Let's Celebrate!!

I’d like to invite you to come celebrate with me!

I’m so excited to be launching my business and sharing it with each of you!

20 years ago if you would have told me I was going to launch a business and it would be based on self-care and how important self-care is in each of our lives I would have told you that you were crazy or delusional or something to that effect.

Why do I say that you may ask?

Because I had never ever heard the words let alone knew what they meant. self-care was something that I didn’t even know existed. For a lot of my life I lived in survival mode. When I wasn’t in survival mode I was trying to fix the mistakes that I had made in my life that I believed had not only ruined my life but the lives of those closest to me. I became a people pleaser. I didn’t care what it cost me I had to make the wrongs in my life right. Because my life was filled with so much pain I naturally assumed that that pain had spilled over and become a burden on my loved ones, my friends and…...even God. In my mind it was my duty to make restitution for my actions, the sadness and sorrow I believed I had caused them. So between survival mode and hating myself for injecting pain in others lives as you can see I was very preoccupied. I lived in a world of my own making, I was believing the lies that had been spoken into my life as a young girl, they seeped into my heart like poison and they soon became my reality. How I thought, perceived the world, and how I fit in it was distorted. All I saw was failure and faultfinding whether it was mine or not, real or perceived, didn’t matter. Putting others needs before my own was the only way I felt my life had any meaning. Negative thoughts and mindsets ruled not only my mind but my body, spirit, and soul.

But God gave me a miracle!! —— the gift of forgiveness!

“You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.” Psalm 86:5 NIV

“Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” Psalm 51:7 NLT

This verse only confirmed in my heart that if God could do it for others he could do it for me.

At the age of 21 I accepted Jesus into my heart and God began to do just that!

But just because I had turned my life over to Jesus didn’t mean everything got easier. In fact things seemed to get worse before they got better. I still had my old negative belief systems, thought patterns, and behaviours. As I shared earlier I was a people please struggling to determine what was my mistakes or sins and what was not. How could I forgive if I couldn’t figure out if I needed to or not? If it wasn’t my fault did I still need to forgive? Who was I forgiving myself or others? This became my focus, this is where my mind dwelled constantly.

“Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends” Proverbs 17:9 NLT

This is exactly what was happening to me but in the reverse order. My focus was so internalized, full of fear, negativity, people pleasing to deal with overwhelming guilt, and a deep down need of desperately wanting to be loved no matter what it cost me. I began shutting myself away and shutting people out of my life. It was easier to be alone than always feeling I needed to explain myself and why I was the way I was: Especially when I didn’t understand it myself. In the middle of all the confusion and fear I finally said “ Lord Jesus I don’t know how to figure this out. Please help me to sort out my past. I want to see it from your perspective and how you want me to see it in the light of the present moment , the here and now, and how can I use it for good going forward into my future”.

Slowly but surely he began putting the pieces together (like a jigsaw puzzle) and as time passed; together we began to sort it all out and I began seeing things more clearly as God brought everything into focus and alignment. With the analogy of a puzzle the pieces were fitting together, the beautiful picture more and more visible with each piece placed. Along this road walked I began forgiving the people I believed I needed to forgive and laid the rest of the burdens at his feet (Jesus’s feet). This wasn’t easy at times. Soon I realized not only was my demeanour changing but so was how I saw the world around me. As I focused in on God and his word the darkness was beginning to dissipate there was light at the end of the tunnel. I just needed to keep stepping out holding tightly to Jesus’s hand and not trying to pull it out of his and do it my own way. With each step forward (no matter how tiny) I was beginning to see the good that was in my life. There had always been the goodness of God there, I just couldn’t see it through the clouds of fear, sadness, and negative thinking, and so much more that was enveloping me in darkness. And so as I stepped more into the light of Gods love with each passing day My life began to change for the better. God aligned me with not only people places and things he was showing me the beauty within me.( again it was always there, again I just couldn’t see it). As he showed me how to reach out and forgive those that had hurt me in my life I began to let go of the negative thought patterns and my behaviour (reflections, actions, and reactions) began to change. My thoughts were gradually setting a new default setting and that setting was no longer always negative. The negative thinking was slowly dissipating and floating or fluttering away. I began seeing how God was taking the ashes of my life and turning them into something beautiful. I was beginning to look back over my life and see the blessings instead of the failures. Where once chaos and darkness resided full-time, life was shifting and I could see the blessings, the miracles not only that were there in my past; but also with hope, I could envision them for the future. I was becoming free to pick up my dreams and my desires and fly with them once again.

“Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:2 NLT italics and bolding mine

This verse is one of many I clung to as I was stepping out of the old me and into the new. The words in italics jumped out at me and the words in bold letters jumped out even more. Walking with God consistently was hard for me especially in trying to figure out who I was and how he saw me. Trust was another big issue for me. With hesitancy and apprehension I dove into my bible searching for his instruction. As I began to see, feel, and accept that God was good and truly loved me unconditionally curiosity and hope became the driving force behind my search for love, meaning and purpose in my life.

The more I read Gods word the more I realized he had the answers I was looking for. I realized he knew me better than I knew myself, he knew what I needed, I just didn’t know how to reach out in faith and trust in him and his timing.

Do you relate to any of what I’ve said today? Do you see yourself, as if looking in a mirror, What is the image that is looking back at you? Do you see yourself as God sees you, or are you like me struggling to know, understand yourself, and how you are wired. Do you ask yourself some of these same questions? If so I invite you to come on a journey with me as we embark on a path of self-discovery, self-care, and love of who we really are from Gods point of view and how he sees us and created us….. to be unique and special in our own way.

Do you see the things in my life so far that God has given me to celebrate?

The power of “forgiveness”. In future posts I will share how God’s forgiveness has impacted my life and my ability to forgive others.

Next week I will be sharing part two of three of Let’s Celebrate!!! This post is a prelude of what is to come. It’s like the beginning, the middle, and the ending of a story, it all works together. In this series of posts you will see not an ending but a story evolving (a life lived} as each step taken draws me closer to God and the eternity that awaits each of us. Next week I will be sharing the middle, the here and now. The excitement of the moment and living in the precious present moment. How living in the moment can enrich our lives in a powerful and productive way.

I will share how my business was birthed and God’s blessings that enfold it. Then in the final post in this series I'll talk about moving forward into our future; stepping into our destiny; I will share with you insights I see from my own personal perspective around belief systems, mindsets, actions and reactions. How we can step into the best version of ourselves, being who we know in our hearts we were created to be if only we grasp tightly to our courage and take the next step no matter how small it may be.

Are you ready? I’m ready!! Let’s go for it and explore together!

Have an amazing week!

God Bless,

Donna 🙂