Month: December 2016

“Evil will never tell you how good you are, how strong you are, or what a difference you can make to improve the world.
Evil despises your capacity to love, and your potential for good, which promotes hope, and hope makes it harder to control us with fear.”
Stacey iBold Stibbards

We work as a team, my wife and I. Sometimes, on longer posts like this one, the ideas and the heart are hers, while the word selection and sentence structure is mine. This is one of those cases. I’m hoping that my contribution doesn’t get in the way of her ideas coming through, or prevent you from seeing her heart.

As we wrap the old year and start the new one, it’s a splendid time to think back through some of what has hung you up this year. I encourage an additional pause to consider how your thoughts might be trying to harm you, and how you might be controlled by the lies you believe. We’ve come to refer to those things that whisper lies in your ears, and which try to plant thoughts in your head, as “demons, devils, and flying ghost monkeys.”   (We both hate the Wizard of Oz, and especially the flying monkeys. When I picture something attacking my mental health, it looks like those little buggers, but a little “ghosty.”)

Those voices might take on the personality of people in your life today, or people that spoke into your life decades ago. Those offhand comments from aunts or adults when you were a kid are a great example; “He’s not too bright, is he?” “She can’t be an author because she’s not a reader.”
The lies arrive small and perhaps un-noticed or as a momentary sting.
But if they ‘take root,’ they can grow and fester and become debilitating.

There is freedom for you to find by exposing the truth. The heaviness that weighs you down can be lifted when you shine a light on the situation. Bad stuff hates getting exposed and hates the light of truth shining on it. (Ever turn on the lights in the kitchen and stuff scurries a zillion directions? If not, you’ve never lived in Florida.)

My wife started digging into the lies in her life 8 years ago. Your results may vary, but she keeps finding things buried out there. Even now it’s an ongoing discovery process.
I want MY truth.
Not my parents’ or grandparents’ truth.
Or the voice of family, friends or strangers.
I don’t want what is popular and normal.
Nor do I want success, as defined by the world, just so I’ll look successful.

Sometimes it’s as simple as asking yourself a question; ‘Do I really hate cats?’. That led my wife to discover that her Grandmother had a bad cat experience as a child, and she passed down her ‘cat hatred’ to her children and grandchildren.  Now we have two cats; one she loves and one that loves her. But she doesn’t hate either one.

Sometimes the truth takes a little more digging; “why did I put down my pen when I was 15 and planning on being an author?” That led her to a really exciting conversation with God over a pile of dirty laundry a few years ago.

We are all dealing with some pretty ugly demons, but we don’t have to believe everything they say. I encourage you to spend a little time getting ready to introduce a new way of thinking that will equip you for a battle.

Your future does not look as bleak as those cagey bastards (the demons, devils and flying ghost monkeys) want you to believe.

Find your truth, and it will change your life. This New Year’s let’s re-solve the solution to an age old problem; let’s change our perspective, change our solution, and walk along as a better ‘YOU.’

Lies come at you like sneaky little things or sometimes big overwhelming things. They are demonic and deadly, so treat them that way.