Speak with Splendor

Words of wisdom, words of love, words of encouragement to fill them up.

Words can hurt and humiliate. Words can crush and even break.

A soul, spirit and human race. Careful beloved with the words you choose.

Words spoken should be few....Love thy neighbor above all else.

Words are loving, kind and just.
Words of caring are a must.
Seek the Lord for His ways. Patient, meek and self-control.
Lives that reflect this, words will say!

I absolutely LOVE words! I will spend hours looking up new ones and their definitions. Ohhhhh...how I love the synonyms of words!
What I love most about words are that we use them to communicate with people everyday. Our words are a true reflection of our deepest beliefs, convictions and emotions. Words can tell our story! They have the power to create life or bring death depending on how we choose to use them.  We can encourage, enlighten, empower and educate. Words have that much power! However words can also have an opposite effect. They can be used to damage someone. The old saying, " Stick and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" couldn't be farther from the truth. Words can cut deeply and leave lasting wounds upon a person's heart. Wounding words can come from people we hardly know and from ones we love. Words can leave us feeling insecure about ourselves.
As I have ministered with several women over the years I have witnessed the effect of hurtful words spoken over a person's life. In more ways than one the use of destructive words has left painfully lasting marks. Some of those precious gals have dealt with drug, alcohol and sexual abuse to cope with the ways they feel about themselves. Others have created a wall around their hearts to keep everyone out," pretending all is good" all the while keeping themselves totally guarded from letting themselves out. I can relate to this myself as I am sure many of you reading this can as well in some degree. Women seem to deal with this more often than men. The Bible tells us that there is death and life in the power of our tongue. Proverbs 18:21
So many choose to use their words to destroy. It's heartbreaking and destructive!
Our words are meant to bring life. They are used to express ourselves to others. Words are amazingly beautiful when shared with the people around us. Without the use of words we would be silent and alone.
 I would like to share these quote I came across this morning. 

If the words you spoke appeared on your skin, would you still be beautiful?

Ouch!!!!!...ponder on that a few minutes, my sweet friends. The Lord hears every word we speak even when others don't. I am guilty of speaking words to my loved ones that have been hurtful and has left me feeling horrible. I want my words to produce life and bring hope to everyone around me especially the ones I love so dearly. Every time I put my words together is an opportunity to make something beautiful!

So today my dear ones I will choose my words wisely and bring about life to those I encounter!

Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other. treating each other with dignity and honor. James 3:17-18

Love,

Tina

 

My First Love

Do you remember your first love? The way it made you feel about yourself. Was it a nurturing relationship or was it an unhealthy one? They say that first love is the deepest and in some ways I can believe that to be true. The depth of first love can be all-consuming. Taking over our thoughts and emotions. Our first love often times become the standard that all future loves are measured against. If our first love was unhealthy it may have damaged our self-worth and ability to receive love. We may find that our identity is based off of which we have gained from our "so called lover or provider" and can cause a negative impact on our relationships!

I know all to well how this can affect your perspective on future relationships. As a result of unhealthy relationships I struggled with my identity of loving and being worthy of love. It was hard for me to give or receive love in a healthy way because as a young girl I felt unloved and subconsciously I harbored resentment.  My relationships were one of desperation for acceptance and a need to be loved and as a result I unknowingly sacrificed myself at all cost to have someone "love" me. In all reality I longed for the love of a father which was a void in my life.

Beloved, the struggle is real! Looking for love it all the wrong places had lead me down very dark and destructive roads. Feeling so alone even when surrounded by many people. I felt empty and even struggled with seasons of depression. I lacked self-love, self-worth, and self- acceptance. Oh and the shame that partnered with these feelings was the worst. Afraid that others would see the" ugly truth" that consumed me. I hid it well, in fact so well that I, myself couldn't see it anymore! As a result of the empty void that dominated my soul I was constantly in and out of relationships from a very young age. With each break up and rejection I lost a little bit more of myself!  Unfortunately this cycle continued into my adult years and remained a huge obstacle in every area of my life which ultimately created a deep crater of wounds upon my heart. Until that glorious day that I met and experienced the true love of a Father. Truthfully, in my pain God had always been close to me and I didn't even realize it.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Psalm 34:18

The love of a Father, there is truly nothing like it. It changes hearts, circumstances, brings hope and heals all wounds. It empowers lives! It has empowered mine. He is and should be the example of our first love. "For God so loved the world." Yep, that includes you and me, my friend. I know it can be how to fathom when you have felt forsaken by the ones who are suppose to love you well. My dears, He desires to be our first love. The One who wants to wipe away every tear and heal every hurt. The One who's heart breaks because our hearts are broken. The One who stretched out His arms of love and died for us.
 Our Father will turn every tear we've cried into joy, and use our deep pains for a divine purpose. We can't hide our hurts from Him because he knows everything about us! My dear ones, He is the only one that can handle our rejection, shame and hurts. Only God can restore us to wholeness again. We don't have to earn His love, we have always had it! He longs to see us set free from searching for love in all the wrong places.
Therefore we are free! Free to love ourselves despite our past relationships. We are designed to love and be loved unconditionally and abundantly.
So don't forget your first love!  Encounter LOVE AND LET IT BE ALL-CONSUMING!  Rejection and all.......
 

We love him, because he first loved us.  1John 4:19

Love,

Tina

A Fresh Morning

Mornings are the best time, in my opinion. The light of a new day holds so many possibilities. Even the sounds sing hope! Birds chirping, the sun peeking out to greet you and the stillness that surrounds the sunrise. It's a time to reflect on new opportunities, letting go of yesterdays hurts, disappointments, overwhelming schedules and looking ahead to new beginnings. A brand new pencil on an empty page. After all it's our story!
New days are unique gifts that the Father lavishes upon us  which empowers us with fresh strength and brand-new thoughts. They create opportunities for us to change something in our lives. A chance to heal, a chance to love and a chance to forgive.  Don't be afraid to embrace it, my beloved. Rise up and move forward, let yesterday go and start today like it's the very first day of your life!

How is life treating you? Frazzled? For me some days seem to suck the life right out of my lungs. Those days I feel physically and emotionally depleted. Or should I dare to say, done for! Like being ran over by a herd of elephants! Running my own business, heading up a ministry, being a wife and a mother, taxi driver and all the above, can definitely be too much to deal with at times. I become cranky and frustrated with the many demands that my life consist of day after day. Somedays it becomes so overwhelming that it's difficult to be grateful and satisfied.

In fact, there are days I find it hard to even think about having to wake up in the morning and doing it all again. Can I get an amen or is it just me?!? I call this, "Groundhog Day." You remember the 1993 movie where Bill Murray is caught in a personal time warp on the worst day of his life. He wakes each morning with the same day over and over again. Do you ever have deja vu?? Sound familiar, friends? Well, the good news is, that we don't have to have a repeat of the day before! You don't have to relive groundhog day beacause our  joy comes in the morning.

 Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5

Life can be tough. no doubt! Days can be long and difficult. Things go wrong but things will always get better. You may be in a storm right now but it can't rain forever. Let those times of hardship help you to appreciate the good times and look forward to a new day. A fresh start. God is there waiting to meet with you. So don't start your day with the broken pieces of yesterday. It's time to let go, renew your thoughts and look ahead to greater things. Let's get excited about today, it's our brand new day! Together we can learn more about ourselves, more about others. We can laugh more than we did yesterday. Accomplish more than we ever thought possible and be more than we were before! We are tougher than we ever imagined we could be.

So shine on, you beautiful daughters! Shine On........ Today is your new day!

 His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Lamentations 3:22-23

Love,

Tina

Sometimes You Just Need To Stop And Listen

Are you the planner type? You know the ones..calendar in hand, pen behind the ear. They have their days planned out months in advance, list of to do's and a sense of accomplishment. Now don't take this the wrong way my lovelies.Of course it's important for us to have our life in some sort of order, right?? If not we would all be "hot messes." After all, we have appointments that need to be scheduled, deadlines to meet, kids to pick up, groceries to buy, phone calls to make. Alright, you get my point! I, myself am a planner. In fact I have two daily planners! Because life can be pretty busy....(I need a nap just thinking about it) But what happens when God comes along and erases some of our plans and begins to write His own on the pages. We may begin to panic and even sweat a little. We may find that we lose some of our control, which may make us simply uncomfortable.

Well, right now, God is writing his plans on the lines of my calendar and some of those plans make me extremely uncomfortable. Some days seem a lot harder to wait and listen, however I have come to realize that this is quite common when you are moving through life with God. I must admit I am not one who waits easily. Sitting still can be rather difficult especially when my mind is racing with thoughts and new ideas and I glance down at my calendar to see a week full of activities. Most of the time I am out of the gate before the whistle blows. Full steam ahead! Surely God knows this about His daughter and can understand why this can be so difficult for me after all this is how he fashioned me.....creative, always planning and ready to take on the world! A true visionary with big plans and God size dreams!

Waiting can seem like a life time. We can become frustrated and weary waiting on direction. "God, I need a plan!" Now becomes the cry of your heart. Little do we know, in that very moment that behind the scene God is putting things in motion, his way. The only way he can! In the midst of some of my temper tantrums (yes, I have had quite a few of those on occasions. I knew that's hard for y'all to imagine but it's true..hahaha) God quiets my soul and my thoughts so that He can speak deeper to my heart. And clear a path for rest and stillness.

You see girls, we don't have to have it all figured out, hour by hour. Stressing, worrying and fearing...all these emotions will just create an atmosphere of chaos and a sense of being overwhelmed with life. But if we listen and wait on the direction of our Father, in our time of waiting, we develop the art of patience, trust and rest. Our Father knows all things and is constantly working them together for our good and knitting every detail into place. I am so grateful for these times of stillness in my life. Even though I may fight it in the beginning. It is so worth it in the end!
So put down your "To Do" list and let God write out your plans today!

We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps. Proverbs 16:9

I also just love this scripture in Psalms.

I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart. Psalm 40:8 

Love,
Tina