Welcome to Weekly Topic Saturdays!
Hello all, I pray that your week was filled with joy and love. Welcome back to those who have been with me here at A Golden Dream. For my first-timers, a great big hello there, if you haven't already please check out my previous posts when you get a chance.
Please don't hesitate to join the conversation, there are no right or wrong answers or questions. I'm not proclaiming to know everything, I am simply just discussing and picking topics on things that I personally have gone through and that I know would help someone.
Hello, my Golden Dreamers.
In this Weekly Topic Saturday post I wanted to do something a little different and get more personal with you guys. Earlier in the blog, I posted Ten Things You Don’t Know About Me, where I shared a few things that most didn’t know about me. Remember here on A Golden Dream we are a big family and we should take the time to get to know each other. In the comment section below tell me something about you. Let’s strike up a conversation!
Let’s Get Into It!
In this post, I want to get personal and tell you about some of the best lessons that I have learned so far. Over the course of my time here on earth I have experienced, failed, and learned so many things.
Forgiveness Is Key
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:32
But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 6:15
When we don’t forgive we are hurting ourselves. Our lives are built on God forgiving us for our sins and for the terrible things that we did to his son. The bible tells us that we have to forgive everyone no matter what they did and love them through their faults. Let me tell you, before the journey in Christ, I was the type of person that never forgave. Once you burned me that was it. I was not going to trust you ever again. I had to learn the hard way that even though it hurt I had to let it go because it was making me sick. I was holding that unforgiveness in my heart and it was keeping me from the things that God had planned for me! I could not move forward until I truly forgave. People have done some really messed up things to me and have hurt me in ways that would be unimaginable to most but if God can forgive then so can I. Trust me it is going to be difficult because you are going to want to hold on to it to “protect” yourself but just let go! Forgive others, because at the end of the day God forgave you!
Correction When Wrong
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:11
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
2 Timothy 3:16
Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.
Proverbs 8:23
One of the best lessons that I have learned thus far is taking correction when I am wrong without becoming defensive. I learned this at a very young age from my mother. We are all in need of correction from time to time because we get caught in our feelings and we act based on emotion! We don’t always think logically. There have been times where someone has done something to me and instead of being the bigger person I ignored them and treated them poorly. I am not proud of it because that goes against my character and who I am. There have been other times where someone has tried to help me and I snapped at them because I was in my feelings and they were there. This was wrong of me to do. I have learned to take a mental timeout for a few moments and then come back to the situation before it gets to that. My best friend once said to me “Look I know you are upset, but I am not the one you are mad at! I am not going to be the one you take it out on!” This has stuck with me because it can be easy to forget that the other person has feelings too. No one is above correction when they are wrong! It is great for us to learn from!
Self Care is A Must
Of all of the lessons that I have learned over the years, self-care has to be one of the most important. I have been guilty of giving so much of myself to others that I forgot myself in the process. I began to become burnt out, stressed out, I had compassion fatigue, and I was overwhelmed. I was not taking care of myself whatsoever. This is not healthy, I had to learn to take care of myself first so that I can be in a position to help everyone else.
I can not help someone else if I myself had an empty cup. My cup runneth over, what's in my cup I need to fill up or sustain and what overflows out the cup I can willingly choose to help others with. Like my time, energy, resources, and so on. You CANNOT give from an EMPTY cup. PERIOD. Please learn that if not anything else. Self-care means taking time for myself, loving myself, going for walks, reading books, and doing the things that make me happy. With coronavirus going on it has made things more difficult but it has also put things into perspective for me as well because we never know what tomorrow will bring. Take my advice and take care of yourself!
Questions To Consider:
1. What are some lessons that you have learned thus far?
2. Do we have any lessons in common?
3. Are you a forgiving person?
4.Can you be corrected? Do you get defensive? Why or why not?
5. Do you have self-compassion for yourself as you do for others?
6. Do you speak kindly to yourself? How is your self-talk?
With Love, as we move through this life we are living, there will be many valuable life lessons that we will learn. It is important that from these experiences we take what we learn and apply it to our everyday life. Our experiences are important because once we share them with others they can learn from them and benefit as well.
~Just Breathe...A Golden Dream~
Amen.