Stories Of Hope & Inspiration

[FineLinen]

In the next 10 to 20 years:

1 — Auto repair shops will disappear...



2 — A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts... An electrical motor has 20... Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers... It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor...



3 — Faulty electric motors are NOT repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with ROBOTS...



4 — Your electric motor malfunction light goes on ... so you drive up to what looks like a car wash, and your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee... Then your car comes out on the other side with a new electric motor or component...



5 — Gas stations will go away...



6 — Street corners will have meters that dispense electricity... Companies will install electrical recharging stations ... in fact, they've already started in the developed world...



7 — Smart major auto manufacturers have already designated money to start building new plants that build ONLY electric cars...



8 — The "Coal Industries" will go away... Gasoline/oil companies will go away... Drilling for oil will stop... So say goodbye to OPEC... The Middle East is in trouble...



9 — Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day than they use... It will be sold back to "The Grid"... The Grid will store and dispense it, to the industries that are high electricity users. Has anybody seen the Tesla roof??



10 — A baby of today will only see "personal cars" in museums. The FUTURE is approaching faster than most of us can even handle...



11 — In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide... Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt... Who would have thought of that ever happening??



12 — What happened to Kodak and Polaroid will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5–10 years ... and most people don't even see it coming...



13 — Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later, you would never take pictures on film again? With today's smartphones, who even has a camera these days??



14 — Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975... The first ones only had 10,000 pixels but followed Moore's law... As with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment in the beginning ... before it became superior and mainstream in only a few short years...



15 — It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence (AI), health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs...



16 — Forget the book, "Future Shock," welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution...



17 — Software has disrupted and will continue to disrupt most traditional industries ... (in the next 5 to 10 years...



18 — UBER is just a software tool (they don't own any cars), and are now the biggest taxi company in the world... (Ask any taxi driver if they saw that coming... )



19 — AIR-BnB is now the biggest hotel company in the world ... (they don't own any properties)... Ask Hilton Hotels or the Marriott if they saw that coming...



20 — Artificial Intelligence (AI): Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world... This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in the world ... (10 years earlier than expected)...



21 — In the USA, young lawyers already don't get jobs (because of IBM's WATSON) ... you can get legal advice within a few seconds so far the basic stuff ... with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans... So, if you're studying law, STOP IMMEDIATELY... There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, what a thought and only omniscient specialists will remain...



22 — WATSON already helps nurses diagnosing cancer ... it's 4 times more accurate and many times faster than human nurses...



23 — Facebook now has a 'face recognition' software that can recognize faces better than humans... In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans...



24 — Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars were already here... In the next few years, the entire auto industry will start to be disrupted... You won't want to own a car any more as you will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination...



25 — You will not need to park it, you will pay only for the 'driven distance' and you can be productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a driver's licence and they will never own a car...



26 — This will change our cities because we will need 90% to 95% fewer cars... We can transform former parking spaces into green city parks...



27 — About 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents (worldwide). That includes distracted or drunk drivers... We currently have one accident every 60,000 miles driven... However with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in about 6 million miles... That will save a million plus lives, worldwide each year...



28 — Most traditional car companies will doubtless become bankrupt... They will try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car ... while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels...



29 — Look at what Volvo is doing right now ... no more internal combustion engines in their vehicles starting this year with the 2020 models... They are using all-electric or hybrid only (with the intent of phasing out hybrid models in the not too distant future)...



30 — Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi are completely terrified of Tesla... Look at all the companies offering all-electric vehicles... That was unheard of, only a few years ago...



31 — Insurance companies will have massive trouble too ... because, without accidents, the costs of insurance will become cheaper... Their car insurance business model will disappear...



32 — Real estate will change... Because if you can work while you commute, or you can work from your home ... people will abandon their towers to move far away to more beautiful and affordable properties.



33 — Electric cars will become mainstream by about 2030... Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run ONLY on electricity...



34 — Cities will have much cleaner air...



35 — Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean, eventually free...



36 — Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years ... but you can now see the burgeoning impact ... and it's just starting to get ramped up...



37 — Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid ... to prevent competition from home solar installations ... but that simply cannot continue... Technology will take care of that strategy in the not too distant future...



38 — Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year... There are companies who will build a medical device called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, a sample of your blood, then you breathe into it... It then analyzes 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease... There are dozens of phone apps out there right now for health...


WELCOME TO TOMORROW

To think, I used to complain about my parents and grandparents being "out of it." Now it just might be you and me that's "out of it."

 

[FineLinen]

Explain God.

"One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn't make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way He doesn't have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers."

"God's second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this. Because He hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in His ears, unless He has thought of a way to turn it off."

"God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn't go wasting His time by going over your mom and dad's head asking for something they said you couldn't have."

"Atheists are people who don't believe in God. I don't think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren't any who come to our church."

"Jesus is God's Son. He used to do all the hard work like walking on water and performing miracles and trying to teach the people who didn't want to learn about God. They finally got tired of Him preaching to them and they crucified Him. But He was good and kind, like His Father and He told His Father that they didn't know what they were doing and to forgive them and God said O.K."

"His Dad (God) appreciated everything that He had done and all His hard work on earth so He told Him He didn't have to go out on the road anymore. He could stay in heaven. So He did. And now He helps His Dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of and which ones He can take care of Himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary, only more important."

"You can pray anytime you want and they are sure to help you because they got it worked out so one of them is on duty all the time."

"You should always go to Church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there's anybody you want to make happy, it's God. Don't skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong. And besides the sun doesn't come out at the beach until noon anyway."

"If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can't go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He's around you when you're scared in the dark or when you can't swim and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids.

"But you shouldn't just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases.

And that's why I believe in God."

-Danny Dutton age 8 third grade homework assignment-

 

[FineLinen]

Nabeel Qureshi (Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus)

“All suffering is worth it to follow Jesus. He is that amazing.” — Nabeel Qureshi

Nabeel was not a prodigal in any outward way. The son of loving devout Muslim parents, Nabeel Qureshi was clean-cut, well-educated, kind, respectful, and quite happy with his life.

But then Nabeel met David Wood, a staunch Christian who had once spent time in jail for attempting to kill his father, and who came to know the love of God through the challenge of a fellow inmate.

For six years, best friends and debate partners David and Nabeel argued back and forth, challenging each other and digging deep to figure out whose beliefs were actually true.

Nabeel, like Rosaria Butterfield had everything to lose and seemingly nothing to gain for rejecting his Muslim roots and turning to Christ. But in the end, he chose to follow where he saw the evidence leading him.


What I learned:

The most powerful friendships are those without ulterior motives. In other words, don’t befriend someone to “convert” them — everyone can tell. But true friendship also means trusting each other enough to wrestle with uncomfortable topics rather than smooth them over and pretend they don’t exist. And, as with Rosaria Butterfield’s story: God is worth the sacrifice.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/n...-author-seeking-allah-finding-jesus-rzim.html

 

[FineLinen]

Sylvia’s mother suffered a stroke.

Over the next several weeks, Sylvia moved her mom from the hospital to a rehabilitation center and then to a retirement center.

Sylvia sold her mother’s condominium, completely setting up a new apartment at the retirement home. She spent hours cleaning, boxing, and moving her mother’s things from the condo, while simultaneously preparing a second household. She was exhausted, but every one of her actions was an expression of
love for her mom.

Shortly after the move, Sylvia’s mother began finding fault with her daughter. Every decision, every sacrifice, came up short in the older woman’s eyes. Sylvia began to break down. God spoke to Sylvia, though, urging her not to be bitter. The unfair criticism of her mother propelled Sylvia to a deeper walk with the Lord, what author Gigi Graham Tchividjian calls “triumphant suffering.”

Sylvia continued to love and serve her mother until the older woman’s last day on earth. Even though the circumstances were trying, Sylvia remembered that her Savior, out of love, had also suffered for her. That sacrifice inspired Sylvia to persist in her own triumphant suffering.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"In this world you shall have tribulation"....

BUT

"Fear not I have overcome the world!"

 

[FineLinen]

The Weight of the Glass

Once upon a time a psychology professor walked around on a stage while teaching stress management principles to an auditorium filled with students.

As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the typical “glass half empty or glass half full” question. Instead, with a smile on her face, the professor asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I’m holding?”

Students shouted out answers ranging from eight ounces to a couple pounds.

She replied, “From my perspective, the absolute weight of this glass doesn’t matter. It all depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s fairly light. If I hold it for an hour straight, its weight might make my arm ache a little. If I hold it for a day straight, my arm will likely cramp up and feel completely numb and paralyzed, forcing me to drop the glass to the floor. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels to me.”

As the class shook their heads in agreement, she continued, “Your stresses and worries in life are very much like this glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and you begin to ache a little. Think about them all day long, and you will feel completely numb and paralyzed – incapable of doing anything else until you drop them.”

The moral =

It’s important to remember to let go of your stresses and worries. No matter what happens during the day, as early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the night and into the next day with you. If you still feel the weight of yesterday’s stress, it’s a strong sign that it’s time to put the glass down.

 

[Jefferson]

Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl 'Will you marry me? 'The girl said, 'NO!' And the guy lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and went fishing and hunting and played golf a lot and drank beer and scotch and left the toilet seat up and farted whenever he wanted. THE END

Sorry FineLinen. I couldn't resist.

 

[FineLinen]

Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl 'Will you marry me? 'The girl said, 'NO!' And the guy lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and went fishing and hunting and played golf a lot and drank beer and scotch and left the toilet seat up and farted whenever he wanted. THE END

Sorry FineLinen. I couldn't resist.

Shame on you Jefferson. As punishment for your wickedness you are obliged to view the following.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ature=emb_logo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNHBMFCzznE

 

[FineLinen]

No one has ever accused us Christians of being fun.

No one has ever said we are a laugh-filled group.

No atheist has ever said, “I might not love Jesus, but his followers sure know how to party!”

And yet, in my favorite story in the Bible we actually see Jesus paint the opposite picture.-

If you’re a Christian, you’ve heard the Parable of the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke referenced in approximately 42 million sermons. If you’ve missed it though, allow me to summarize.

A young son said to his dad, who represents God, “I want my inheritance.” This was the cultural equivalent of saying, “I wish you were dead!” The father gives him the money. The son immediately runs off to the Jersey shore and fist pumps the night away with 4 Loko and Skrillex. [Not a direct translation.]

After squandering all the money and awakening in a pig pen, the son devises a plan. He will come home, apologize and throw himself at the mercy of the father. His greatest hope is that the father will let him be a servant. He can’t even imagine getting to keep the title “son.”

He comes home expecting punishment, but instead something weird happens.

The father sees him from a distance and sprints toward him. He runs toward him and embraces him. Before the son can even get his whole apology out, the father has already started planning the last thing he expected.

A party.

Instead of punishment he gets a party.

The idea that God fixes problems with parties is crazy.

Who does that?

Life doesn’t work that way. Imagine that you messed up at work. Your boss called you in and said, “Johnson you lost our biggest account! You just cost this company more than 3 million dollars. You know what that makes me want to do? Throw you a party!”

Or think about this in the context of a marriage. Have you ever had an argument with your spouse? Not a fake argument but one that lands you on the couch overnight.

You come into the kitchen and your wife is doing that “mad dishwashing” move we all do when we’re upset. Just power scrubbing pots and pans with a vengeance, mumbling the entire time.

You approach her slowly and say, “Heyyyy baby, how do you feel this morning?” Without looking at you, she takes a deep breath and says, “You really hurt my feelings. Last night, you really surprised me by what you did. My mom was right about you. I’m so angry and disappointed. This whole thing makes me want to get an inflatable bounce house and throw a huge celebration in your honor!”

That would be ludicrous.

Our worst mistakes don’t end in parties, but in this story in the Bible, it did.

When given the opportunity to talk to a group of people, the picture Jesus drew of his Father was of a party giver; someone who met sinners with welcome home banners.

What if Christians were like that?

What if churches became the place where failures found new beginnings?

What if we were known for our parties, not for our Pharisees?

It all feels a little crazy, but I don’t think it’s impossible.

Christians should offer hope in exchange for hurt, new in exchange for old, parties in exchange for pain.

Are we there yet?

Nope, we’ve got a long way to go. We’ve still got a lot of things to work through, a lot of progress we have to make.

But when you think about the prodigal son story, I hope you will remember something.

Two people moved.

One walked.

One ran.

And we prodigals are the walkers.

We still have a running God.

And He is ready to throw a party.-Jon Acuff-

 

[FineLinen]

Please welcome Ted.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH7h...ature=emb_logo

 

[FineLinen]

The Father Who Lost 2 Sons

This is about what’s normally called The Parable of the Prodigal Son. That’s only one of the two sons in the parable, the younger boy. The older boy is the one—the other son—who is lost. And the point about changing the name of the parable is that the parables are almost always misnamed.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep is not about the lost sheep. All the sheep ever did was get lost. The parable is about the passion of the shepherd who lost the sheep to find the sheep. His passion to find is what drives the parable; and consequently it isn’t the Prodigal’s lostness, wasting all his money on wine, women and song in the far country; and it isn’t the elder brother’s grousing and complaining and score keeping that stands against him. What counts in the parable is the father’s unceasing desire to find the sons he lost—both of them—and to raise both of them up from the dead.

The story, of course, you know. The story begins with the father having two sons and the youngest son comes to the father and says, “Father, divide the inheritance between me and my brother.” What he’s in effect saying is, “Dear Dad, drop dead now, legally. Put your will into effect and just retire out of the whole business of being anything to anybody and let us have what is coming to us.” So the youngest son gets the money and the older brother gets the farm. And off the younger brother goes. What he does, of course, is he spends it all—blows it all—on wild living. When he finally is in want and working, slopping hogs for a farmer and wishing that he could eat what he’s feeding the pigs, he can’t stand it. When he finally comes to himself he says, “You know, I’ve got to do something. How many hired servants of my father’s are there who have bread enough to spare and I’m perishing here with hunger? I know what I’m going to do.”


https://windblownhope.wordpress.com/...lost-two-sons/

 

[FineLinen]

Dance Like No One's Watching -Crystal Boyd-

We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we're frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be more content when they are. After that, we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We'll certainly be happy when they're out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire. The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when?

Your life will always be filled with challenges. It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Alfred D. Souza. He said, "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life." This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So, treasure every moment that you have and treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time with...and remember that time waits for no one. So, stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter, until you're off welfare, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until you've had a drink, until you've sobered up, until you die, until you're born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy.

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

 

[FineLinen]

The empty chair

"No. I was not expecting you," said Bob. "Who are you?".

"I'm the new minister at your church," he replied. "When I saw the empty chair, I figured you knew I was going to show up."

"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"

Puzzled, Pastor James shut the door.

"I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. "But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head. I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day about four years ago my best friend said to me, 'Bob, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus.'

'Here is what I suggest. Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, 'I'll be with you always.' Then just speak to him and listen in the same way you're doing with me right now.'

So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."

James was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old guy to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with Bob, anointed him with oil, and returned to the church.

Two nights later the daughter called to tell the pastor that her daddy had died that afternoon.

"Did he die in peace?" he asked.

"Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later I found him dead. But there was something strange about his death.

Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?

Pastor James wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we all could go like that."

 

[FineLinen]

William Cowper

There is a magnificent hymn born out of distress, "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants the footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm."

The background of the hymn =

His life was in shambles. He was not a Christian. He was filled with despair and discouragement. In fact, so overcome with despair was he that he determined to take his life by taking poison. Instead of dying, he became deathly ill.

He bought a gun and tried to shoot himself, but the gun would not go off.

In great anger, he threw the gun away, got a rope and tried to hang himself.

The rope broke.

Then, in utter desperation, he hired a carriage in London and instructed the driver to take him to the Thames River.

The driver could not find the Thames River! The fog had settled in so thickly on the town that even a London cabdriver got lost!

After several hours he brought Cowper back to his apartment. He went up to his room, totally dismayed, and his eyes fell upon a Bible. He opened that Bible and began to read. He read of the love of a heavenly Father who loved even William Cowper.

Astonished by the events that had just taken place, he read of the sovereign providence of God working all things after the counsel of His own will. He embraced Him as his Saviour and wrote the wonderful words of that great hymn.

 

[FineLinen]

General Robbie Risner

For seven and a half years, North Vietnamese soldiers held him and dozens of other soldiers in the "zoo" (a POW camp in Hanoi.)

Misery, solitary confinement, starvation, tortures and beatings were routine.

Interrogators twisted broken legs, sliced skin with bayonets, crammed sticks up nostrils, and paper in mouths. Screams echoed throughout the camp, chilling the blood of other prisoners.

“Everything was sad and dismal. It was almost the essence of despair. If you could have squeezed the feeling out of the word despair it would have come out gray, dull and lead-colored, dingy and dirty … ”

How do you survive seven and a half years in such a hole? Cut off from family. No news from the U.S. What do you do?

Risner stared at a blade of grass. Several days into his incarceration, he wrestled the grate off a floor vent, stretched out on his belly, lowered his head into the opening, and peered through a pencil-sized hole in the brick and mortar at a singular blade of grass. Aside from this stem, his world had no color. So, he began his days, head in vent, heart in prayer, staring at the green blade of grass. He called it a “blood transfusion for the soul.”

 

[FineLinen]

Dope on a Rope

There once was a criminal who had committed a crime

He was sent to the king for his punishment.

The king told him he had a choice of two punishments.

He could be hung by a rope.

Or take what’s behind the big, dark, scary, mysterious iron door.

The criminal quickly decided on the rope.

As the noose was being slipped on him, he turned to the king and asked:

“By the way, out of curiosity, what’s behind that door?”

The king laughed and said:

“You know, it’s funny, I offer everyone the same choice, and nearly everyone picks the rope.”

“So,” said the criminal, “Tell me. What’s behind the door?

I mean, obviously, I won’t tell anyone,” he said, pointing to the noose around his neck.

The king paused then answered:

“Freedom, but it seems most people are so afraid of the unknown that they immediately take the rope.”

 

[FineLinen]

Louis Zamperini

Initially, Louis Zamperini’s greatest obstacle was his own mortality. During World War II, his entire focus was on surviving, and the odds continued to be against him. He joined the Air Force in 1941 and was stationed on the Pacific as a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator bomber. At that time, flying into combat was only half the danger. Due to numerous technical problems and inadequate training, more than 50,000 airmen died in non-combat related accidents. So it was not unusual that Louis’ plane crashed into the ocean as he and his crewmates flew on a search and rescue mission for another plane that went down earlier.

What was unusual, however, was that Louis survived the crash and the subsequent 47 days on a raft.

“The odds of being rescued if you ended up on a life raft were terrible,” Laura Hillenbrand, author of Zamperini’s biography Unbroken, told NPR in 2010. “The rafts were very poorly equipped.” Louis and his crewmate survived at sea longer than any other known survivors, drinking rainwater and eating the fish they managed to catch.

But his ordeal and struggle to survive had only just begun. Emaciated and weak from sitting in the lifeboat, Louis was discovered and captured by the Japanese and eventually sent to a brutal POW camp where he was beaten, starved and overworked. Due to his fame—he had competed in the 1936 Olympics and was one of the fastest distance runners in the world—a jealous and sadistic prison guard, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, whom the prisoners nicknamed “the Bird,” singled Louis out for particularly cruel treatment. These events are dramatized in the movie Unbroken, based on Hillenbrand’s best-selling book. Amazingly, he survived two years in the POW camps before being released when the war ended.

At last he went home—he was free and no longer living under the threat of death every day. But now he faced a new and unexpected obstacle, living with the trauma of the past two years and the inescapable memories of the brutal treatment he received. “Louis came home a deeply, deeply haunted man,” Hillenbrand says. Once his physical needs were finally met and the brutality of the war was over, Louis had to confront his feelings about what had happened to him. Every night he would wake up screaming from horrible nightmares about the cruel guard who had nearly killed him and tried to break his spirit. His thoughts would return to his horrific experiences and he would relive the beatings in his mind. Coping with the traumas of the past—what would now be diagnosed as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)—was an obstacle he had not prepared for. He began abusing alcohol and soon his marriage began to suffer.

Fortunately, true to his resilient spirit, Louis found ways to overcome this new obstacle, just as he overcame the odds during the war. Louis overcame PTSD and went on to live nearly 70 more fruitful and happy years, free from the terrors of the past.

 

[FineLinen]

Jaime Georgi

When I think of the definition of insurmountable, which means “something too great to overcome”, the first thing that comes to mind is that all things are possible and nothing in life is too great to overcome!

When life gets heavy (whether you are chasing a dream, having personal challenges, etc.) it is simply a sign that it is time to grow a little more, a test of your faith or signal that an area of your spirit needs healing and it is time to level up. Ultimately, these things only come about to take you to the next level of alignment that is awaiting you.

Personally, I have definitely had my share of challenges that I thought were going to break me. There were days I did not even want to leave the house because my spirit was broken and I knew it would reflect in my energy towards others… Especially when I decided to step into my purpose. I almost gave up many times (in the moment), only to remind myself that at the end of the day I do not want to look back on this time and space and realize I folded no matter how intense the pressure was. I constantly reminded myself of this daily, and had a few trusted friends & family to support me along the way.

Long story short, if you ever find yourself feeling like you want to give up, I challenge you to remember these things:

-Pray & Believe! Prayer changes things.

-Words have power; watch your words.

-Trust the process!

-Everything is mental! Your mind will believe whatever you tell it; so stay positive even when you are unsure.

-Always practice gratitude & keep a gratitude journal. There is always something to be grateful for.

-Feelings don’t matter! Too often we make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings. Think before you act! Feelings change from day to day and sometimes you may actually discover that what you felt was not as detrimental as you thought.

-The time will pass no matter what, so always strive to do your best.

-Always bet on yourself and have faith!

-Create a list of goals that you have faith for and execute the work by listing action items. Then release it to the universe and move on to the next.

-Trigger points/challenges are often an indicator of an area in need of healing. Be willing to heal!

-Pressure makes diamonds, and you were born to shine!!

-Growth is uncomfortable and a part of life. Anything not growing is dead!

-When feeling overwhelmed, its okay to rest & reset. Each day is chance to start over!

-Be kind to yourself!

-Be resilient!

The race is not given to the swift. Even if you feel like you are all alone, keep going. It is all about endurance and getting back up again, again & again!!

 

[FineLinen]

Tenille Johnson

Your thoughts are some of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. Our thoughts and what we believe to be true about ourselves and our lives, most often dictate the trajectory of our future. So, start with changing what you believe about the challenges you face and your ability to meet and overcome those challenges. Whether it’s reciting affirmations until you believe them, asking for guidance from your Creator, or drawing strength from recalling times in your life when you’ve met and successfully overcome similar challenges, choose an action you can take to strengthen your approach to overcoming the challenge.

Remember that challenges are opportunities to grow and expand.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, my mother passed away after battling cancer. I wasn’t where I wanted to be emotionally, financially, or mentally. I had no idea how I would be able to face all that I was up against. I chose to take it day by day, seek wisdom from my Creator & be more equipped to shoulder the new responsibilities that would accompany the many new blessings showing up in my life.

 

[FineLinen]

Life is too tough.

What is our vison when hope seems hopeless?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9lm2y_4cAE

 

[FineLinen]

When God Works through Weakness

Paul David Tripp entered the hospital with what he thought was a minor issue and began a journey with pain and suffering for which he felt completely unprepared. Through his weakness, he grappled with his loss of control, wondering what God was doing in his life, and what good could come from his trials.

Because I did not have the power or control to make Mr. Hardship leave, I ran to the place where I have always found wisdom, hope, and rest of heart. I ran to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in so doing, into the arms of my Savior.

As I dove into the narrative of the gospel, which is the core message of God’s Word, I realized something profoundly important and wonderfully comforting: I wasn’t unprepared after all. The message of God’s sovereign control over me and my world, the gospel’s honesty about life in this fallen world, the comfort of the right-here, right-now presence and grace of the Savior, and the insight into the spiritual war that rages in my heart had prepared me well for the entrance and presence of this unwelcome stranger.