A Learning Lesson!

8% of this new year is almost gone! February is coming around the corner.

Last Saturday, January 24, our team conducted our first Identity Formation Seminar for 18 -32 year old Emerging Adults. We had a powerful time together.

All of us learned some new things. Each one of us if formed as a person through social relationships.

All of us have experienced shame-based messages that have warped us in our identity formation. We discovered that grace-based messages can replace the shame.

Grace means the ability to be who you were created to be and do what you were created to do. Grace means that you are deeply loved, completely accepted and highly valued. Period. Nof if's, and's or but's or coulda, shoulda, woulda statements.

So today could be the beginning of a whole new life for you. Watch what you say. You subconcious mind beleives everything your mouth says.

Think and speak the BEST, not the Worst, the BEAUTIFUL, not the ugly, things to PRAISE, not things to curse (The Message). I am available to listen to you and help you.

Hope and Love

We all need hope. If we lose hope, we die.

We were created to live with hope. I think most people think of hope as wishful thinking. For example, we say, "I hope this works."

True hope transcends our mental and emotional realms. Real hope says "I count." I am a person who can make a difference. I have the ability to make it in life.

Our world view determines how hope works in our lives. If I see myself as the "captain of my ship" and I do whatever I feel like, then I exist just to make myself happy. Most of the time if I fit into this way of living, I won't have much hope.

If I see myself as a person in relationship with other people, then my hope is determined by how well I relate to them. If my relationships are co-dependent or addictive, I will have little hope.

If, on the other hand, I relate to people who desire to grow in love then I will have hope because hope is the foundation of love. What kind of love is critical. Is it human love or love from God?

Love from God says that I am deeply loved, completely accepted and highly valued because I am created in His image. He created me to love Him and love other people as I love myself with His love.

His love is revealed in The Message:

Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies.

Which kind of hope and love do you want? His love or human love?