Thoughts On Changing Our Words

During this Reformation, God is calling me to change my words. This takes a choice on my part. Wearing the bracelet is just an outward manifestation and reminder to me of Him transforming me on the inside.

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you - Romans 12:1-2 The Message


If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.
Maya Angelou

Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.
Gail Sheehy

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.
Charles Kettering


Our words are a direct result of our thoughts. So many people’s problems are rooted in their way of thinking, which actually produces the problems they experience. A negative mind produces a negative mouth and, consequently, a negative life. We’re all tempted to think negatively, but we don’t have to give in to the temptation. We need to be able to identify what types of thinking and speaking are life-giving and what types aren’t.

We have to choose to think and speak positively. It doesn’t come naturally—it takes a lot of practice. There will be days when you have setbacks, but just get back up, dust yourself off, and start again. When a baby is learning to walk, he falls many, many times before he gains the confidence to walk. Failing from time to time—which you will do—doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It simply means that you don’t do everything right all the time—and neither does anyone else.

If you’ve been consumed with negative thinking and speaking, the pathway to your freedom begins when you face the problem without making excuses for it. Be patient with yourself. As you change your thinking, your words will change and so will your life! - Joyce Meyers


God help me to be transformed into Your image. I choose to submit my mind, will and emotions to Your leading and Your thinking.

Thoughts about our thoughts

I just found an old friend on a blogging site, and I was really inspired by her writings about complaining. God's got me on this complaining Reformation, and I know it will not just be about reaching a 21 Day goal, it will be a lifestyle and a transformation of the inner man.

She wrote:

I've been listening to Graham Cooke lately and on one of his teaching tapes he talks about a time the Lord spoke to Him and said, "Gray, it would be a real kindness to me if you didn't whine about your problems today. It would be a real kindness to me if you just left them with me and trusted them to my care." I thought about this as I watched the pavement underneath my feet and listened to the kids playing tag down the street.

In some parts of my brain, I think that I've become bored and I'm trying to complain about my life so that I have something to do. I mean, honestly, I live in North America--how hard can life really be. Even if it's the bottom of the barrel, I still live in one of the most comfortable nations in the world.

And then my spirit speaks "Hey, you know that if you start whining you will eventually reach the point where you surrender it to God and you will praise Him for His goodness. Why not skip the next emotionally-charged 20 minutes and go straight to the praising part? It's where you end up anyways."

Thanks for the reminder Holly. I for one am tired of wasting my energy on bad thoughts and complaining thoughts or words. It really is a choice, and His spirit is always inviting us to partner with Him.

God, thanks for speaking through Your word, Your spirit and other brothers and sisters. Thanks for calling us up higher into Your ways. I say Yes to Your leading!

Spreading Like Wildfire

Well, I'm really not sure what day I'm on. I think maybe 2. I haven't cared so much about accomplishing a 21Day assignment as much as I know God is making me conscious about my words and the attitudes of my heart. He is creating in me a clean heart, and reordering my speech.

Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing.Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Ps.51- The Message

Most of the "switching the bracelet" has occurred while parenting my son, and random incidents where I am impatient. God is really showing me some nice stinky stuff in my heart! Thank goodness for His blood and His power to redeem!

Our family is really enjoying spending time after supper telling one another 2 things we really appreciate about each other. Anyone else who happens to join us for dinner, gets to participate as well. We can see great fruit in it already! Thank you God for helping us to focus on good things.

Many people know what the bracelet is about, and last night, my friend Graham if he could have by bracelet to wear, as he felt like complaining. It was hilarious seeing a strong man wearing a purple and green "blingy" bracelet.

I am amazed at how wearing a simple little bracelet sparks easy conversations about our speech and motives in our hearts. This would normally be a difficult topic to bring up.
I am grateful for this fact, and that we can all laugh about it, all the while seeing God illuminate things in our hearts.

The topic of watching our words, and how they flow from our hearts, seems to be spreading like wildfire. Lord, let your Holy Spirit burn like wild fire and remind us of Your ways. Burn away the chaff in our hearts, and teach us to think kingdom thoughts.

Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Phil. 4:8 - The Message

Cultivating

I was blessed to be able to have my parents come on Saturday for Easter.
We enjoyed the summer weather, and spent time on Saturday wandering through a few nurseries. Ahhh, I love flowers. They make me smile. I'm not sure why. but I am thankful that God made so many beautiful varieties for me to enjoy.

My dad has a trade mark. He's the cultivator in our family. We teasingly label him "the dirt man"
He's always buying dirt, and moving it around gardens or making himself available to help others with dirt. As soon as he had heard that I was considering planting raspberries, he came bearing gifts of raspberry bushes.

Dad and I spent the morning pulling out a huge load of unruly, overgrown grasses off of my steep hill in my backyard. In its place, we dug out the soil and rocks, and made a ledge and put in some raspberry and blueberry bushes.
As we toiled and panted and pulled rocks and grass roots... I kept saying to my Dad, there's a message in this! We talked about how unruly some roots can be, how toiling and cultivating the soil always pays off and will eventually bear good fruit.

Although I was audibly talking to my dad in the natural, I was enjoying talking to my heavenly Father, asking Him to show me more truths about cultivating the soil in my heart, and learning from Him. In this reformation, I have allowed Him to cultivate deep down into my heart, which affects what I say and how I say it.

I am grateful that He is weeding some things out and taking out some doozie rocks. lol! All of this weeding is unto greater life and fruit. Its always redemptive.

We finished digging just in time for a long awaited rain storm. I walked away feeling refreshed for expending some energy, happy to have cultivated the dirt, and even more happy to have enjoyed it with my earthy and heavenly Father's.

Perseverance

Had a set back yesterday, once again involving my son.

My son is destined for greatness, and does not fit in the education box well at all, so........... things can be very challenging here. Unfortunately he will have to try to stay in the box for a few more years until grade 12. This is a huge challenge for him, which often floats over to me.

I am grateful for EA's who are working really hard to help Matt succeed. I have learned that if I stop, and ask Him, He always has a solution. All I have to do, is to let go of how I am feeling at that moment, and ask Him for His perspective and solution.

Opposition and situations that require tremendous perseverance, are really hard not to let a little complaint slip out!
There is however, no failure for me in this, just a greater awareness. Thank you Lord!!

Thank you God that Your mercies are new EVERY morning, and great is Your faithfulness to me! I can walk each day in confidence, knowing Your love never changes and You are always guiding and directing.
I can't imagine living without You!

Let Go and Let God!

Ha! How many times have we heard that one! So easy to say, and not so easy to do!

God reminded me of it again today. I'm back at day one......... was doing well, but then my son decided to be a chef again, and lose a lot of focus in the process, and mess up the kitchen. Well, needless to say, it only takes my grumpy mood that I seemed to have had today, to blurt out a complaint. The grumpy mood is never someone else's fault............ its what I have chosen to focus on to take me down a road to become frustrated and eventually grumpy.

Choices, choices, choices. Sowing and reaping of what we choose. Its a continual journey with God. Often I choose to reject His easy answer, and hold onto things. It really never pays off.
I really gotta learn to "Let Go And Let God" a whole lot more. God keeps bringing this up, time and again, to help me learn from Him.

"Letting go" means I've got to give up the need to be right, or justified, or have it turn out the way I think it should, etc. Kinda sounds controlling huh? Yup! He's helping me let go of control, and inviting me to the sweetness of surrender.

I'm beginning to see that if I choose to let go, and let God, I can move forward into the greater purposes that He has for me.
Choosing not to "let go" makes me stuck, and limits what He can do. He is a very kind, and gentle God and won't force me beyond my will.

I must always remember that He already sees any injustices, wrong-doings etc., but He alone gets to judge the thoughts and intents of the hearts of man. Never me. Thank God!
He's got the infinite, agape, unconditional love thing down pat!
All I have to do is to choose to let go of the power to reason things out, let Him handle it, and choose to walk in His love.

There are some great lyrics in one of Graham Ord's songs that sums it all up for me.

"You are God, I am not, Oh sweet revelation" Oh yes it is! lol!

My friend Jen has been on a really cool journey with God about choices, and she has some great insight. She said:

God has been speaking to me about choices as well Cheryl.
Choosing my reactions...
Choosing forgiveness...
Choosing to move forward...
Choosing to let others off my hook...
Choosing to see what He sees...
Also standing by the choices I have and will continue to make. Taking ownership of choices that are mistakes.
Choosing to keep getting up, and reaching higher...
Our choices can be so empowering...free will really is a gift!

Thanks for the reminder Graham and Jen! And Matt, thanks for the awesome gourmet pizza!! You're a star chef!

Moving Forward

I heard a good message on Sunday and was reminded that we need to be sure that all we are doing comes from a level of intimacy with God, not from human effort.
This teaching caused me to stop and review the Reformation that I am on with God. I had to go to God and be sure that I am doing it out of a relationship with God and hearing His direction for me. It's always good to check your heart. If He is not asking You to go on a journey of Reformation, don't do it.

I am grateful to God for bringing me these 21 Day Reformations. I know that His presence and voice has been guiding me through this. I was particularly challenged by Cheryl Levy's blog about choices. She had this quote from C.S. Lewis

"Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before... either into a creature that is in harmony with God, ...or into one that is in a state of war with God. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other." C.S. Lewis ~Mere Christianity

I am amazed at how much fruit is coming forth from me choosing to align myself with His direction about judgment and complaining. I have had to make a personal choice to focus on what He is saying, or doing.
It has been a very unique experience in that I am keenly aware of Him walking with me and talking to me through many situations in the day. When He is speaking, I feel no shame or blame, I only feel His love and encouragement to keep choosing to walk in maturity.


God, help me to choose to be a person that is in harmony with Your purposes for my life.

Thank you for showing me how the law of sowing and reaping is in effect when I choose to walk in judgment and what I choose to focus on, and speak of.
Thank you that this very same law is also in effect when I choose to bless and speak words of life.

For those who choose to walk this journey with me, remember......... that each seed that He asks us to sow, will bear fruit.

It's A New Day - AGAIN!

This Reformation, although really challenging is very funny. I am laughing at myself a lot, and we as a family are laughing.

I did really well all day, and so did Matt, until he got home. That's when the challenge began. He's a very creative thinker and hasn't found the value in listening to instructions, yet. So, this is where the challenge becomes great. He is learning, and I am learning how to parent someone who is an outside of the box thinker, and will be a world changer!

We all had to move our bracelets yesterday, but smiled a lot all the same, knowing that God is transforming us. Alyssa wrote me an awesome note while in her classes yesterday, letting me know she had to move her bracelet a lot, and that she loved me, and this journey we are all on together. It doesn't get any better than that!

The goal in this Reformation will NOT be perfection, but growing in maturity. I am confidant, that we cannot fail with God, we can only become more mature.

We are just like little children, learning, being instructed and disciplined by the Lord.

He will laugh with our slips and always give us another opportunity to grow and become more like Him.

And all the while............................. He looks at us with eyes of love, hope, and joy.

We are His favorite!

A Brand New Day

This will be an INTERESTING Reformation!!

I have been laughing a lot already, and had a few interesting experiences to cause me to have to shift my bracelet.

I am blessed to have a son that is "focus-challenged" He needs reminders all day long, and due to his ripe age of 15.......... he feels the constant need to challenge many things, and or complain. If I choose to remind him that he is complaining.......... I'll be going down with him!
This could prove to be my greatest challenge in the Reformation. I will need God's help A LOT. I think God is up for it.

This morning, someone...... (AJM) did not close the Ziploc on the frozen blueberries, and I was the next one to take them out of the freezer.

Well, the entire bag splatted out all across the kitchen floor and into crevices in the freezer and under the fridge!!!!!!!

It only took me a milli-second to respond, which gave me a fresh start with my Reformation. Lol!

I love blueberries!

We have been laughing at each other as a family, and are becoming keenly aware of our words.

For years now we have had a tradition. Whenever we celebrate a birthday in our home, whether it be family members, or friends, we always take time to tell the birthday person something that we really appreciate about them.

I decided that another part of our Reformation as a family is that whenever we are eating dinner together, at the end of the meal, we will tell each other 2 things that we really like or appreciate about one another. Last night was alot of fun! And smiles were on each face.

Here We Go! The Start Of Another Reformation

Did anyone get to see Oprah yesterday with the feature of " A Complaint Free World"

Alyssa and I watched it, and were really encouraged.
I love Oprah! She has always been such a great role model of a woman who chooses to use her gifts to encourage, educate and bless others.

If you didn't see Oprah, there are other clips about this phenomenon by going to A Complaint Free World site.

There is also a fantastic blog to help us along the journey.

I am ready to start another 21 Day Reformation. This one is challenging, according to the Pastor who initiated it.

My family and I are going to do it together and although it will be challenging............. we have nothing to lose. Only great fruit to gain. I don't care if I don't succeed at first, its not about perfection for me, its about learning a new habit that will cause me reap great fruit in my life, and affect my destiny.

I have ordered 100 bracelets for any friends who wish to join me, however they won't be in for a few weeks. So, I came up with an alternate plan, and one that is a little more individual.

Alyssa and I decided to take a trip to the dollar store today and we purchased some girly, blingy $1 bracelets to start our Reformation.
Its gotta be a bit pretty for me! I like incentive.

The men in our family are going to get some kind of cheap masculine band from the dollar store.

Already, we have been laughing and catching ourselves and finding new ways to express ourselves.
Even as I was trying to take the picture, the camera died, and I said "Oh crap!!" Alyssa laughed at me as I moved my bracelet to the other arm. She said, "Don't worry mom, I just moved mine a minute ago for complaining about my sore calves"

We had only made it 1 hour! This should be interesting!


We would love it if you want to join us. Show us your bracelets, and let's succeed together!!! No failures, just opportunities to try again to learn a new way.