How The Power of Investing Can Yield a Life of Abundance and Peace

Live like no one else so later, you can live like no one else. _Dave Ramsey

What Dave Ramsey understands is the power of investing. He is passionate about teaching people how to harness their financial energy so they change the trajectory of their lives and build financial peace.

I believe in a different kind of investing. While I whole-heartedly embrace Dave Ramsey’s philosophy of financial investing, I wonder what would happen if we embraced the notion of emotional investing?

Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest people in America, stated:

Generally speaking, investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. Anything that improves your own talents; nobody can tax it or take it away from you. They can run up huge deficits and the dollar can become worth far less. You can have all kinds of things happen. But if you’ve got talent yourself, and you’ve maximized your talent, you’ve got a tremendous asset that can return ten-fold.

Most of us simply don’t know how to invest in ourselves. We can barely make it through the day, how can we begin to think about the future?

I believe God created us to have a lifestyle that is dynamic and growing. He did not create us as static creatures. We will find Emotional Abundance and peace as we learn how to invest in ourselves emotionally.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares the power of investing and how it can hold the key to building a life of abundance and peace. Peace is not something out of reach, it’s not something just for others. Peace is powerful, peace is possible!

When we become passionate about something, we are willing to invest in our passion. I’m passionate about my children, so I’m willing to invest myself in their lives and education. I’m passionate about my faith, so I’m willing to invest myself in my faith. I’m passionate about my friendships, so I invest myself in them. I’m not passionate about exercise though I know I should be. Therefore, I haven’t invested in a great pair of running shoes. Hopefully I will be able to retire one day, so I have become reluctantly passionate about my 401(k).

No matter what we’re doing, we invest in order to yield a certain return on our investment. We invest in our children with the hope our energy and resources will yield successful, happy futures for them. We invest in our faith in order to grow into mature, strong people of faith who can impact our families and communities for Christ. We invest in our friendships so we will have deep, meaningful contact and support throughout the difficult seasons of our lives. We invest in exercise in order to be physically fit and healthy. We invest in our retirements so one day hopefully we won’t have to work, and we can enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Identity investing works the same way and is as important as every other type of investing we do. The problem is we simply neglect this area of investment because something else demands a higher priority. I have routinely worked with individuals who stopped investing in themselves after they got married. Focusing on their spouse or their children seemed natural to them, yet, years after the children moved out, they woke up to find themselves miserable and empty, wondering how they arrived at this place?

The great thing about investing is you can always start. Walking on this journey, we have been laying the groundwork for identity investing. We had to create a safe environment for us to begin tapping into our emotions and to find that unique voice that exists deep inside of us. We need to uncover some of the counterfeit parts of ourselves so we can foster new authentic selves. Once we’ve tapped into our authentic self, we can begin investing in our true identities, which can yield greater peace and self-acceptance, more satisfying careers, and more meaningful and enjoyable relationships.

You can start wherever you are. You don’t have to remain a slave to your life today. There is so much more God has for you! The materials in my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, will take you step by step through the process of understanding identity investing and will offer you simple, practical principles for discovering your core strengths and weaknesses, assessing unique personality traits, defining your beliefs and values so that you can become passionate and purposeful in your life.

There is nothing better than reaping the dividends from identity investing. These life steps can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

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When We're Tired of Living a Counterfeit Life

Have you ever bought a counterfeit? Have you wandered the streets of Manhattan and found a bottle of your favorite perfume or a beautiful designer bag for $20?

Did you think it was real? So many of us, whether we knew it or not, have been duped by a counterfeit. It looked real, we thought it was real —until we compared it to the real thing and realized we’d been taken by an inferior imitation!

Counterfeiting isn’t only for perfumes and handbags. Many of us live counterfeit lives. We’re afraid of letting our real selves be known, afraid of ridicule, terrified of rejection. We never let anyone get to know who we really are. We never get to know who we really are. We miss the joy of experiencing the person God created. Living with a counterfeit self, we can never experience abundance, we can never know true peace.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares the importance of knowing and growing our authentic self so that we can experience the life and relationships we desire.

Let’s face it. All of us at some point, whether we knew or not, have bought a counterfeit. Whether we were looking for a lower-cost prescription medication or simply trying to obtain some designer watch, handbag, or boots at a discount price, we have all been duped by an imposter that looked just like the real thing. If we’re honest, many of us don’t mind being duped. We have lost an appreciation for what’s real because we just want what we want—easy, fast, and cheap. Who cares if the item is real, right—as long as the look of status we’re hoping for is supported?

Unfortunately, counterfeiting hasn’t just impacted the world of luxury goods. Over the past few decades, the practice has filtered down into our medications, our food supply, even our home-building materials. What is the saddest to me, though, is the way counterfeiting has begun to impact our relationships and even our individual identities.

With the increasing popularity of social networks, we can now even counterfeit friends and relationships. People are engaged to, and in love with, others on Facebook who they have never met and who don’t even exist. Even the idea of posting status updates makes us feel pressured to present ourselves and our lives as an ideal picture of who we are, or who we would like others to think we are. We become satisfied with a world of pretend people with pretend identities living in pretend relationships.

The problem with spending so much time and energy creating or living an illusion is we never get to experience the real thing. Somewhere in all of us is a longing for something authentic, something dependable. Nothing fake will ever satisfy our souls like a true connection with a friend, a genuine encounter with God, or an authentic understanding of ourselves.

[clickToTweet tweet="Nothing fake will ever satisfy our souls. #authenticity #peace" quote="Nothing fake will ever satisfy our souls."]

You don’t have to keep up the façade. You don’t have to keep pretending. You can experience authentic love that will never disappoint and will never let you down. God created you with all of your strengths and weaknesses, gifts and abilities, for a reason. He doesn’t want an imitation of you. He wants you! He longs for you to find freedom from everything that’s counterfeit so that you can embrace the unparalleled beauty of your true, authentic self.

[clickToTweet tweet="He doesn’t want an imitation of you. He wants you! #authenticity #peace #love" quote="He doesn’t want an imitation of you. He wants you! "]

Blessings,

Lisa

About Lisa

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, author, coffee lover, and wife. My online community lisamurrayonline.com provides a compassionate place in the midst of the stresses and struggles of life. At heart, I am just a Southern girl who loves beautiful things, whether it is the beauty of words found in a deeply moving story, the beauty of a meal cooked with love, the beauty of a cup of coffee with a friend, or the beauty seen in far away landscapes and cultures. I have fallen passionately in love with the journey and believe it is among the most beautiful gifts to embrace and celebrate. While I grew up in the Florida sunshine, I live with my husband just outside Nashville in Franklin, TN.

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About Peace for a Lifetime

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with herself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

www.lisamurrayonline.com

Facebook: Lisa Murray

Twitter: @_Lisa_Murray

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

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What Plumbing Can Teach Us About Our Emotions

 Most of us have had little training in understanding emotions or how to effectively deal with emotions in life. What we learned from our families growing up was usually some sort of extreme —families either ignoring, shaming, being completely disconnected from their emotions, or families being entirely consumed by drama and emotion. Few of us have had a balanced approach in dealing with our feelings modeled for us within our childhood families.

We’ve been left to figure out emotions on our own. They don’t teach us emotional health in school, they don’t show us a video on how to manage our emotions well. Yet, studies show that emotional health (or emotional intelligence) determines about eighty percent of success in life.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that explains what plumbing can teach us about our emotions. Plumbing isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind when we think of emotions, but adequate, functional plumbing is necessary for the overall functioning of a house. If something is wrong with the plumbing, the aftermath isn’t very pretty. Likewise, when our emotional plumbing is leaking, or has a stoppage, the aftermath isn’t very pretty either. When our emotional pipes are aligned and functioning well, they allow us to find the balance we need to build a strong foundation for abundant living.

When I was growing up, my dad was a plumber. Talk of flappers, traps, valves, drain fields, seals, connections, and fittings was normal conversation at the dinner table. My dad loved his job and was devoted to excellence in everything he did.

Dad would often take my brother and me with him to work, partially to instill in us a strong work ethic, and partially to educate us with the hope that one day, one of us might want to follow in his footsteps. Okay. Maybe the hope was more about my brother following in his footsteps and I was just a tag-along, but let’s not tarnish a memory!

I wanted so much to please my dad and learn whatever he was teaching, but as soon as he would explain something, I would forget what he told me almost as quickly. He could show me an Allen wrench or a tube cutter and, ten minutes later, I’d have a distinct look of confusion on my face when he asked me to hand him one.

What I remember most from those days with my dad is he always gave me the job of painting the ends of the PVC pipes with purple primer. I somehow felt that my job must be incredibly important, so I worked diligently to be the best purple-primer painter anywhere.

Obviously, I was not exactly mechanically inclined, but what I did learn from those experiences with my dad was that the way the pipes worked had a profound impact on the overall functioning of a house. If the pipes were laid out, connected, and sealed properly, the plumbing would function well. However, if there was a leak or a stoppage, the flaw would affect everything else around that failure in the system. You might not see the cause, but a leak could destroy the structure all around and result in an expensive repair.

Our emotional interior is much like the interior of a house. We, too, have emotional pipes that if connected, flowing, and functioning properly, allow our individual selves to function at optimal performance. However, if there is a leak or blockage in our emotional pipes, the result is either a flood or a back-up. For some, there is a complete emotional disconnect. Sadly, they feel that if they can cut themselves off entirely from their emotions, they will never have to experience the potential pain or messiness that can result as a consequence of feeling.

Yet even for those who have cut themselves off entirely from their emotions, the emotions don’t simply disappear. They will drain into, contaminate, and infect some area of their lives whether they want them to or not.

We cannot run away from our emotions. We cannot push them down or close the door on them – not permanently anyway. Emotional Abundance empowers us to find the proper balance between our thinking and feeling, and equips us to become more calm, more present, more thoughtful in responding to the challenges of life.

You do not have to remain a prisoner to your emotions. Nor do you have to expend so much energy to keep your emotions locked away. There is so much more God has for you! There is hope, there is freedom, there is abundance we can experience in our emotions.

I share simple, practical life steps in my book, Peace For a Lifetime, that can help you connect your emotional pipes and create balance and clarity within your heart and mind. This material will empower you to build a life of indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

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Why Learning To Nurture Ourselves Is Vital For Us To Thrive

 It seems no matter how early I used to get up in the morning, I always felt like I was lagging behind. Like I was playing catch-up. Late.  Days were spent getting lunches made, out the door to school, then work, then homework, groceries, practices, dinners and finally a shower after a late night with a science project and a grumpy child, just to do it all again the next day.

If this sounds like your schedule, and you’re caught in the spinning motion of life that never asks, but demands more and more until there is nothing left to give, you are not alone.

Millions of men and women have bought into the notion that they have to be everything for everybody and nothing for themselves. This is not the life God desires for you. There is so much more. There is rest. There is abundance. There is peace.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares the importance of cultivating the habit of self-nurture into our lives so that we can begin building a life of wholeness and harmony.

In reality, we were not created to be the Energizer Bunny or robots. We each have an emotional fuel tank, and for too many of us, the tank is below empty. We are running on fumes. As a result, prescriptions for anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication are at an all-time high.

While for some, medication is absolutely necessary and beneficial, there are many of us who use medication as an energy drink to keep us pumped up so we can grind out life for one more day. Too many of us wonder why, when we have everything we ever dreamed of, are we so depressed? Even though we love our spouses and our children, our careers and our friends, why do we still feel so empty inside? Why does everything feel so overwhelming?

The truth is I cannot be the best mother, wife, lover, worker, or friend until I have first become the best me. I cannot give anything to anyone around me unless and until I have first given to myself.

Furthermore, I cannot share an opinion in the boardroom, living room, or bedroom if I haven’t spent time alone connecting with and understanding my own thoughts and feelings. I cannot allow myself to be intimately known by another person if I haven’t first spent time becoming intimately acquainted with myself. Indeed, drawing healthy boundaries for myself in a relationship would be impossible if I didn’t know what I felt like when a boundary had been crossed.

Self-nurture thus becomes the emotional radar and rudder of our internal ships. Self-nurture develops the habit of knowing when something unpleasant or unsettling has happened and allows us to make minor, daily adjustments so we can achieve our goals and avoid as much unnecessary drama and conflict along the way. More importantly, as we are continually in the process of discovering new things about ourselves, self-nurture allows us to dream new dreams, to plot new courses, and to build the courage to live this adventure to the fullest, one day at a time, one step at a time.

That sounds exciting to me! That sounds like real living. We will never experience peace in our relationships if we haven’t first found peace with ourselves. Peace begins and ends with understanding and honoring God’s creation, you, and learning how to build a foundation for life the way God intended.

In my book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share simple, practical life steps that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

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What Boats Can Teach Us About Healthy Relationships

Relationships can be overwhelming. We all want relationships, but how do you know if your relationship is a good one? What does a healthy relationship even look like?

We hear expressions from Hollywood like, “You complete me,” we sing along with the radio, “I can’t live if living is without you,” we believe that “love means, I should be willing to do anything for you.” Is it any wonder we are slightly confused as to how to create a healthy relationship?

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares what boats can teach us about healthy relationships. Yes – boats. Boats are interesting things. They have an individual identity. They have to maintain their seaworthiness and safety in a sizeable and often turbulent ocean. Boats can teach us a lot about how we as individuals engage in relationships. Boats can also offer us a better understanding of what healthy relationships should and should not look like.

I describe a picture of myself in a relationship as if I were in a boat that is floating in the ocean. I as an individual am in the center of my boat. I may be in a relationship with others, and if they are healthy relationships, they are in the center of their boats, too. Everyone is safe, anchored in Christ, connected with one another.

However, there are many relationships I encounter where someone I love is not in their boat. They are treading water in the ocean surrounding the boat. They do not realize they are drowning, but from my position in my boat, I can see they are drowning. The waves are crashing all around them. The wind is blowing, and the powerful current threatens to pull them under the water.

Because I love my family and friends, I desperately want these people in the boat with me. I know the boat is good and strong. The boat provides the necessary safety and security for my journey. So I make my way to the edge of the boat in order to throw out a life preserver. I try to lean over the edge to reach out to them, but they are just beyond my reach. My efforts are noble and helpful, but at the point I risk falling out of the boat myself while trying to rescue them, I am then useful to no one and in jeopardy of drowning myself.

In order to be the most helpful to the ones I love, in order to have the greatest chance of successfully rescuing or influencing them, I must remain safely centered and stable in my boat. I must make sure I am healthy before I can ever attempt to establish a healthy connection with someone else.

How could I love my family and friends well if I am not able to love and care for myself well? The answer is, I couldn’t. I must make sure that I am safely grounded in my boat, that I know my identity and have created a safe place for my authentic self to flourish, that I am actively pursuing my passions and purpose as I live out my beliefs and values with clarity and courage.

For many of you, that concept sounds terrifying, completely foreign to anything you’ve ever experienced. You are not alone. You don’t have to continue living in relationships that demand too much, give too little and leave you feeling hopeless that life could be different.

Life can be different! I share simple, practical life steps in my book, Peace For a Lifetime, that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace in your life and relationships; peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

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Why We Are the Common Denominator in Our Relationships

 Do you ever find yourself having the same problems in every relationship? Does it seem that you are attracted to the same kind of people, no matter where you go?

We typically spend most of our time focusing on all the ways others need to change in order to solve our relationship problems, without ever looking to see how we contribute to the negative dynamics in our relationships.

It takes two healthy people to have a healthy relationship, so the greatest gift we can give all of our relationships, if we want them to be different, is to focus on changing ourselves. As we become healthier, our relationships naturally become healthier.

If you’re tired of the status quo, if you’ve given up hoping that things can change, you’re ready to take the next step God has for you. He wants you to experience peace not only with Him, He wants you to experience peace within your own heart and mind. He longs for you to discover your true identity, your beliefs and values as you passionately live out your purpose. Then you will be empowered to experience abundance and peace in your relationships.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that highlights why we are the common denominator in our relationships and guides us on our journey toward creating peace within ourselves. Peace does not have to be something out of reach, it doesn’t have to be something just for others, peace is possible for you!

Our relationships will only be as healthy as we are as individuals. Look around you. Does drama seem to follow you? Does everyone seem to want to use you? Do you find yourself being abandoned or rejected in multiple relationships in your life? Are you the one doing the abandoning or rejecting? Are you exhausted in trying to be everything for everyone while never being anything for yourself?

Usually, we are the common denominator in our relationship problems. That is difficult to acknowledge, I know, but if we can accept and digest that truth, we are one step closer to becoming emotionally abundant individuals and developing healthy, peaceful relationships with those we love.

In an earlier chapter, we discussed how life and the negative forces at work around us write on the slate of who we are as children. We all grew up in families that fell somewhere along a continuum of what is defined as normal. We developed certain coping skills to adapt to the family dynamic that surrounded us. Certainly, dysfunction is more severe in some families than in others, but all of us began to assemble in childhood an emotional tool belt that contained the tools we needed to deal with life. We did the best we could. We survived.

However, what began in childhood as a set of tools necessary for our adaptive functioning, or perhaps our very survival, we have carried with us into adulthood even when there is no longer any threat to our physical or emotional well-being. In short, most of the coping skills that worked for us in our childhood no longer work for us in our adult lives and relationships. Those coping skills may become defense mechanisms that can be quite destructive to us in how we relate to ourselves, as well as others.

Though we all develop defense mechanisms in childhood that have impacted our adult lives and relationships, this does not have to be our ultimate destiny. You can experience healing. You can lay down the anger, the defensiveness, the criticism and experience the relationships you’ve always wanted. You can embrace a life of emotional abundance and peace.

In my book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share simple, practical life steps that can help you discover healing and wholeness within your heart and mind. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

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Why Solitude Is a Necessary Place For Our Healing and Peace

 Life comes at us. We barely have a chance to catch our breath. From the time we wake up in the morning until we finally drift off to sleep, it seems we simply live reacting to whatever crises, whatever deadlines life demands. We carry our wounds with us, from one season to the next, one job to the next, one relationship to the next. At the end of the day, we’re left wondering why we are exhausted, depressed, undone.

This is not the life God designed for us. Healing will never happen in the hectic. Peace will never be cultivated out of chaos. Solitude is as Henri Nouwen describes, the only necessary thing — for our healing, for our peace.

If you’ve ever felt beaten-down, bruised, and broken, God has so much more in store for you! He longs for you to experience peace. “Peace” in Hebrew refers to wholeness, completeness, safety, soundness, and fullness. God wants us to be whole —physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NLT) states, Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares why solitude is a necessary place to experience true healing and ultimate peace.

As we embark on this phase of our journey, recognizing we must walk this pilgrimage alone with God is important. While family and friends can provide great support, encouragement, and wisdom during this season of healing, we must take all of the energy we expend externally on others and begin to focus that energy internally on ourselves and our walk with God.

I’ve spent so much time and energy over the course of my life reaching out to others with the hope or expectation that they might love me, fix me, heal me, or even need me. So many times I cried in anguish for what others could not give or fix. In my barrenness, hunger, and need, I approached those around me with an empty cup, begging them to fill my broken, empty vessel. Because of their love for me, they might try to fill me. But just at the time I thought my cup was full, I would look down to see all of the contents had escaped and once again I was empty. The cycle continued until my friends had nothing left to pour into my cup, and I felt my emptiness as their rejection of me.

The truth is our friends cannot heal our wounds; our pain is our pain, and their pain is theirs. Yes, Scripture says that as brothers we should carry each other’s burdens (Gal 6:2 NIV), but we only have one Healer and he is Jesus Christ. He is the One to whom we should run with our pain, our fear, our loneliness, and our desperation. He stands waiting in that place of solitude to heal us, to free us, and to strengthen us.

Only when we become still can we silence the outside world. That stillness enables us to turn down the volume on the noise that keeps us distracted and exhausted. Only in the stillness are we able to experience both God and ourselves, perhaps for the first time in our lives. Initially, the silence might be difficult, maybe even frightening, but such silence is the beginning of true healing and peace.

You don’t have to continue hanging on by a thread. You don’t have to carry your wounds with you one more day. I’ve put together materials in my book, Peace for a Lifetime, to provide simple, practical life steps that will help heal the broken place inside of you. These materials will show you how you can cultivate a life of indestructible and indispensible peace —not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but peace…for a lifetime!

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How The Power of Relationship Can Help You Overcome the Monsters In Your Closet

Were you ever afraid of the monsters in your closet as a child? Are there monsters in your life today, areas of your life that you have been too afraid to face, too overwhelmed to muster the courage to conquer?

Me, too. I spent much of my childhood afraid. I was afraid of the dark, afraid of being alone, afraid of being rejected, of being ridiculed, of not being enough.

My fear followed me, like my childhood monsters, into my adult life. They paralyzed me. They crippled me, until I was able to find the key that empowered me to face my deepest fears. It was so simple, right under my eyes, but I never saw it.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares how the power of relationship can help us overcome the monsters in our closets. We know running away from our fear doesn’t work. We know mantras don’t work. Pills only work for a brief period of time. It is intimate relationship that holds the power to break through the fear that holds you captive and build a foundation for your life that will stand solid and strong.

As a small child, I remember being afraid of the dark. I would get so scared before bed that every night I would scour the closet, search under the bed, and peer in every nook and cranny to make sure there were no monsters or ghosts hidden anywhere in my room. At bedtime, my mother would pray with me, and all would be well until she said goodnight and turned out the lights ... then things would get worse.

I could see the outline of the monsters moving through the shadows as the clouds passed over the moon in the night sky. I could hear creaks in the floor, and I would stay there with my fear rising until I could take no more. Then I would run to the safety of my mother’s room. I remember lying beside her bed on a blanket and thinking that as long as I could feel her hand rest on mine, I was okay, and I was safe! You see, my fear didn’t need a formula; my fear needed a person.

As an adult, what I need is not a mantra, nor a theme song, to pep me up for a few moments. What I need first and foremost is a relationship, an intimate encounter with the God of the Universe, who is so intimately acquainted with me that He numbered the hairs on my head.

Perhaps as we start our journey there, we will be able to muster the courage to face the monsters in our closets. I’m not saying this is a three-quick-steps-and- you’re-cured program. What I am proposing is a lifetime journey that begins with a relationship with your Heavenly Father.

I sometimes wonder what life would feel like today if I could actually feel God’s hand rest on mine, quietly, simply, as I make my way through the ordinary and sometimes unbearable tasks of the day. Though I cannot tangibly feel Him, He wants me to know Him intimately and to rest in Him just the same.

God wants to be more than a distant judge with a set of rules. He is so much more than a genie in a bottle. God wants to grow a relationship —an authentic, powerful relationship with you that will change your life forever. Being with Him, knowing Him, trusting Him will give you the strength and confidence to face whatever challenges or fears that threaten to overwhelm you today.

I share simple, practical life steps in my book, Peace For a Lifetime, that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

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The Only Remedy for the Hole Inside Our Hearts

 God created each of us with a “God-shaped hole” inside of us. A hole designed to draw us to Him, and into an intimate relationship with the God of the Universe. Most of us feel the ache of the hole inside, we feel the emptiness and despair that echoes our inner pain.

We try to fill that hole with anything and everything under the sun, except the one thing that was perfectly and uniquely designed to fill that hole.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that explains the importance of understanding the hole that exists within each of us, and details the only remedy to fill this hole and give us a life of abundance and peace – the perfect person of Jesus Christ. He is the remedy, our remedy!

St. Augustine wrote, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in You.”19 Still, humanity searches to fill this hole with anything and everything except God! Sadly, too many people spend their lives looking for something other than God to fill their longing for meaning only to discover how empty and unfulfilled they remain.

King Solomon, who had all the wealth, power, and success in the world still declared all those things vanity, because everything he had accumulated and achieved had cost him so much in time and energy and satisfied so little. He summarized his experience by declaring, “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13 NIV)

Famous mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, echoed this truth by stating, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can only be filled with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God Himself.”20

I cannot pour enough alcohol into the depths of this God-shaped hole to numb the pain of the emptiness in which I am helplessly lost. I cannot run fast enough to get my adrenaline fix of sex, gambling, or thrill-seeking to escape the numbness of this stale existence called life. I can’t glue together the cracks in my soul through compulsive relationships, spending, or eating to provide at least a few moments where I can breathe. The glue will eventually begin to pull apart, and the cracks will become even deeper and wider than they were before. Nor can I simply intellectualize my way out of this closet, trying to pretend in my self-proclaimed sophistication this hole does not exist any more than the God I cannot look at nor believe in exists.

We spend half of our time numbing ourselves and running from the pain, and the other half of our time using every rationale to pretend the pain doesn’t exist. Ironically, we appear to fear the light that would save us far more than we fear the darkness of the abyss that threatens to consume us. As a result, we prevent ourselves from passionately committing to anyone or anything outside of this prison cell of our own making.

What have you used to fill the hole inside of you? How have you tried to numb the pain in your soul? I invite you to stop running, stop reaching for things that cannot fill you or provide the meaning and peace for which you long.

In my book, Peace For a Lifetime, I share simple, practical life steps that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you discover identity, clarity, and purpose. It will help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in You.

_ St. Augustine

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19 St. Augustine, Confessions (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1960), 43.

20 Blaise Pascal, Pensees (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1966), 75.

How Our Search for Meaning Can Bring Us So Much Peace

 Do you ever find yourself bored, unsettled, restless? Have you ever struggled to find meaning in your life?

Culture tells us if we have the right education, the right house, the right spouse and kids, even the right toys, then we will have everything we could ever ask for in life. The problem is, all the things in the world were not meant to fill us, fix us, or provide the meaning for which our souls long. We were designed for so much more.

King Solomon had all the wealth the world had to offer and still declared, Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:11 NIV)

I’ve included an excerpt from my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, where I share why we were created for meaning, and how we can begin to search for and cultivate deep roots of purpose that will not only provide a solid foundation for your life, but will impact your life and relationships with significance, abundance and fulfillment beyond anything you could imagine!

Have you ever wondered, “Who am I?” or asked yourself, “What is my purpose in life?” Why are we here and what, if anything, provides meaning to our existence on this planet? Is this all for nothing? Is there more? These questions are not only valid, but they also are an active part of our journeys toward finding peace with God and peace within ourselves. There is within us all a quiet war, an epic battle for the answers to these very questions. These questions don’t request an invitation. They don’t sit politely by the side. They loom overhead in the routine and mundane tasks of the day. They step ever so softly over the stillness of our souls. We might not be aware of anything at all, except that somewhere what began as a tiny tremor grows into a seismic quake. We can feel the pounding in our ears and the reverberations in our chests, counting cadence, steadily louder and clearer. There comes a time when we can no longer tune out these battle drums. We must choose, we must fight to claim this territory once and for all, or surrender ourselves altogether.

The most basic of all human desires is to find meaning to life. Individuals who experience Emotional Abundance (EA)—the ability to feel and manage their emotions—are not only able to meet the demands of everyday life, but are able to create meaning in their lives and relationships. Anxiety is the tension that arises from that battle for meaning. Kierkegaard calls anxiety the “dizziness of freedom.”14 Existentialist theologian Paul Tillich characterizes this as “the state in which a being is aware of its nonbeing.” 15

If you have struggled to find meaning in your life, if you live with an emptiness and despair in your soul, wondering if there must be more to life than this, you are not alone. For so many years I felt both helpless and hopeless to fill the emptiness that swallowed everything inside until I discovered how to fill that hole and build a life of hope, wholeness, and meaning.

In my book, Peace For a Lifetime, I share simple, practical life steps that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

All the things in the world were not meant to fill us, fix us,

or provide the meaning for which our souls long.

We were designed for so much more.

We were designed for God.

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14 Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 61.

15 Paul Tillich, The Courage To Be (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 35.

Why We Need a New Way of Thinking About Emotions

 We have a glass of wine at the end of the day to take the edge off. We take a pill to numb us from whatever’s making us feel bad. We throw ourselves into work to avoid having to come home and deal with the pressures of marriage, finances, parenting. We use phones, gadgets, and games to distract us. We use the television to help us zone-out. It seems we expend so much energy to keep us from feeling anything unpleasant, anything messy, anything real.

The problem is, avoiding our negative emotions doesn’t get rid of the negative emotions. They are always there, right beneath the surface. They do come out – usually in ways we wished they wouldn’t. Over time, it takes exhaustive amounts of energy to get rid of them and yet, they are still never resolved.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that explains why we need a new way of thinking about emotions so we can actually use all of our emotions, even the negative emotions, to work for us instead of against us in our lives.

Most people today believe that all negative emotions are bad. We are supposed to feel good all of the time. If we don’t, we must find a pill or remedy to remove the feeling, so we can get back to normal.

Even in the church, many see positive emotions as divine blessings and negative emotions as spiritual attacks from the enemy. We pray that God will remove, heal, deliver. We long for victory. Few of us stop to inquire about the emotions we are feeling, to lean into them so we can understand them. In doing so, we miss golden opportunities to grow, to learn, and to heal.

For many years, I felt emotions simply happened to me, that I was helpless to do anything with these emotions. I believed emotions were bad, that they were Satan’s attacks over which my only hope was deliverance. When I realized that God created my emotions and experienced emotions Himself, I began to believe there might be a reason for my emotions other than to torment me. Perhaps God understood there was an area in which I needed to grow or heal. Instead of delivering me from the emotion, He wanted me to find healing in that emotion, so I could learn what I needed to learn and ultimately overcome.

My journey here on earth seems to be about growth. Most of our emotional growth happens in the difficult seasons of life. Growth requires friction. Growth requires resistance. Anxiety is part of the growth process. Maybe some amount of anxiety comes from the internal struggle with the unknown, the resistance that is necessary for me to grow strong.

Emotions are not bad. Even negative emotions are not bad. Emotions are part of God’s design to help us navigate the waters of life effectively. Ignoring, numbing, or shaming our emotions leaves us disconnected, wandering, and lost. Understanding how emotions working together with our thinking creates balance and equips us to experience our emotions as wise guides instead of stumbling blocks.

Emotions are a powerful resource. My new book, Peace for a Lifetime, unpacks the purpose of emotions so we are no longer forced to ignore them, numb them, or drown in them. I share simple, practical, life steps that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime.

Emotions are powerful resources. We will either use them as wise guides or stumbling blocks.

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What Exercise Can Teach Us About Our Emotions

 We’ve all made them. New Year’s Resolutions. We’ve over-indulged through another holiday season and we’ve made the commitment to begin working out after the New Year.

We begin the process of getting ourselves up early in the morning so we can head to the gym. Each step, each day, an act of will. The first few weeks are horrific. Muscles that haven’t been exercised in years are throbbing from use. We are told to lean into the pain. “No pain, no gain” – right?

For those who make it past those first few weeks, things begin to change. The muscles that had initially ached now feel taut and lean. We can feel ourselves growing stronger. We feel good.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, where I describe the important truths exercise can teach us about our emotions. Physical exercise is necessary for our overall health, for us to grow. Yet if we spend our lives running away from the discomfort associated with exercise, we will never grow solid and strong. We will never know what physical health feels like.

The same is true for our emotional health. We will never experience the emotional health or abundance God desires for us if we spend our lives running from any painful or uncomfortable emotions. We will find freedom, fullness, and peace as we learn how to lean into and develop a new relationship with our emotions.

Growing is a double-edged sword. The results are generally positive, but the process never occurs without some amount of struggle, effort, and pain. A few years back, I decided the time had come for me to start exercising.

As I began to near my thirties and the realities of an aging metabolism set in, I decided that perhaps now was the time to dust off my 1980s aerobics gear and head to the gym. That my best friend was a body builder and trainer, not to mention that another sweet friend, Sheila, offered to train with me, I felt was divine providence. This is like a two-fer, I thought. This was perfect.

Neither Sheila nor I were fitness types. We probably had fairly similar body types and athletic skills. Nevertheless, we both showed up the first day eager to become lean and trim. We didn’t know what awaited us.

To say our trainer took her job seriously might have been an understatement. She kept yelling, “One more set, one more set!” I have never been a quitter, and so I tried my best to push through the pain in order to finish well. By the end of our first day, Sheila and I were both exhausted. I drove home feeling sore, but exhilarated. Once I arrived home, however, things began to change. Little by little, I noticed my soreness increased. By the next day, I could no longer walk up the stairs; I could only crawl. Sitting down and standing up became monumental and excruciating tasks. There were moments I thought the pain might never end.

Over time, the pain did subside. As my muscles toned, I felt stronger, more capable. I could walk farther and faster on the treadmill. Steadily I was increasing my weights and adding repetitions. I was feeling good. My physical body was growing, and the results were worth the struggle.

I distinctly remember hearing my trainer encourage me to “lean into the pain.” She would push me harder than I thought I was capable of going, not to run away from the exercise, but to press forward. What is the saying? “No pain, no gain?”

The same is true for our emotional growth as we work to cultivate peace with God. If we can lean into our emotions instead of becoming numb to them or distracting ourselves from them, we grow. If we can reason through our emotions, understand our emotions, and effectively manage our emotions, the more Emotional Abundance (EA) we build into our lives.

It is never too late to begin cultivating a new relationship with your emotions. You don’t have to keep running from difficult emotions. You can lean into your emotions and use them to gain insight, wisdom, and strength on your journey.

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I’ve included more information about the importance of establishing a new relationship with your emotions. I’ve packed it with basic, easy-to-understand life steps that will yield abundance and peace in your life and relationships. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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What Ships Can Teach Us About Stability In Our Lives

 Many of us watch the news each evening and wonder sadly how we as a country wandered so far off course? It doesn’t seem like that long ago when we as Americans were proud of the values we held – proud of our faith, proud of our work ethic, proud of what our nation stood for, proud that we lived in a land where we were free to pursue the dream that is uniquely American — the dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

How quickly things have changed. It seems almost unbelievable. Yet if we look back at the underpinnings, we can see the shift that began long ago, and has led us to this place.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares the importance of anchors to a ship and to our lives. The truth is, just because we’ve found ourselves wandering off course doesn’t mean we have to continue wandering off course. We can re-establish our anchors. We can find the strength again that comes from a strong belief system rooted and grounded in our faith. We can re-discover our identity and create a foundation of peace. It is never too late.

Somewhere along the way, we seem to have lost our anchors. We have become unhooked from something larger than ourselves, and we are drifting— uncertain of where we’ve been, of where we’re going, of whom we are. When a ship is at anchor, that ship is more steady, more stable, its movements more controlled, and its energies better harnessed and disciplined. External forces such as wind and rain do little to shake the ship from its moorings or its purpose. If she slips her anchor, the ship becomes helplessly adrift. With no stability, the ship is at the mercy of nature—tossed about by the wind, left to wander aimlessly through the sea with no clear purpose or direction.

We are in many ways as a society, as a community, as a church, and as individuals as adrift as that ship. Where we lost our moorings, I’m not sure— perhaps when we eliminated prayer in the classroom, or when we began the process of removing God from every aspect of our government and our lives. What I do know is somehow, little by little, we began to slip away from a faith, a belief- system larger than ourselves to which we as a society were anchored. We didn’t pay much attention at first—the changes were small, imperceptible to most. But little by little, we too have become helplessly adrift. We say a prayer before we open a session of Congress, but most of our leaders have grown cynical and corrupt. They are no longer anchored to something that teaches and inspires them to grow in and hold firm to the virtues of character and integrity.

We say a vow before God as we enter into marriage, but countless marriage vows are broken and families destroyed because we are no longer tied to something larger than ourselves. Those tenets that guide our thoughts and behaviors and teach us to value honesty, integrity, and morality have been lost. We spend endless hours and dollars on education in an attempt to teach citizenship, honesty, and character to our children, but bullying, cheating, drugs, immorality, and disrespect have all reached epidemic proportions. We have systematically removed every anchor in society that tied us to anyone or anything greater than ourselves. In our pride and arrogance, we assumed we could teach these values, instill them in our children, and live them on our own without God. What we find is we’ve become a society that is a ship without an anchor. We have become disconnected from something larger that would provide stability, identity, direction, and purpose.

Do you feel like you are anchored into something greater than yourself today? Is there something that gives strength, meaning, and purpose to your life? Do you feel like you are wandering helplessly through life, never sure of what, if anything, you are committed to or where you are going?

Anchors are good. Anchors are strong. Anchors provide what we need to build a stable, abundant life. The materials in my book, Peace for a Lifetime, will give you more information and tools to help you build a strong, solid anchor for your life so that you can create and experience an indestructible peace —not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but peace…for a lifetime!

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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Why Neglecting Our Foundation Will Always Leave Us On Shaky Ground

 Have you ever watched a house being built? Ever seen the concrete and steel foundation formed carefully and precisely for the house that will be constructed on top?

In construction, the foundation is everything. If the foundation is defective or faulty in any way, it can undermine the strength and stability of the external structure. An entire house can sink, settle, or even collapse if the foundation is not completely secured, solid and strong.

Building our lives is a lot like building a house. We, too, have a foundation. If our foundation is not formed wisely and carefully, everything we will build on top will be built on shaky ground. Our careers, our relationships, our finances and our faith are subject to collapse if the foundation of our life is not well-built, trustworthy and strong.

Yet most of us have spent very little time focusing on the foundation. Our culture likes shiny things. We like shiny new houses and shiny new cars. We tend to focus our time and energy on making sure our “house” is decorated beautifully, without realizing the importance of evaluating and securing what lies beneath.

God wants each of us to build wisely on a solid foundation. Matthew 7:24-25 (NIV) tells us that “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, where I share both the importance of building a strong foundation as well as the history of how we as a culture arrived with little to no understanding of foundations and the impact they will have on every area of our lives. The good news is that it is never too late to shore up the foundation of your life. You can take this season to check your foundation and make certain that it is strong enough to withstand the storms and pressures that life will bring.

How many of us rush around busy with life, our careers, families, goals, etc., preoccupied with building our own towers? How much of our time is invested in having the right house, working the right job, driving the right car, sending our children to the right school, or being involved with the right circle of people? We focus our energy on making sure the exterior is polished and impressive while we devote little, if any, energy to make sure the foundation upon which everything else rests is strong and sure. What I have come to realize is you cannot have one without the other. You cannot have the gleaming exterior, the lifestyle, or the status, if you haven’t built your life on a strong foundation—at least you won’t have them for long.

The recession in the U.S. economy over the last several years has revealed to us that the opulence of the ’80s and ’90s in many ways wasn’t real, but was a façade. And that façade looked so good! Everyone had so much—lavish homes, vacations, boats, cars, jewels, etc.—we seemingly thought we were living out an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Somewhere along the way in the last ten to twenty years, the ground beneath us as a society began to shift. We all felt the tremors. Perhaps we suspected something was awry, but very few of us were brave enough to question the foundation. Few of us were wise enough to spend time and energy focused on making our physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual foundations strong enough to bear the weight of the external structure.

I can’t help but think about the motto of financial guru, Dave Ramsey. He famously admonishes his audience to, “Live like no one else now so that later you can live like no one else!” His belief is if people will take a long, hard look at the financial area of their lives, and are willing to make some difficult choices today about how they spend their money, they will permanently alter their future financial trajectory and later will be in a position of financial freedom. In short, the sacrifices they are willing to make today will bring the rewards of financial peace tomorrow.

I wish we as individuals, couples, and families would have that same mindset and intensity in the emotional arena of our lives. What would happen if we could take a moment of our lives, a season, to embark on a journey of discovery and health? How much greater could our impact on the world be if we could check our emotional foundation from the bottom up and make sure the foundation on which we are building is strong and sure?

Is your foundation solid? Can it stand up to the stresses and strains of life? My new book, Peace for a Lifetime, will walk with you step by step to help you evaluate your life’s foundation. This material will provide simple, practical life steps that will help you build a foundation of indestructible peace —not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

The foundation on which we build our lives is

the difference between life and death in a storm.

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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How Trauma Can Wreak Havoc in Our Lives and Relationships

 It takes two healthy individuals to create a healthy relationship, experts say. But what happens when our early childhood experiences seep into, contaminate, or even destroy our relationships?

As children, we absorb a world of big and small hurts (traumas) that we didn’t ask for, we couldn’t help. We didn’t have any adult tools to help us deal with those traumas, so we developed tools of our own, coping skills that would help us survive, help us deal, the best way we knew how.

But what worked to get us through our childhood years, doesn’t usually work for our adult lives or our relationships.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares how trauma from our childhood can wreak havoc in our adult lives and relationships.

Kevin was thirty-two years old when he and his wife, Stacy, twenty-eight, came to see me for their first counseling session. They had been married for six years, but they were on the verge of divorce because of Stacy’s control issues. Kevin alleged Stacy controlled everything in their marriage, including the finances, household chores, and parenting of their three- and five-year-old girls. Stacy decided what and when they ate, what movies they saw, their activities, and their friends. If everything went according to Stacy’s plan, the family could enjoy a pleasant afternoon. But if something didn’t fall in place perfectly, Stacy usually became agitated, critical, and often enraged at Kevin or the girls. Whenever Kevin wanted to offer his opinion or make a suggestion, he was ignored, belittled, or threatened. Those experiences left Kevin feeling resentful and bitter toward Stacy.

During their initial visit, I discovered that Stacy’s mother had been brutally murdered when she was twelve years old. After the loss, she was taken to a counselor once, but shortly after that, her father remarried and moved the family several states away. Since she wasn’t getting into trouble and appeared to be doing okay, her father didn’t see the need to continue her counseling sessions.

In therapy, Stacy revealed she began having terrible nightmares of something happening to her after her mother’s death, or, even worse, to her father. He was all she had left. If something happened to him, what would she do? Who would look after her?

She began pulling her hair out several months later, a habit she was continuing at the time of our sessions. Her anxiety was at an extremely high level and was accompanied by severe periods of depression.

Stacy is an example of how a Big-T trauma during childhood can dramatically impact how we function in relationships as adults. However, Big-T traumas are not always from exposure to a single traumatic event. Big-T traumas may also result from sustained exposure to significant physical or emotional neglect or abuse over a long period, or repeated incidents of sexual abuse or sexual molestation. Big-T traumas can occur if we are loaded with an overwhelming amount of emotional baggage in childhood. Should there be no one to help us unpack and detach from those situations, we are left to carry this baggage with us into our adult life, our jobs, our marriages, and our relationships with our children.

Kevin and Stacy are just one of several stories I chronicle in my book, Peace for a Lifetime, that shows us how we can not only heal from our childhood wounds, but we can build a life that is radically different from anything we may have experienced. We can build life differently. We can build a life of hope, wholeness and harmony that will bring us peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, we can experience peace…for a lifetime!

We are not chained to our past. Through Christ, we have been freed to build a

foundation of peace that will last a lifetime!

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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Why Is There So Much Brokenness in the World?

 Why do bad things happen to good people? How do such unspeakable tragedies strike innocent children? Why is there so much brokenness in the world?

I hear these questions often. I hear them in my practice as I sit with individuals who have endured a lifetime of pain with little relief. I hear them in the church at large. It is here, where we tend to believe everything in our lives is healed at the moment of conversion, that these questions gnaw at us. They disturb us.

Why are there so few emotionally healthy adults, even in a community of spiritually minded, Christ followers?

Life continually writes upon the slate of our emotional identities. And yes, even after conversion there are some wounds that are to be healed over the course of our lives as we, “continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12, NIV). Some wounds just don’t disappear instantly no matter how much we study and pray.

Yet, if we understand the nature of our journeys here on earth, we can recognize that God is always about the process of healing, teaching, and growing us up to become more and more like Him. What a beautiful picture!

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, where I explain why there is so much brokenness in the world and how we as individuals can move beyond our wounds to experience healing, embrace wholeness, and cultivate the kind of peace we’ve always dreamed of for our lives.

If children develop emotionally as they do physically and intellectually, why are there so few emotionally healthy adults? What happens that stops or prevents children from attaining Emotional Abundance—that ability to feel, reason through, understand, and effectively manage emotions—as they arrive at adulthood? The short answer is this: life happens.

We are born as blank slates. However, since we live in a broken world, that brokenness makes its mark on the slate of our identities in many ways. Brokenness changes everything about how we see the world, how we see ourselves, and how we see relationships. Life in a broken world creates broken people, and that brokenness is our universal wound. No one escapes being broken. No one is exempt. Brokenness is simply the reality of life and relationships on this side of heaven.

For example, many children living in environments where they are helpless to protect themselves or those around them learn to see themselves in adulthood as powerless to affect change in any area of their lives. They sometimes begin to experience themselves as deserving of the abuse they attract in relationships, and they may begin to feel a certain comfort in unhealthy environments and relationships because that unhealthiness seems familiar. Because they feel powerless to affect any change in their worlds, they continue in the pattern written on their physical, cognitive, and emotional slate many years earlier in childhood.

We are left to carry our wounds with us into the relationships that mean the most to us. We unconsciously wound those we love with our wounds.

That doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

God loves you. He weeps for the ways your childhood wounded you. He longs for you to be healed, to be whole. Whole — spiritually, emotionally, physically. Complete. Lacking in nothing. Abounding in everything. Every wound. Every relationship. Every heart. Every life. Yours.

My new book, Peace for a Lifetime, provides step-by-step information and tools for how you can experience healing in the darkest, deepest wounds within your heart and mind. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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How I Found Peace on the Road from Brokenness to Abundance

 We have all experienced seasons of winter. Each of us has felt the gnawing pain of barren and broken places deep inside that nothing seems to heal. Sometimes our brokenness catches us off guard and snatches the breath from our lungs in an untimely and unguarded instant. Sometimes our brokenness is a collision we can see careening towards us in the far-off distance but are otherwise helpless to escape. We come to the end of ourselves and we can go no further.

The good news is, for everyone who has experienced moments or seasons of brokenness, wounds that may be years old but are still tender to the touch, your broken places don’t have to stay broken.

God desires healing for you! John 10:10 (NKJV) encourages us that, The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

I’ve included an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime that shares the importance of Emotional Abundance and how we can begin building a life of abundance and peace. Peace is not something out of reach, it’s not something just for others. Peace is powerful, peace is possible!

I watched as the light changed from red to green. Cautiously, I pressed the gas pedal and accelerated through the intersection of this quaint little town. I had been through this intersection so many times before, but never to this destination.

The building was once a historic home, now turned into offices. As I entered the office, the corner office in the front of the house, I noticed two large windows. Old windows—windows where the glass slightly distorts the images outside, almost like a watercolor painting.

In between the two windows was a large fireplace. Though the fireplace did not work, and there was no fire lit, I immediately felt its warmth, as if something told me I was safe here.

I moved toward the sofa and noticed a book displayed on the mantel of the fireplace—one book sitting alone. The book must be important, I thought. I didn’t know how important.

That day, my first day, was the beginning of my healing. I had arrived here after a season I like to call the season of my undoing. Like those in recovery say, life had indeed become unmanageable.

No, there was no addiction, no rehab, or such. That might be easier to label somehow. I had simply come to the end of myself, and I could go no farther. I had reached, for me, the place of critical mass.

Change was no longer a matter of choice. Change was a necessity.

Like everything else in life, change was a process, so he said. My therapist spoke eloquently of a journey. He said since I didn’t arrive here overnight, I probably would not get out of here overnight. He said to trust the process. I did. I had no other choice.  

Week after week, I would stare out the windows—those big, old windows— as we talked. In the fall, I watched the wind bluster through, causing the trees to shed their leaves. I watched the barren winter wield its mighty hand, reducing nature to a cavernous nothingness. I watched as the spring came and the leaves, the bright yellow-green leaves, began to paint their watercolor brilliance once again.

One day as I peered outside, I could see the wind gently blowing through the branches of those old ancient trees. Like waves on the seashore, theirs was a gentle ebb and flow, as if life was being breathed back into them. I felt life begin to breathe inside of me, too.

Peace for a Lifetime chronicles my journey from brokenness to abundance as I healed the wounds that had kept me stuck for so long and learned what it felt like to be whole. This book will give you simple, practical life steps that will help you heal the broken places inside and will guide you towards cultivating peace in every area of your life —peace with God, peace within yourself, and peace in your relationships.

You can experience peace not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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Why Emotional Abundance Is a Powerful Key To Lasting Peace

 For most of my life I felt anything but abundant. I was exhausted trying to be everything for everybody. I was obsessed with winning other’s approval. I was terrified of rejection. I was demanding and critical of myself. I could never speak my thoughts and feelings and I did my very best to avoid any conflict that came my way. At the end of the day, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel. There was nothing abundant about that!

Just because I was raised in the church and was a passionate follower of Christ, that didn’t mean I was whole on the inside. The truth was, I was an emotional wreck.

For so many years, I sat in church and listened to amazing sermons by profoundly gifted pastors. Yet somewhere in the deepest shadows of me, what I could believe for so many others, I could not believe for myself. Other people could be whole, but that must not be for me. No amount of study, prayer, or faith ever seemed to glue together what was terribly broken inside.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted, empty, hopelessly scraping the bottom of the barrel, too, God has so much more in store for you! God longs for you to experience peace. “Peace” in Hebrew refers to wholeness, completeness, safety, soundness, and fullness. God wants us to be whole —physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NLT) states, Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares the importance of Emotional Abundance and how we can begin building a life of abundance and peace.

Emotional Abundance, therefore, can be described as the over-sufficient supply, the overflowing fullness in the area of our instinctive, intuitive, feeling responses as we come in contact with our environment and our relationships. EA is the ability to feel our emotions, to reason through our emotions, to understand our emotions, and to effectively manage our emotions so we can appropriately respond to the people and circumstances around us. EA is the capacity to meet the demands of everyday life and create meaning in order to move forward in a positive direction. We can experience Emotional Abundance in our relationship with God, in our relationship with ourselves, and also in our relationships with others.

I like these definitions. EA means that I am not a helpless victim of my emotions; nor am I required to be cut-off from my emotions. I can experience abundance in my emotions!

Some studies have shown that EQ or Emotional Quotient has been determined to play a more powerful role in our success (as much as 80%), while IQ (Intellectual Quotient) has been shown to determine only about 20% of success. How we learn to deal with our emotions determines more about our overall success in life than the grades we got in school or the degree we earned from college. 5

In his book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman says, "People with well- developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of the mind that foster their own productivity; people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought."6

Emotional Abundance also has a direct impact on our physical health. Experts agree that over eighty percent of our health problems are stress-related. When we don’t know how to manage and reduce the stress in our lives, our physical health will suffer.

Our relationships are positively affected by Emotional Abundance as well. The more we are able to feel, understand, and manage our emotions, the better able we are to express them in a healthy way to the people around us. Whether at work or in our personal lives, our relationships will flourish as we are able to be with and listen to another person’s perspective in order to work through conflicts or disagreements.

In addition, Emotional Abundance can have a great impact on our spiritual lives. To be with, listen to, quiet ourselves with, and find meaning in our relationship with God will not only strengthen our spiritual lives, but will make our spiritual lives abound to overflowing.

Don’t abounding and overflowing sound better than exhausted and empty? That kind of life is not out of reach. It’s not something just for others. That kind of abundance is not only powerful, it is possible!

I share simple, practical, life steps in my book, Peace For a Lifetime, that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

 To learn more about the book, click HERE!

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5 John Chancellor, http://johnchancellor.hubpages.com/hub/Why-Emotional- Intelligence-is-More-Important-Than-IQ

6 Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books, 1995).

The Application for Peace for a Lifetime Book Launch Team Is Here!

One of the best parts of writing a book nowadays is having a group of friends come around and support you and the written words. You could call it a posse but most refer to it as their "book launch team." Want to be on mine?!

 

It's going to be a blast and it would mean so much to have your support!

 

 

Just follow this link and fill out the form: http://goo.gl/forms/f7Q8dxoiUY.

Application deadline is December 8, 2015. 

Blessings,

Lisa

"Peace for a Lifetime" Book Launch Team Application Coming Soon!!!

The secret is out - my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, is coming in March, 2016!  I'm so excited to share with everyone personal stories, tools and practical life steps that will help people discover and experience peace in every area of their lives.  Yet I cannot do this alone.  There comes a time in every project when words need the collective nurturing and support of community, and this is that time.

 Launch team applications will open SOON!!!  

I'd love to have as much support as possible.  Keep your eyes open for the application later this week and JOIN OUR TEAM!!!

Blessings,

Lisa