Is grace happening to you?
Is grace happening in you?
Is grace happening through you?

I’ve been stuck emotionally and spiritually more than I’d like to admit. Raise your hand if you can relate? Okay, we’re all “not alone.” But, let’s not stay stuck!

Looking to take a step forward in your life?

Want your actions to more closely match your intentions?

Me too!

Each of the themes below links to a previous mysilentscream post that has been helpful to readers looking to make a change. 1

Love – Tired of empty expressions of “love”?

Lord,

You are our lamp,
you turn our darkness into light.
You are our light and our salvation

When we believe that,
do we need to fear anyone?
DO we need to be afraid of anyone?

LORD, help us to trust you as the stronghold of our lives, because when Jesus spoke to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

That’s what we need:
your leadership and clarity.

Please Lord help us to show your love and light to everyone we meet.

As I was approaching fifty years old I sought the wisdom of my elders. I sought out men and women older than I was to learn lessons on life that they had been learning.

Monday I began a series entitled A Treasure Chest Of Wisdom. 

The first lesson the wise would teach us is Don’t Hold Grudges
The second lesson was Take Care Of Your Health.

Compassion Makes Sense

Compassion is more important than pleasure. Many people intentionally blind themselves to the needs of others. When I didn’t listen to my mom my mom would call it “selective listening.”

As I was approaching fifty years old I sought the wisdom of my elders.  I sought out men and women older than I was to learn lessons on life that they had been learning.

I would ask: 

I know that you have spent your career with men and women older than yourself.
In that time you have listened and learned as they’ve talked about their lives and their values. You have gathered insights and wisdom from their successes and their failures.

This year I’m turning 50 and I’m starting to feel middle-aged.
I don’t know how old you are, but I know you’ve learned from those older than us.

I work at TreeHouse, and at TreeHouse we have four outcomes we track and are proud to explain.

Graduate High School

We are excited that TreeHouse teens are 24% more likely to graduate than their peers. That’s great news, but we want more for them.

Plan for After High School

93% of TreeHouse youth in grades 10-12 report they’ve begun making plans for after high school

Today is the TreeHouse Opportunity Fair.

Opportunity Fair is a night to get serious about the future. Tonight we will meet representatives from colleges, trade schools, the Armed Services, and future employers.

This the final entry in a three-part series on chains that lock us down.

To review, “Gotta Be My Way” people and “Drama Draggers” need gentleness; the gentleness God provides will certainly be sufficient.

When we’re chained to self-pity, we “Something I Can Never Have” envious people, need to rest in gratitude and contentment for what they have.

These chains:
Shackle us to selfishness
Clamp our compassion
Fasten our desire to offer forgiveness
Latch us to loneliness
And padlock our potential

There is another chain that anchors us to our past.

Today begins a three-part series on chains that lock us down. 

By that I mean that:

They shackle us to selfishness
They clamp our compassion
They fasten our desire to offer forgiveness
They latch us to loneliness
They padlock our potential

Today’s two chains poison us:

Gotta Be My Way – If we spend all our time demanding that others think and sound like we do we’ll never really learn, much less embrace, what they think.

Drama Dragger – Trying to drag others into our emotional slop so they will make us feel better never works for long.

I’m thinking through what this means for me today, tomorrow, and my tomorrows.

What does the Lord your God require of you?
He requires only that you
fear the Lord your God,
and live in a way that pleases him,
and love him
and serve him with all your heart and soul.
- Deuteronomy 10:12, NLT

Did you have a busy Memorial Day weekend?
Did you have a hard time cranking it back up yesterday at work or school?
Me too.
I was late to my first two meetings as I tried to resume my weekday timeliness.

So what can you do when stress levels rise?

STOP

A few years ago Elisha Goldstein on psychcentral.com offered four simple, helpful stress relieving tips.

Next time you find your mind racing with stress, try the acronym S.T.O.P.

S – Stop what you are doing, put things down for a minute.

We have a thousand photos or so of our Hawaii trip; mostly photos taken by Amy and me, but a few others were taken by strangers, like this one.

This photo was taken on a black sand beach on the southwest end of Maui by a man who sat with a woman videotaping the sunset.

I have no idea who took this picture.
They had no idea who we were.

Life’s like that; we move through some days barely connecting with people.

Amy sat for hours Inches away from people who had been complete strangers.