Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American Dream, right? While I am so thankful to life in a country with considerably more freedom than many in the world, I sometimes wonder if our lofty ideals actually make us sell ourselves short. What I find most interesting about these "rights" found in our Declaration… Continue reading Giving up the Pursuit of Happiness
Category: Lent
Giving Up The Fear of Not Being Enough
Why would they choose you? What do you have to offer? What makes you think that you could ever do that, especially with your past?!? These and other similar lies are questions that I have to believe all of us have thought at one time or another. I see these kinds of doubts in myself.… Continue reading Giving Up The Fear of Not Being Enough
Giving Up Fear in Loneliness
If you've ever taken a Myers Briggs personality test, you know that one of the spectrums that you are rated on is I and E ... Introvert and Extrovert. We often think of extroverts as loud and outgoing and introverts as more isolated. While that is part of it, this is also measuring how someone… Continue reading Giving Up Fear in Loneliness
Giving Up The Fear of What Other People Think
My dearest child, I see you. I see you craving the approval of others. I see you paying attention to each "like" or "retweet". I see the way your fear of what people think dictates your life. I see you and it breaks My heart. When will you stop living for the opinions of others?… Continue reading Giving Up The Fear of What Other People Think
Giving Up My Fear of Failure
Back at the beginning of January I wrote a post called "Grace... to Fail". In it, I describe a day where I tried something in which "failure" felt quite possible. There was pure joy in that day knowing that despite the outcome, I tried something that my perfectionist, afraid-to-fail, self would have normally kept me… Continue reading Giving Up My Fear of Failure
Giving Up Fear…
What do a dark room, a tall building, and spiders have in common? They all top the list of things people fear. While those may be the first things that come to mind, I actually believe there's another list of top fears that are perhaps even more common. Things like fear of what other people… Continue reading Giving Up Fear…
SUNDAY JOY: I Choose TRUTH!
When people count the 40 days of Lent (such as me and this blog series of 40 Days of Giving Up), it doesn't include the Sundays. The thought process behind this is that even though Lent is a somewhat solemn time to focus on the sacrifice of Jesus in his death, each Sunday of the… Continue reading SUNDAY JOY: I Choose TRUTH!
Giving Up Over-Commitment
Yesterday I talked about giving up the concept of being busy. But what does that really look like? It's impossible in a practical sense to give up a spirit of busyness without also giving up things like today's topic: over-commitment. I do believe it is possible, and sometimes God-honoring, to have a schedule that is really… Continue reading Giving Up Over-Commitment
Giving up “Busy”
"How are you?" Such a common phrase, often said more as a passing greeting than an actual question. Our responses typically don't go too deep either: "Fine." Or "I'm good." (Even if we're not really either). The one I seem to hear more and more lately: "Busy" Or some combination of them "busy… Continue reading Giving up “Busy”
Blissfully Unaware – Giving Up Worry
I recently joined the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus and have truly enjoyed singing in an ensemble regularly again. One of the pieces we're doing at our concert this Sunday is a 3-movement piece by Bernstein featuring a collection of Psalms sung in Hebrew. No matter what order we rehearse the movements in, the second one is… Continue reading Blissfully Unaware – Giving Up Worry
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