Are You Limping?

 Happy Friday, Friends!

 

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama!

 

Earlier this week, I listened to a short sermon by Victoria Osteen. She titled the message, “Break Through The Barriers Of The Past.” As she began the message, she told the story of a woman who had hurt her ankle, undergone surgery, and seen her physical therapist. The physical therapist asked her if her ankle was still hurting, and the lady said, “No.” The physical therapist then said, “I need you to stop limping, then.” The woman explained that she was limping, trying to protect her ankle from further injury. The physical therapist then explained that if she continued to limp, the ligaments would not grow strong, and that, in trying to protect the ankle, she was ultimately preventing it from becoming as strong as it could.

 

Let me ask us all a question, Friends: are you limping? Perhaps it was a relationship years ago that caused you immense pain, or perhaps it was a job loss. Maybe it was a word spoken over you, and now you don’t get too close to anyone, lest they say or do something that will trigger that pain. Metaphorically, we are limping through life.

 

I get it! I totally get it!! As I listened to this message, if I am honest, I can identify areas where I am limping. Perhaps it is true that this limp will prevent that type of pain, hurt, or challenge from happening again. But it is also true that if we are not striving to become all we are capable of becoming – if we are not trying to reach our full potential in all aspects of our life – we won’t. And I would offer the only thing more difficult in life than the pain, hurts, and challenges, is to get to the end of it and realize that there was so much more life that could have been lived had we not limped.

 

Please, Friends, do whatever physical therapy—again, metaphorically speaking—that you need to do. In no way, shape, or form do I want to minimize the pain, hurts, or challenges – they are exceedingly difficult. I am pretty sure we all carry some. Just the same, you, your life, and your purpose are so worth it! There is greatness within each and every one of us. Please, get back up, stand tall, walk straight, and be proud of the person that you have become. Let it be a lesson that strengthened you, not a death sentence that limited you.

 

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.”

― Erma Bombeck

 

I feel compelled to end this Happy Friday with something my precious Mom used to tell me any time I was having a difficult day:

 

“Now you put a smile on your face, a bounce in your step, and you make this a great day!” – Sue M. Haslam

 

Please feel free to contact me at any time if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

 

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

 

Kev 

We Have Today!

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day in my Sweet Home Alabama!

 

How are you doing, Friend? Anything weighing on you? A lot is going on, isn’t it? There is so much divisiveness, a government shutdown… and thousands of other things happening that can cause concern. All this is true. But you know what else is true?

 

You and I have TODAY! With this great gift, this day, we will each choose how we will show up! We can choose to focus on bad breaks or blessings; we can choose to complain or be positive; we can choose to ignore the needs of others, or we can meet them however and whenever we can. Today, Friend, we will choose our influence.

 

While I can’t make people be kind to one another, I can be kind to everyone I encounter. I can’t meet every need, but I can meet the needs of those I come into contact with today. I can’t encourage everyone, but I can encourage someone. The same is true of you, too!

 

Look, this isn’t “head in the sand,” Pollyanna stuff. Challenges and struggles are real – always have been, always will be. As Viktor Frankl famously said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” Please remember, he said this while in a concentration camp after watching other prisoners give their daily ration to another.

 

We have today, Friends! I pray we will choose a positive attitude. That we will choose to smile at everyone, hold the door for others, and help anyone we see who is in need. Instead of focusing on our problems, cares, and concerns, I pray we will choose to focus on our blessings, gifts, and opportunities.

 

You and I have today, let’s make it count. I will close with this poem:

“This is the beginning of a new day.

I can waste it or use it for good.

What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.

When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever,

leaving in its place something I have traded for it.

I want it to be a gain, not a loss;

good, not evil;

success, not failure —

in order that I shall not regret the price I paid for it today.”

Author Unknown

 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

 

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

Kev

Our Thoughts + Actions = The Lives We Live

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama!

 

Last week, I asked about what we are doing to take care of ourselves. For all of us, there is a point of diminishing returns. We all have to take time to make sure our cups are full, because none of us can pour from an empty cup. I pray we will all heed that advice regularly.

 

This week I want to ask us a couple of questions.

 

What are you thinking about? It matters…greatly! And it really goes two different ways.

1.      Pastor Craig Groeschel once stated, “You do what you do because of what you think about you.” What do you think of yourself? Are you valuable, equipped, and capable? Or are you worthless, lacking, and unable? I have an opinion, but what I — or anyone — thinks about you truly doesn’t matter. The only voice that matters is yours. 

2.     The other is what we think about our world, others, etc. I want to share two scriptures and one quote:

a.     Romans 8:6

6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

b.     Philippians 4:8

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

And why does it matter what we choose to think about?

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,

Your thoughts become your words,

Your words become your actions,

Your actions become your habits,

Your habits become your values,

Your values become your destiny.”

― Gandhi

 

Let me ask another question: what are you doing? It is the things we consistently do that determine the lives we live. Are we who we want to be, and are we living the lives we want to be living? If not, we would be wise to look at the things we are doing.

 

Life is hard. It can be very easy to let our thoughts wander, to fail to pay attention to what we are doing, and to become undisciplined. We all have bad days. It is those times when we need to give ourselves grace, reflect on the day, learn from it, and be done with it. But what happens if we let the days stack up? What if one day of bad thoughts/actions becomes two, three, four, five, six, seven, etc. in a row? Does it matter? Oh, Friends, the impact is profound. What if we are off only a tiny bit? Let’s look at what happens if we are only 1 degree and stay on that course.

 

 “Consider this. If you're going somewhere and you're off course by just one degree, after one foot, you'll miss your target by 0.2 inches. Trivial, right? But what about as you get farther out?

• After 100 yards, you'll be off by 5.2 feet. Not huge, but noticeable.
• After a mile, you'll be off by 92.2 feet. One degree is starting to make a difference.
• After traveling from San Francisco to L.A., you'll be off by 6 miles.
• If you were trying to get from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., you'd end up on the other side of Baltimore, 42.6 miles away.
• Traveling around the globe from Washington, DC, you'd miss by 435 miles and end up in Boston.
• In a rocket going to the moon, you'd be 4,169 miles off (nearly twice the diameter of the moon).
• Going to the sun, you'd miss by over 1.6 million miles (nearly twice the diameter of the sun).
• Traveling to the nearest star, you'd be off course by over 441 billion miles (120 times the distance from the Earth to Pluto, or 4,745 times the distance from Earth to the sun).”

*Source: A Mere One-Degree Difference by Antone Roundy https://whitehatcrew.com/blog/a-mere-one-degree-difference/

 

Please, Friends, take some time to reflect on your thoughts and actions. Really be honest with yourself about who you are, the quality of your life, and so on. We are all learning and, hopefully, growing every day. There is no shame in having taken a misstep, having had the wrong thought, etc. It is what we do next that matters the most.

 

You matter. Your life is so valuable. Please take care of yourself and make sure you are headed where you want to go!

 

Please feel free to contact me at any time if there is ever anything I can do for you. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

 

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

 

Kev