December 23, 2016

(Photo, Gabrielle Allman)

As I said in an earlier blog, Christmas time, although promoted as a warm, cozy, relational time, can be a time of anxiety and loneliness for many.

Those feelings beg me to ask, is my life a life that matters? If I do not feel what I am doing matters, I do not feel that my life matters. My friend, Lyndell Hetrick Holtz, wrote about this on her Heart Mender’s Blog-  I Too Want a Life that Matters, check it out! She has a very  concise  way of facing life’s hard things. She  often says; “Face it, Feel it, Free it”!

I gain great comfort in that when I consider the only way to any healing is to face the issue or failure head on. We tend to avoid  hard things because we think it is easier to do so. We do it in little ways or it can become Excessive Avoidance Disorder– and our culture is heaped in it. We avoid doing hard things, keeping commitments, and putting the work in first and it is destructive.

If we want to have holistic health, it is going to take more than swallowing a vitamin every now and then. It is going to take facing our dilemma,  whether we caused it or some one else did. Feel the pain of it, express it out loud, or write down your thoughts in a journal. And then open your hands and release it. I will stand where ever I am, lift my hands to God and tell Him all of my concerns. I will tell Him, I have no power over this, only the power to release it to you. And then I will say, I trust you are working all these things for good in my life and I release this to you. It is weighing me down, I feel insignificant, I feel like I am not seeing any benefit to getting up and doing what is right every day. Many times I will write that down and put it on my cupboard, to remind my self that it is not my burden.

To live a life that matters, we need to be different than the masses. Routines are awesome. Habits will work for our good or our detriment! If I get up every morning and pray and exercise, that is going to lead me to a different destination than having a cigarette with my coffee and do nut!! (You may chuckle, but this was my early life!!) Holistic health will effect all of your life and the little things you change will have an everlasting impact! If a plane takes off and it is even a little bit off it’s course, in the end of that trajectory, it is not going to land at it’s destination!

If you are sad, lonely and really struggling today, please consider what I have said. I want to help you with the help I have received. Check out Lyndell’s blog and other encouraging people like Rick Warren and Dr. John Townsend. You do not have to stay where you are! How do you want to have a life that matters? What do you want your destination to be?

We are right here with you cheering you on!! Head into the weekend, with a renewed sense of your life mattering. Lay aside the pressure from culture and  glean the true meaning of Christmas in the Gospels of, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John! We want to hear from you today:-)