Self appreciation, self-love IS about feeling secure about how good and wonderful a person you really are.  You KNOW you are worthy of the good things in life.  So many of us don’t feel this way.  So many of us have bought into the lies they’ve been told by others around them, including their parents as small children, that they weren’t good enough.  These are lies.  YOU ARE WORTHY.  God doesn’t make junk!  All HIS creatures are perfect.  YOU are NOT the exception to the rule.  Even if you’ve been told by many in your life that you weren’t as good as…. your brother, your sister, your best friend, the co-worker in the next cubicle… whatever!  It’s all lies.  You are perfect in GOD’s eyes.  You need to learn to love yourself more.  You need to know that the inner person is what makes the outer person quite beautiful in the eyes of others and God. 

I feel it is almost impossible to truly love others in the most profound and spiritual way that Jesus loved the world without knowing you, yourself are beautiful, a work-of-art from God’s mastery.  Once you “get” that you are a fantastic creation, will you start to have the ability to love others in a powerful self-less way. 

So how do you start to love yourself and see yourself as worthy?  Start by looking in the mirror and smiling at yourself.  Then look yourself in the eyes and say out loud:  “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL”.  “YOU ARE LOVED.”  “YOU GIVE LOVE AND YOU RECEIVE LOVE NOW”.  Do this everyday at least once each day.  It will feel strange at first, but trust me, if you stick with it, you will start to see a beautiful loving person in that mirror very quickly after you begin doing this.  Watch your world change!

However, Tyler’s family would not give up.  They prayed for Tyler and knew to hand his fate to God to decide.  As a member of my church, Tyler’s father, Roger, implored with the Church congregation to pray for Tyler’s life.  In December Tyler’s father, Roger, spoke to the church and shared what prayers for Tyler had done so far.  After weeks in Intensive Care and in a coma state, Tyler opened his eyes and was able to communicate with his father.  While still in a very weaken state Tyler was able to start coming back to life.  His father, Roger, was overcome with emotion knowing that what he was seeing was a miracle in his own son’s life.  As he shared with the congregation that Sunday, I knew inside of me that Tyler was going to be alright.  After the service ended I went up to Roger and spoke privately with him.  I told him that Tyler was going to be made whole again.  That God was going to give him is whole son back to him.  That he did not have to fear Tyler’s fate.

Today, at the 11:00a.m. service at Living Hope Church in Vancouver, Washington Tyler came to church with his entire family.  He was able to extend his gratitude and love to his church family.  He is using a wheelchair and has a bit of paralysis on one arm but Tyler is very definitely exhibiting an amazing recovery. 

While the service was already in celebration mode to celebrate the results of the Superbowl, no one knew that Tyler and his family were going to be coming to this service.  Tyler was inspired only a half hour before to come to church.  The worship was in already in “party” mode and was playing “Celebrate” by Earth, Wind & Fire, a classic song of rejoicing.  We even had confetti strewn around the ground from the previous service.  Who knew that Tyler would be coming to the next service and present us all with a real reason for celebration.  A celebration of God’s amazing glory.  A celebration of a life that is only beginning and I know will have much to offer to the world as Tyler continues toward full recovery.  For as I told Tyler this morning — he is going to be whole and he is going to have an amazingly successful life.

Miracles do happen.  They happen all the time.  They happen to those who truly believe that God watches over us and wants only the very best for us.  Can miracles happen to you — you bet they can!

“Sleep is essential for good health.  Scientists don’t know exactly why we need it but they know what happens when we don’t get enough.  We put ourselves at risk of premature aging, weight gain, and diseases ranging from colds and flu to cancer.  What God accomplishes in our bodies while we drift off to dreamland is nothing short of miraculous.  While we do nothing, God replenishes our energy, rebuilds and restores our cells, and reorganizes information in our brains.

“The reasons for not getting enough sleep are many, and some we can’t solve, but the Bible indicates that overwork should not be one of them (Psalm 127:2).  Sleep is a gift from God that we should receive with gratitude.  If we’re not getting enough, we need to find out why.  Are we rising early and staying up late to earn money to acquire things we don’t need?  Are we involved in ministry efforts that we think no on else is capable of doing?

“I’m sometimes tempted to believe that the work I do when I’m wake is more important than the work God does while I sleep.  But refusing God’s gift of sleep is like telling Him that my work is more important than His.

“God does not want anyone to be a slave to work.  He wants us to enjoy His gift of sleep. Author: Julie Ackerman Link”

This daily devotional was taken from Our Daily Bread, January 12 (www.rbc.org). 

This message resonated with me quiet deeply.  For many years I would rise many hours before daylight broke to prepare myself for a long day of work and then an evening of college classes or a small entrepreneurial venture.  Most of my adult life was spent with not enough sleep and an overburden of obligations.  Yes, folks, I was a true workaholic.  I tried to overcome the sleep deprivation I often felt by taking catnaps whenever I could manage to do so.  This way of living was truly a sacrifice for me because I am NOT a morning person by nature.  I love the evening hours and have disciplined myself to get to bed at a reasonable hour vs staying up watching all the late night shows on TV. 

I loved the scripture of Psalm 127.2 where God tells us we are obligated to get the proper rest and sleep we need.  How many of us are living sleep deprived lives?  I would venture to guess the majority of us.  Then we wonder why we are tired, lack energy, see expanding waistlines and feel a level of frustration with those around us.  These are all the result of lack of proper rest and sleep.

When my world collapsed I made a commitment to myself that I would double up in my business ventures and planned to travel for work more then I was already doing.  This was the plan to assure myself that my income would always be strong and that I would find an excellent outlet to mask the pain of loss I experienced.  Under most considerations you would have agreed that this was a good plan.  Except God said NO.  This was not His plan.  So the day after my move into my newly purchased home I ended up in the hospital and remained there for several weeks.  God made the decision for me that I would not.  I would have never allowed myself major time off to just relax, recover from the trauma of my life’s changes and treat myself in such a gentle manner.  GOD knowing this forced me into a state that required a mandatory period (a pretty long period, as it turned out) to rest and recover.  I was not even allowed to drive for six months after my release from the hospital. 

Take it from me.  If you don’t make the decision to get enough rest and sleep in your life God will take the matters in His hands and will force you to stop the madness of unending obligations, physical and mental fatigue and the spiritual “leakage” that occurs when we let the matters of the world become our priority instead of our relationship with God.  I hope you, dear reader, can take some time to examine the things you have set as priorities in your life. Begin to challenge whether the time commitments that are affecting your rest time are really worth it.  I challenge you to find time to put one more hour of sleep into your daily schedule and a day of real rest each week.  Your will definitely see and feel the difference.

I just read a story of a man who was forced to retire at the age of 70 from his position as a speech and drama professor in a private college in the Midwest.  Instead of grumbling about this door closing, he chose to accept the change and looked at what he could do to continue his affiliation with his beloved school.  He applied for a job as the gymnasium custodian and was hired on the spot.  Now you could take the attitude that he was forced to make a downward move.  You could grumble that he now had to accept a cut in wages.  What you will have lost sight of is that he loved to work.  He loved the school and he had more then enough in savings, pensions, and social security that he didn’t NEED to apply for the job of custodian. 

He chose to do this so that he would continue to give value to the school and to keep himself active and stay in connection with his social peers.  He gracefully looked at what could have been sour lemons and turned the opportunity into lemonade.  How many of us look at life in this manner?  If you have an attitude of gratitude toward life’s gifts and challenges both, you will agree that this man took an opportunity and turned it into something good for himself.

Life does present changes.  All the time.  Most change is done through no effort or desire on our part.  It just happens.  It’s what you do with these “unanticipated changes” that will determine your level of happiness or grief in your life.  I had major changes overturn my life several years ago.  I would never have imagined what I was about to undergo.  But I have a faith that God will never desert me.  I have a faith that allows me to know He will get me through the worst of situations coming out fully intact.  Because of this faith I have not only survived several years of great loss but am thriving today.  Today, I welcome change.  I don’t let it overwhelm me.  I know that the change is for my benefit.  I know it will turn out for my good.  Having this ongoing mental attitude of good expectation, I will always have the best come from any situation. 

When you are immune to allowing change to overwhelm you, you dance with delight in seeing what each day will bring.  Whatever it brings will not disturb you.  I can attest that this is a great way to live.  No change is unsurmountable.  No change has the power to overwhelm or swallow me up in feelings of sadness or depression.  Do I not have such moments?  Yes, but they are just that –only moments, not lifetimes of grief and sorrow.

If you’d like to experience this same level of optimism and have a shield of protection from the world’s challenges the answer is actually pretty easy.  Having faith.  Practice your ability to have faith.  Make that your New Year goal, your promise to yourself.  Increase your level of faith.  Increase it by building relationship with the Source – God.

This statement was taken from Our Daily Bread, December 7th daily devotional.  The thought was focused on how many times youth is minimized as not having as much value to those of an older age.  Most of the heroes we see in our history were men and women of very young years but very mature hearts. 

I have found that those of us of with longer time on this earth forget that Passion pervades when we are young.  Life is an adventure waiting to happen for us when we are young.  Optimism and longing to “get the show on the road” was what propelled us to be successes in our lives.  To discount the power, bravery and creativity of youth is foolish.  They hold the advances, the imagination and boundless energy which will mold and change our world for the better in their hands. 

The worst thing a adult of any age can do to our children and young adults is to burden them with our pessimistic view of the world that many times we’ve allowed ourselves to become mired in.  We, as older adults, have chosen to throw away our dreams, to become cynical with the changes we see in the world that we may not necessarily agree with. And often times we pass our despair and feelings of hopelessness onto this beautiful optimistic growing generation.  They look to us for guidance and encouragement.  But often are responded to with dismissal and cynicism.  If you received this type of feedback from your parents and the older generation around you as you were growing up, all I can say is “I’m sorry”.  For you obviously were not given the proper attention and encouragement that was due you.  Yes, I believe that young people are due parental love and respect and the encouragement and wisdom of those much older then them.

History has shown that even if a child grows up in a difficult home life, by having just one adult that cared about them, their youthful successes, and their dreams of the future, this child grows up to be a strong, thriving adult.  We owe it to today’s youth to give guidance, encouragement, and love so they will have a step-up in life.  The world is a harsh and sometimes cruel place to live, so we must do everything we can to help our young people be as confident in themselves as they can be.  It’s our moral obligation to be proper role-models for our children, our young people.  Are you living a good example for the youth around you? 

I always like to say “words are cheap” it’s your actions that tell the real story about you.  What stories are you creating in your life.  Will it be great legacy to your time here on earth or will it be a tale of tragedy?

         Shout for joy to the Lord, all the Earth.  Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

         Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us, and we are His.  We are his people, the sheep of His pasture.

         Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 

         For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

                                                                              Psalm 100

As we enter into the season of thanksgiving and love may we remember that we have much to give praise to God about.  Life, despite its challenges, is about giving thanks for what we have.  May you always remember to give thanks:  to family, to loved ones, to colleagues and most importantly, to God.

I am sure many are wondering the imminent question:  WHY?  Why would God allow such devastation.  Why does this type of earthly devastation keep happening.  No one knows the real answer.  But, what came to mind to me today during my prayer work was that God has ways to get our attention.  On a very real personal basis, HE chooses to put us through trials of fire.  I, myself, experience this exactly four years ago and continued to live through the trial for more then a couple of years.  I didn’t feel like GOD was punishing me.  But, I did feel that HE was very much trying to get my attention.  HE forced me down on my knees (literally and figuratively) to pay attention to what HE wanted me to focus on.  This wasn’t exactly what I was paying attention to, but it was clear God had something else in mind for me.  HE had to make the “attention-getting” process severe enough for me to actually STOP everything I was so involved in and forced me to pay attention to what HE wanted from my life.

Maybe these bouts of “Mother Nature’s fury” are God’s way of getting us to pay attention to what we have lost focus on.  Maybe we have become too self-absorbed with the “ways of the world” that HE finally has said ENOUGH!  Have our behaviors become too destructive?  Have we lost sight of the only two requirements HE demands from us:  Love God above all things and love thy neighbor as you love yourself?  Has our collective consciousness lost sight of these commandments.  These are NOT suggestions.  These are God’s Laws.  If we choose to not follow them, to continually violate them in our individual and societal practices, what are the consequences of these violations? After All, GOD is Mother Nature in it’s most basic and powerful form.

Beyond rallying to help our fellow countrymen in the clean-up of this aftermath, we should also be examining our hearts to see if our behaviors need to be refocused to loving our fellow men and women.  Doing so in all times, good and bad.

“The story of Titanic II is quite ironic.  But it also makes me think of the original Titanic and the danger of misplaced trust.  The builders of that ocean liner were absolutely confident that their ship was unsinkable.  But how wrong they were!  The prophet Jeremiah from the Bible reminds us: ’Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord’ (Jer: 17:5)

“All of us are tempted to seek security in people or things.  How often we need to be reminded to forsake these false confidences and turn back to God.”

This story was taken from the October 27th devotional entry of Our Daily Bread (www.rbc.org).  This passage rang so clear to me this morning as I was drinking my morning coffee and doing my prayer work.  What came to mind was the profusion of political ads and nomenclature that we are all being bombarded with as we are about to make serious voting decisions on November 6th of this year. 

I marvel at the amount of money in the millions that have been spent in efforts to discredit or hurt those that unjustly do not deserve to have their names besmirched by the faceless with money to burn.  These efforts, no doubt, are being done with the thinking that money and media bombardment are the guaranteed way to get what they are after.  They, like those that built the original Titanic, obviously feel that with enough money and mental strategy, they can create a guaranteed successful outcome. 

But, how foolish and false it could all prove out to be.  How foolish and false it is to take steps that hurt vs raise the reputation of another, to choose to destroy vs support the good of one and many, and to believe that man can dictate what might be questionable in the eyes of God. 

For we all know that the Law of God is to “love (treat) all others as we do ourselves”.  Is such current behavior in compliance or in violation of this divine law?  Think about it.

As Shawn suggests in his presentation, we think that by accomplishing success and wealth we will ultimately find happiness.  We  think if good things happen to us (external factors) that we will see the happiness we yearn for (internal joy).  However, just the opposite is true.  We find happiness by first working with our internal thoughts and attitudes and then the external begins to manifest events that bring us joy.  The reality of finding and maintaining happiness and in our lives is in understanding that we need to make a mental shift that changes our brains.  By doing some very simple daily acts, and creating a source of positive habits in our lives, we can fundamentally shift away from being anxious and fearful to living in contentment and joy. 

Here are five easy steps that Shawn offers as a way of making that mental/brain shift in our lives:

1.  Practicing the 3 Gratitudes.  Identifying three very specific events/things that happened in the last 24 hours that you can be grateful for.  Our gratitude obviously is one we express to our God or the Universe, if you wish to speak in more secular terms. By doing this practice your brain is actually lighting up when you are thinking and reliving that experience.  By expressing a sense of gratitude for a particular experience you are in essence imprinting that experience as a positive one in your mind.  Viola, your brain has just registered three really good things that you experienced in the last 24 hours!  Shawn suggests doing this activity for 21 straight days.

2.  Journaling.  Shawn requires you to journal or write down at least one positive experience.  This act of writing, like stating something out loud, reinforces the brain in a sense of belief.  Anytime you are activating more then one of your senses, you are building neuron connections when you go beyond just  thinking about a thing.  You reinforce by the sound of your voice (which is why declaring positive affirmations is so life changing), and this is also done by the act of writing (or typing if you prefer a keyboard approach).

3.  Exercise.  The physical movements we add into our daily lives are also reinforcements to our brain.  In the PBS special Shawn recommends adding three more smiles to your day.  Smile at anyone you meet.  If this is not something that is your normal way of being (and there are some of us that do find this practice easier to do than others), force yourself to smile at yourself in the mirror everyday.  By adding more smiles to your face your brain will register an additional level of the happiness juice called dopamine.  Try it.  I know you’ll like it after you’ve practice this for a while.  If smiling feels like it may break your face Shawn suggests holding a pencil (horizontally not vertically) in your mouth to cause the corners of your mouth to go up.  Additionally, the advantage to smiling is you get smiles back.  Your actions are often mirrored right back to you.

4.  Meditation.  Shawn speaks of needing quiet time to focus and give thoughtfulness to your life.  I speak of having time to converse with God.  This quiet refocusing is crucial to finding happiness in your life.  You can only rid the anxiety you feel by quieting the mind and focusing on what you desire in your life — for most of us that’s usually peace of mind.

5.  Random Acts of Kindness.  Shawn recommends sending an email or connecting by a telephone call to someone in your circle of friends and acquaintances.  This is not done via a FACEBOOK post.  That doesn’t cut it, folks.  You need to send a personal note to someone who you know.  Spending even just two minutes connecting to that person will ignite dopamine in your brain again.  Not only that, but your circle of real friends will start to expand and grow — a very good thing!

Shawn makes a very good point in his PBS program.  He acknowledges that most of us that will say “I know all this stuff — this is nothing new!”  Yes, dear reader, you are exactly right.  But KNOWING is not the same thing as DOING!  Once you get beyond the reluctance of trying to make real changes in your life, like applying even one of these five techniques, you will find that your happiness scale may actually start to change.  If you want to see huge changes then act on these recommendations for a minimum of 21 days.  See what happens to your life after that. 

View Shawn Achor’s ideas on gaining happiness to your life (enjoy!):

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/en//id/1344

“The story is told of two shopkeepers who were bitter rivals.  They spent each day keeping track of each other’s business.  If one got a customer, he would smile triumphantly at his rival.

“One night an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said, ‘I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your competitor will receive twice as much.  What is your desire?’  The man frowned and then said, ‘Strike me blind in one eye.’  Now that’s jealousy of the worst kind!

“The self-destructive emotion of jealousy had the potential of tearing apart the Corinthian church.  These believers had received the gospel but had not allowed the Holy Spirit to change their hearts.  As a result, they became jealous of one another, which led to a divided community.  Paul identified their jealousy as a sign of immaturity and worldliness (of the world vs of Godliness*) (1 Cor. 3:3).  These believers were not acting like people who had been transformed by the gospel.

“One of the clearest indicators that the Holy Spirit is working in our lives is our contentment and our thankfulness for what we have.  Then, instead of experiencing jealousy, we are able to geniunely celebrate the gifts and blessings of others.” – authored by Marvin Williams.

Now one would say that this story illustrates the ridiculousness of envy, rivalry and jealousy.  Instead of focusing on the blessings and gifts the angel would provide to all, an embittered heart opted to choose total destruction so both he and his competitor would be hurt.  I know, dear reader, you are probably finding this story and what it illustrates to be ludicrious in its nature.  But, think about it.  How many times in a fit of anger or rage do we see full out destructive behavior demonstrated in our own communities, maybe within our own families.  Domestic violence, and in some cases even death, are the result of this rage and jealousy. 

While these are extreme outcomes from jealousy, then what about the lies and tendency to deceitfulness that results when we want to ruin another’s reputation.  Our words, stated with the intent to harm, are just as mean and destructive as acting out a violent scenario.  We choose to let our hearts be subject to the lies and deceit of this world when we continue to believe that violence and rageful outbursts are okay, whether we are seeing it in our media, on movie content or reality TV, this display of immature behavior is NOT okay.

 If our hearts are following a path of love and obedience to God we reduce the possibility of being subjected to this type of manic and destructive behavior.  If you ever wonder why should one build a relationship with God this is one of the very valid and basic reasons why.  He keeps our hearts out of trouble so we are less vunerable to be subject to acts of violence against ourselves and others.