Monday Inspiration: April 11, 2016

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By: Gabriela Yareliz

This week is going to be like climbing a mountain. Monday was the “strap-on-the-backpack” day. And how about those taxes? *eyes as big as tomatoes*

Adulting is hard. Learning things and trying to figure out life when you don’t quite understand what the heck you are doing… That requires bravery, my friends. We must be brave to keep pressing on when we don’t know exactly where the road is going. We know it’s somewhere good, though.

I was reminded today, of this girl I met when I was a little girl. She had a bunch of trinkets and pins that I admired, and one day, when I was over at her house, she not only shared with me but insisted that I keep a pin. I insisted on having her keep her pin, but she was generous and pointed out to me that she had many pins. I was delighted. On the car ride home, I watched the sun glimmer off of the cool little pin that had been gifted to me. I still remember that feeling.

We are often blessed with so much. It’s so important to share what we have. It’s amazing to give and amazing to be on the receiving end. We’ll all experience both, at some point. This is a call to be more intentional in giving. We can’t really control or expect when we will be recipients, but we can make the effort to be the one who gives.

Give. As we give pieces of ourselves, we will not be forgotten.

Wishing you an amazing week!

And always, expect miracles.

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“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Howard Thurman

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“I will not find the desire within me to seek God, He must instill within my soul a longing, and out of that longing must be a ready and willing heart to obey. If I ask God to guide me, He will make it clear that He has been here all along, and in that revealing of Himself, I can step out of my boat and walk toward Him. This faith that I hope to live, is not me building it, but God shaping and changing it daily; for He is making something inside of me that will be known for all eternity, and that thing that He is doing must be surrendered up to Christ so that His kingdom can be expanded. My whole life must be one repeated prayer of ‘Not my will, but Yours be done.’ until my final breath.”
T.B. LaBerge // Jesus, His Grace, and the Gospel.

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“I am in love, and out of it I will not go.”
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

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“The ache of wishes not fulfilled can consume you if you think that life is about your expectations. Don’t you know that life is more than plans not achieved? Life is so much bigger than that, life is meant to be lived not just planned. Let go, love and give yourself room to grow, that ache does not define you.”
T.B. LaBerge // Go Now

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“I think there is a certain age, for women, when you become fearless. It may be a different age for every woman, I don’t know. It’s not that you stop fearing things: I’m still afraid of heights, for example. Or rather, of falling — heights aren’t the problem. But you stop fearing life itself. It’s when you become fearless in that way that you decide to live. Perhaps it’s when you come to the realization that the point of life isn’t to be rich, or secure, or even to be loved — to be any of the things that people usually think is the point. The point of life is to live as deeply as possible, to experience fully. And that can be done in so many ways.” Theodora Goss

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“A man who focuses on the dark, when holding a lantern, instead of what the light provides, is bound to trip and fall. We must not look into the corners of darkness when we have the light of truth in our lives, for we are called into the light of God and that is the only source that will guide us, and others, home. ”
T.B. LaBerge // Go Now

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“God often waits until we’re out of ideas before He lets us know His plans. He competes for our hearts, not our attention .” Bob Goff

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“The world breaks everyone, but afterward, many are strong in broken places.” Ernest Hemingway

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“No matter how your day is going, you are growing. Repeat to yourself, ‘I am growing. I am learning. I am being. I am. That is enough.”
(via creative-storm)

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[Images from Tumblr and Pinterest]

Reflections Before Bedtime #81

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I just finished what is probably one of the best books I have read in years: Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson.

Attorney Stevenson’s non-fiction account of many of the cases he took on to save people from execution on death row are haunting, memorable– and pretty much each story will fill your eyes with tears. I spent several blurry-visioned hours on the train reading this book. So many tears. Some were happy tears; others were sad tears. Some were just my-soul-is-moved-and-I-feel-so-broken tears.

Stevenson highlights our system, society and government’s failure; the lack of racial and economic equality; and the consequences we set in motion and disasters we perpetuate when we forget that justice and redemption hold hands.

My favorite part of the book was part of his own reflection that I really identified with, which reads: “I understood that I don’t do what I do because it’s required or necessary or important. I don’t do it because I have no choice. I do what I do because I am broken, too.” Just Mercy, Stevenson, pg. 289.

Stevenson quotes Thomas Merton saying, “Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would have never chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.” Id.

What will you choose to do with your brokenness? Who will you choose to reach? Will you hide in anger, fear and distance?

I pray to God that I can use my brokenness to help others. “Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument,” Reinhold Niebuhr said.

And when things get overwhelming and the world’s tragedies break me, it will be okay, because He (God) says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Rosa Parks once told Bryan Stevenson that to do the type of service work he does, he will get “tired, tired, tired,” and he needs to be “brave, brave, brave.” Id. at 293.

Stevenson wrote, “The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It’s when mercy is least expected that it’s most potent–” Id. at 294.

I have been a recipient of mercy. In fact, we all have. I want to give mercy. I want to be brave. The world’s pain and injustices have already made me tired, so I hope that means I am well on my way. 

Monday Inspiration: April 4, 2016

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By: Gabriela Yareliz

Who knows what this week holds in store for us. I just pray that whatever comes, we will be ready to face it.

This weekend, it was windy and springish, until Saturday night, which quickly turned into torrential rains and air that chills you to the bone. At 4 am Sunday, the sky was a light purple, and it felt like a strange December night. Despite the weather’s tomfoolery, it is officially spring. Trees are budding and blooming, and birds are singing in chorus, in the mornings.

This weekend, while on the Columbia University campus at 1 am, I saw a building with tall, glassy windows and bookcase walls. It was magic. Our lives have so many chapters and volumes. Nothing being a coincidence, we start to see how things begin to fit together. Volumes and volumes of experiences, hopes, dreams, reality. Every turn is a new adventure.

No matter what happens, this week, I hope you live a good chapter. If you feel like the pages are falling out of your volume, take time to go to the One who can mend your binding and make you strong.

The best is yet to come, for the author is one who writes masterpieces.

XOXO.

Some inspiration and food for thought:

“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”
Augustine

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“For something to be beautiful it doesn’t have to be pretty.”
Rei Kawakubo (via kvtes)

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“‘You have listened to fears, child,’ said Aslan. ‘Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?'”
C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

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“I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”
Anne Lamott (via kvtes)

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“God is not served by human hands as though he needed something from us. He grants us the privilege to participate in the great work He is doing. But the great goal of God is not to make us successful servants. The great goal of God is to make us conform to the image of Jesus Christ. It was when I realized I didn’t have to move one inch to the left or the right to be loved by God. That I didn’t have to be successful in the world’s eyes, nor powerful, nor eloquent, nor intelligent nor any other thing, that I simply was loved. Deeply, eternally and perfectly loved.”
Paul Washer (via worshipgifs)

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“Weary from the road
but looking on with bright eyes.
We, the wandering.”
Daily Haiku on Love by Tyler Knott Gregson

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“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
Joseph Campbell

[Images from Tumblr and Pinterest]

Reflections Before Bedtime #80

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“I knew when I met her that she was so extraordinary and special. And then, I wondered if I’d ever get a chance to date her.” George Clooney being adorable.

When I saw this quote of George Clooney gushing over his wife, I smiled. It’s not the first cute George Clooney quote I post. I love how he expresses himself when he talks about Amal. It’s every woman’s dream to be seen in her totality. To be seen as kind, beautiful, intelligent and “extraordinary.”

I leave you with Oscar Wilde’s words, “Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”

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Reflections Before Bedtime #79

“It would be hung in attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the center. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.” To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, pg. 208-209.

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[Image from Tumblr]

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I just finished reading To the Lighthouse, this afternoon on the train. The suited guy next to me was asleep, and his head kept bobbing in my direction. I finished the last page, just as the train arrived to my stop.

What a curious book, yes? I read it with great intrigue to see if it was really “one of the two or three finest novels of the twentieth century,” as the back of the book suggests. And naturally, I am a sucker for anything Virginia Woolf. I love her internal monologues, the parties and social gatherings in her books, the social interaction and the reflection of how we perceive and tolerate each other; the analysis on the weird ways we can idolize one another and deceive ourselves; the role of women and creativity– and most of all, I love how she philosophizes about the passage of time and how she bases time passing on experience and not so much on chronology, as scholars suggest.

Woolf is very Henri Bergson. Bergson is famous for his thoughts on la durée (duration), meaning the passing of time is “intuitive and internal rather than external and material.” Time is psychological. (I am intrigued and want to get my hands on Bergson’s: Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, Bergson’s essay on free will, which was a response to Immanuel Kant’s theory of free will not existing, unless outside of time and space).

At one point in today’s train ride, half of the book’s characters died in probably less than a paragraph. I flipped to the back of the book to comfort myself in the fact that Lily Briscoe lives. Thank God, I thought, out of all of the fictional characters in this novel, Lily was the only one, other than Mr. Ramsey, whom I tolerated. She makes it to the end. Good, I thought. Scholars have analyzed the quote above, which is how the book ends.

I like the quote because of the language, which alludes to the Bible. “…it was finished,” is a symbol of death and miraculous resurrection, scholars say. More than that, I love how Lily Briscoe is concerned about her painting and what people will do with the art she has created. But then, at the end, she realizes it doesn’t matter because she had her vision. Her experience made it enough.

We make art as we live life, and I am not talking about just literal art but about the art of living. Our choices, thoughts, decisions, relationships, all that we build and tear down… the art of living. And often, we care too much about other’s perceptions and the value they will give to these things or aspects of our lives. Instead, we should be like Lily Briscoe, and realize that it’s about our journey and growth. “It was done; it was finished.” And I hope, that in the end, you can say that it’s all going to be okay; a resurrection is coming. I hope we can all say: I am satisfied. “I have had my vision.”

The Highest Place

“Without the cross, man could have no union with the Father. On it depends our every hope. From it shines the light of the Savior’s love, and when at the foot of the cross the sinner looks up to the One who died to save him, he may rejoice with fullness of joy, for his sins are pardoned. Kneeling in faith at the foot of the cross, he [the sinner] has reached the highest place to which man can attain.” Acts of the Apostles, 209.

Monday Inspiration: March 28, 2016

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By: Gabriela Yareliz

From a productive weekend to, what I hope will be, a productive week. Happy week. We begin anew.

Last week was absolutely dreadful and draining. Not sure how I survived it, but by the grace of God and my mother’s wisdom, I am still standing. It was a loud week; a headache-inducing, loud week. One of those weeks where you feel like Hillary Clinton, giving well-deserved side-eye.

Hillary Clinton Campigns In Iowa, Meeting With Small Business Owners

I loved Ms. HRC’s quote, saying, “When women talk, some people think we’re shouting.” I felt like that last week. Sometimes, it’s people’s perceptions that mess with our heads. Sometimes, it’s our own perceptions, too. But this week, I am coming into this hurricane with a different perspective. Oftentimes, we aren’t even doing anything wrong, but the lies we are told and how we choose to see ourselves makes all the difference.

 

April is just some days away. Let’s make the last of March count.

Below is some inspiration for the last days of March:

“Pray for the people God has put in your life. Let them occupy your thoughts and command your attention. Then, look for ways to flow the living water of Jesus’ love to them, as often as you can.”
T.M. Moore

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“Love the ones who have been given to you, and leave the ones who left in the past. We have a short time in this world, let’s not waste it on things that are not ours. Love actively, live in humility, and be a person who makes the most of each day we have.”
T.B. LaBerge // Go Now

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“Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth.”
C.S. Lewis // The Great Divorce

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“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love- that He gave that Son, that he let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though ‘legions of angels’ might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us- not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.” Elisabeth Elliot

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“Within the three days that Christ was in the grave; The world mourned, Heaven prepared a throne-room for the Eternal King of Glory, and hell witnessed the collapse of its empire. Sometimes in the silence and sorrow of life, Christ is doing His greatest work.” T.B. LaBerge

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“Breathe fast with the sheer wonder of it.” C.S. Lewis

Marvel at the small miracles, this week. Don’t let them go unnoticed.

[Images from Tumblr]

Nietzsche’s “God on the Cross”

By: Gabriela Yareliz

This weekend, we celebrate God’s intervention in the universe to save humanity. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to talk about something that is deeply important to me– the most important thing of all. It is what inspires my life, my writing, everything…

“Christianity is the only religion in which God suffers along with us.” Jesus on Trial, pg. 328, Limbaugh.

Jesus came to be a mediator. He reconciled us with God the Father. He took my guilt upon Him, so that I might have life.

Dr. Tony Evans preached that the Friday we call “Good Friday” was a dark day. The disciples saw Him, whom they knew to be Christ, crucified. All seemed finished– and then, came Sunday. Resurrection. Victory. Life. Authority. Power. Redemption.

Our victory comes from that blood that was shed. “By His wounds we are healed.”

“God wants to provide a mediator to redeem us because He loves us. He is not compromising His justice or His standards by providing Jesus to us as our mediator. To the contrary, by doing so, He has made possible our reconciliation to Him and our ability to have permanent loving relationship with Him without compromising His holiness.” Jesus on Trial, pg. 328, Limbaugh.

Today, I want us to see our lives through the lens of Christ’s sacrifice and ministry on our behalf. Christ’s victory and life is a reflection of the power and victory we can have, through Him, in our lives, today.

If you are having a bad day like Good Friday, as Dr. Evans preached, don’t forget that after Friday came resurrection Sunday. Friday did not have the last word. God did. And today, in your life, nothing and no one has the last word, except God.

Our choices and selfishness and the choices of others, plus life’s circumstances, bring about a lot pain, anxiety and suffering.

“For the real sting of suffering is not misfortune itself, nor even the pain of it or the injustice of it, but the apparent God-forsakenness of it. Pain is endurable, but the seeming indifference of God is not.” John Stott, The Cross of Christ, as cited in Jesus on Trial, pg. 329.

The way we see our circumstances changes when we come to the realization that God is always near. He has not forsaken us. Instead of forsaking us, God has paid the ultimate price and shown patient mercy.

“Where love is possible, there pain is also possible. Where resurrection is promised, there is also promise of tears wiped away. Heaven is the confirmation of our choice, to love Him and to be with Him. That is the hope of everyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ, whom to know is life eternal.” Ravi Zacharias

John Stott once said, “I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the Cross.'” 

Tomorrow, as you see the sun rise and shine over you, remember the life and victory obtained on a certain Sunday that changed everything. Salvation is an open invitation to all. Everything has been paid.

If you are living a dreadful Friday filled with darkness, death and disappointment, remember that Sunday is near. Remember, God is near.

The only God I believe in is the One that left the tomb empty. He lives! And because He lives, I can face today, tomorrow and beyond. I know He is with me every step of the way. I know He cares. His hands were scarred for me. I can be cleansed from my sins and mistakes, only in His blood. He lives. “God on the cross” is my only hope.

I leave you with the words of the angel who was at Christ’s empty tomb: “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for He has risen…” Matthew 28:5-6