would life be like if you could flip a switch and suddenly feel “in the mood”?

If this sounds good to you then today is a wonderful day because I have a resource to share with you that will bless you and your husband.

I mentioned in the last post about inviting Jesus to fill your heart and soul with experiences of His tangible love. One way I am tangibly enthralled by His love for me is in the surprise of the towhee’s love song.

When you experience love or beauty your natural response is to share that beauty and love.

 

 

It will spill over to bless you and your husband.

But, perhaps you are feeling empty because the overall trajectory of your marriage is not going well.

Then this course is not for you.

Keep reading my blogs though, because I will have something helpful suited just for you in the future.

 

If the overall flow of your marriage is going well then continue reading.

 

I know for many women chocolate and a bubble bath sound way more enticing than sex at the end of a long day, but I also know that sex is supposed to be awesome in marriage. And too often we women devalue sex, and end up losing out on something amazing that God created for us!

 

I don’t want to miss out on something awesome.

 

So when I saw Sheila Wray Gregoire’s Boost Your Libido course here, I knew it would be something you would be excited about.

 

You’ll feel hopeful immediately because in the first unit you will learn the one thing the vast majority of women misunderstand about our libidos – and how that one insight can change everything.

 

She’s the “Christian sex lady”

 

For those of you who don’t know Sheila, she’s the “Christian sex lady” who blogs at To Love, Honor and Vacuum. She’s so down to earth, and she’s so open about her own struggles. And now she’s created a 10-video course that you can take that can really and truly help you to boost your libido!

 

She starts by talking about how we often don’t understand libido in the first place. We think that if we’re not panting at the sight of our husband, then we must not want sex. But what if our understanding is wrong?

 

And then she talks about (in a seriously funny way!) how libido is mostly in our heads.

 

But it’s not ALL in our heads, and throughout the course she shows how understanding our hormones and understanding how our body works (and even accepting the body we have!) can help us want sex more, too.

This is a really fun course, because Sheila is awfully funny. And each module comes with a practical assignment that can help you see immediate results. You don’t have to wait until you finish the course to start your libido revving up!

 

Christians should have the best marriages possible

 

I’m passionate about marriage. But too often we miss out because we get too busy, we feel distant, or we just plain don’t understand how we work.

 

Let this course take the guesswork out of your body, and let Sheila help you learn to think differently and change your routines so that chocolate will never seem like a sex substitute again!   Check out the course here.