Done with labels! Your past has value… it has shaped you to walk in the divine call upon your life, given you a heart of compassion and a mind of understanding. But it does not define you x #beautifulcourageousyou #trueidentity @propelwomen @lisabevere
Tag Archives: Beautiful
Speak up!
Time to stop ‘biting your tongue’. Speak up and speak out in truth underscored with love. #beautifulcourageousyou #youhaveavoice
#BeautifulCourageousYOU… the book soon to be released
Final cover design for Beautiful Courageous You, (BCY) due to be released by Westbow Press in June! Watch this space for updates and beautiful giveaways as we start hosting our online community: Beauty and Courage Network, a place to come and share images that inspire beauty or courage within you, share your images on your social media and the BCY Instagram or Facebook and tag with #beautifulcourageousyou for chance to win… also to simply inspire others with what inspires you!
I am so blessed to have the opportunity to speak into women and young girls lives. Now I pray this writing will grow wings and fly into the hearts of every woman and young girl that needs a lift up out of despair and into the heights of joy unspeakable X
Cover by Mookoo Designs
Camping out in the Land of Grace
- “My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness” 2 Corinthians 12:9 MSG
May you receive a heart revelation of His Grace upon you, may you have wisdom to know that sufficient is His Grace for this day. Tomorrow with all it’s cares and concerns will have a sufficient measure of Grace dispensed… tomorrow.
Stop trying to use today’s Grace for tomorrows worries, when you wake to face another day Grace will be there for you just as sure as the sun will rise, El Shaddai – Our God – is all sufficient x
Breaking the Chains in Your Mind
Long before the ‘law of attraction’ was a trendy way to think and create your world, the same ‘law’ was written in the Word of God. The law of attraction is scriptural. “For as a man thinks in his heart, so he is…” Proverbs 23:7, NKJV. Scripture has a power and wisdom beyond our intellectual comprehension.
In a profound manner, our thinking can impose limitations or chains in our mind simply through meditating on the lies that you have been told, either by others or your own self-belief. If you believe a lie long enough it will manifest as being truth to you, a chain in your mind that keeps you from living the life you were created to live. Such chains bind up your thinking. Chains of fear, chains of unworthiness, chains of addiction, chains of guilt and whatever other chain you might choose to think into existence to bind you.
It is easy to become comfortable in these chains, accustomed to the limitations they impose. Before long, your reality becomes the thoughts you have been meditating on.
Allow me to illustrate what I believe Proverbs 23:7 “looks like.”
In some countries baby elephants are taken captive and trained to believe they are weak and unable to escape their captor. As a visitor to India you will often observe a chain staked to the ground and then wrapped around the ankle of a full-grown adult elephant. The chain is used to discipline and control the elephant, training her to believe she cannot break free. From the birth of the elephant, they periodically chain the elephant to the stake. As an infant elephant, the chain is strong enough to hold the animal in place. It is obvious that as an adult, the elephant is strong enough to pull the stake out of the ground to achieve freedom. Most amazing is the fact that even when the chain is wrapped around her ankle and not staked into the ground, she will remain as if she is restrained. How is it so that such a small chain could hold such a large elephant?
As an adult elephant, the chain is not strong enough to hold the animal in place; however, because the elephant has grown accustomed to the limitation of the chain, it never tries to escape. Ironically if the adult elephant had knowledge of her power, strength and ability she could crush her captors and everything else around her. Sadly, this beautiful, powerful animal has not been given the wisdom or understanding of her potential.The chain has her believe the lie that she is weak and a captive.
This example is a perfect metaphor of how, much like the chain, and often at a very young age, Satan takes us captive and we remain in bondage to lies and deception about our true worth, our true strength, and our true courage, power and beauty. Ask the Lord to show you what lies are you believing? What script are you playing since childhood? Now ask Him to erase this script and re-write a script of Truth on your heart and in your mind. x
Does Jesus Sit on His Hands?
“What God can prevent in His power, He permits in His wisdom” – Arthur Burt.
Childlike faith, it would seem, does not just happen for everyone. Like me, you may have many unanswered questions. Why didn’t God prevent this from happening? Why hasn’t He changed this situation? Sure enough, we have questioned why our path has led us through pain and sorrow, why should we have to suffer this way? After all, my husband and I have honoured and served God in all the ways we know possible, so how come things worked out this way? Did Jesus sit on His hands and let our babies death top the broken heart charts for my husband and I?
Many times people are perplexed that I choose to glorify God, they have questioned how I can still believe in God, let alone trust in His goodness? They perceive that when I was trusting in Him, He let me down?! I have grappled in my mind with these arguments for the past five years. Is God good? Does He love me? Why do bad things happen to good people? In fact, why do bad things happen at all? Finally, I grew tired of trying to figure it all out and made the choice to trust in the Word of God and as a result, my faith has been renewed and I have entered His rest. I rest in Him and choose to believe that God holds all of my tomorrow’s and come what may, He is good all the time… and all the time He is good. x
A Reputation of Uptight Joylessness
I find as often as the seasons change so to does my reading genre. As Spring is upon us I am drawn to the life in the air… flowers in bloom, bees are buzzing and resurrection life is apparent as buds of life burst forth from the barren winter branch of the old Wattle tree in our front yard.
The thought of new life, of resurrection life, has me seeking a deeper heart revelation of His resurrection… what does it look like to live on the resurrection side of the cross? Why is it that many Christians have a reputation of living their lives as though He isn’t risen, lives that are joy-less, hope-less, grace-less? Pondering these thoughts has led me to re-read Philip Yancey’s “What’s So Amazing About Grace” , in the first chapter I am captivated by a quote that Yancey has cited, rather it is a column written by humourist Erma Bombeck:
In church the other Sunday I was intent on a small child who was turning around smiling at everyone. He wasn’t gurgling, spitting, humming or rummaging through his mother’s handbag. He was just smiling. Finally, his mother jerked him about and in a stage whisper that could be heard in a little theatre off Broadway said, “Stop that grinning! You’re in church!” With that, she gave him a belt and as the tears rolled down his cheeks she added, “That’s better,” and returned to her prayers…
Suddenly I was angry. It occurred to me the entire world is in tears, and if your not, then you’d better get with it. I wanted to grab this child with the tear-stained face close to me and tell him about my God. The happy God. The smiling God. The God who had to have a sense of humor to have created the likes of us… By tradition, one wears faith with solemnity of a mourner, the gravity of a mask of tragedy, and the dedication of a Rotary badge.
What a fool, I thought. Here was a woman sitting next to the only light left in our civilisation – the only hope, our only miracle – our only promise of infinity. If he couldn’t smile in church, where was there left to go?
On that note… time to go be with my children (they leak joy all over the place)! x
A Captured Heart
God wants to heal you from depression, anxiety, shame, addiction and whatever else holds you captive, He wants you to dream again, dream big! You were created for purpose, to have a vision for your life that captures your heart and imagination, something so big that you become purpose-driven.
For this to happen you must first confront your captors, those past hurts, habits, unforgiveness and all else holding you captive, must be dealt with before you can launch out into a new life of complete freedom and joy, ready to dream again, to truly live again!. Doing this requires courage, plenty of it!
Author Bob Gass writes: “On the heels of every dream there’s a demon of doubt. No sooner is your dream conceived than your mind is suddenly filled with all the reasons why it may not work…” Your inner dialogue may go something like this:, receiving prayer ‘doesn’t really work’, going to a counselor ‘may be a waste of time’, I have been this way for so long now I doubt anything will ever change… this is ‘just the way I am’… “ and there will be folks around you who’ll be quick to confirm those fears. In spite of that, you must forge ahead and dream; otherwise you’ll spend the rest of your life fulfilling the dreams of others”.
It is time to stand firm and declare you will not stay this way, break free from the shackles of fear, God has more for you than you have been settling for. ‘Rise up; this matter is in your hands… take courage and do it.” Ezra 10:4
Pondering His Love
For years I ran from you, you called my name and I pretended not to hear. Everything wrong in my life & everything wrong with the world… I blamed you for it all. Now I understand when I thought you were absent that’s when you were most near and caught me every time I would fall.
You love me because you love me, all you’ve ever wanted was my love!
Ahhh what a love…
YOU are created to be loved, that’s why He calls you His Beloved 🙂 in fact your number one duty is to BE loved x
Emotions are Like a Spoiled Child… They Can Mess Up Your Day!
“Emotions are like a spoiled child, indulge them and they’ll control you” – Bob Gass
We all have emotions the key is learning how to manage emotions and not allow them to manage us. Emotions are fickle, my firsthand advice; don’t over indulge your emotions or they will mess up your day!
In particular with depression, as you first begin to ‘opt in’ to doing life again the mood swings can be overwhelming, one moment feeling that depression has lifted and your emotions are high, ie. you catch yourself laughing or simply smiling, the following moment feeling completely defeated and easily snap at the slightest upset. This unstable behaviour would leave me feeling terrible about myself, it was hard on me as well as everyone around me. Often when I would have a good moment or even a good day, my mind would be consumed with the thought ‘this is too good to be true, it probably won’t last’ on the heels of such thinking was an emotion attached… a deep wave of depression would overwhelm me once again.
A very valuable lesson I have learned, having suffered depression, it is easy to mistake a bad day/flat feeling as being a relapse back into a depressed state. Looking back on my rollercoaster of emotions, I see clearly now that every moment of my day was based on how I was feeling as opposed to living by faith… I was being controlled by my emotions.
Considering we are body, soul and spirit, if we are to be ‘led by the spirit’ it is most important to make emotional maturity our goal and walk in the spirit as opposed to being led by emotions. Joyce Meyer explains; “We must learn to trust that God knows what He is doing in us. If we feel something in our emotions, that is fine. If we do not feel anything, that is fine too. We must remember that we are in this for the long haul – not just for those times when we feel good, but also for those times when we feel bad or do not feel anything at all…” Yup in this for the long haul, now hush those emotions and keep on the lookout for pinching Angels 😉 x
Beautiful, Courageous You 