Happiness Is A Journey

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Because we are living in the era of "Express", we wanted everything in our life to be express as well. We would love to have a date stamped on a specific event in our life, we wanted to control everything, including how fast a certain thing should be fulfilled.

Happiness is a journey!

I love those words! It does not mean that along the way you should be unhappy, miserable and cranky LOL. But, for some people, everything takes time to reached a certain degree of happiness. Forgiveness takes time, forgiveness is also a journey in life. 

There are steps that we must going through before we arrived at our "destination" or should I say degree of forgiveness. First, we must feel the hurt, then we got mad, confused, angry, sad and all of the emotions mixed together in our soul. Then we acted our emotions out, may it be crying, blaming someone (or yourself), regret, planning a revenge, hurting someone, being alone, partying, etc. After that, we have some options, we could either forgive the abuser and move on with our life or we could plan a revenge that might not just hurt him/her but yourself and others along the way. We could confront the person and tell them that we are hurt in a mature way or not so mature way, we could live miserable our whole life playing the blaming game, never ending regret or the "what if" mentality, or we could just cry, pick up our own life, move on toward a more positive renewed uplifting and better life. 

Everything takes time and that is why it calls a journey instead of a destination, because I think that life is a journey. We continue to walk and filled our life with surprises that we found along the way and we continue to walk our journey. We have options to stop and enjoy a certain moment in that journey, take some pictures, laughed or cried, remember or forget. We also have some options to unpacked some baggage that we have been carrying along the way (baggage: unnecessary burden). 

Aren't you tired carrying those emotional baggage that is hurting you, emotional, physical and mentally?. Why carrying those people who hurt you, abused you, did not appreciate you with you on your journey/life? Let them go, unpacked them, leave them behind and never look back. You have learned your lesson, now it is time to let go and live your lighter life. Filled your bag with new experiences, good people, moments and lessons to cherished and worth remembering or carrying along the way. Create beautiful moments not miserable moments. Remember the great times not the bad times. 

If you still find it hard to let go, then make a promise to yourself that you deserve better and make a goal to help yourself out to move on with your life, so that you could reached your next destination in your journey.

When or if you have arrived at your next destination, may it be the next city, next boyfriend you have, next job, next ministry, etc, unpacked those unnecessary baggage. You do know that those losers do not even think of you anymore, remember you or even know what they did wrong to you, right? So stop the pity party and expecting him/her to come to you and admitted that they were wrong and they were sorry. Some of them did regret and apologized but MANY of them did not even know what they did wrong. So, stop wasting your time analyzing why bad things happened to you and create your own happiness without destroying yourself and others. Happiness does not mean you could do whatever makes you happy, there are rules and limitation to everything on earth. Drinking, food, shopping and partying makes you happy, but if you do it way too much, you will ended up hurting yourself. 

Live in the present!

We could not change the past and we do not know what tomorrow holds, so why bother and worry way too much about it? We should just cherish the present moment, make it worth our time to remember, to smile when we think about it in the future. There are two things in the past, one that is worth to remember and one that is worth to forget. Only carrying/taking with you what is important and worthy of your soul and time, leave the emptiness, bitterness, sadness, unhealthy lifestyle and unhappiness behind so that they will not contaminated or dictate your future.

Remember that happiness is a journey which means every single step that you take should create happiness until the day God calls you home to His everlasting arms. We all going to die someday, the when-how and where is unknown, that is why we should just enjoy our life before it ends because life is short. 

The journey of happy life does not mean we are always happy, because there is nobody on this earth, past-present and future people, who will never experience fail-hurt-death-sickness-drama in life. Everyone has its turn to experienced pain and gain, because it is part of life and living with other people with different background and characters. 

Sometimes we must experience the bitterness to understand and appreciate the sweetness of life, that is of course if we are wise enough not to do the same mistake twice or picked up/chose the same people twice (could be different people with the same attitude/character than the first mistake we made).

Chose, create, live your happiness and enjoy your journey!

xoxo,

Lindsay

Pray More- Worry Less

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Sometimes, even when we pray, the worry, fear and problems are still there, but there is power in prayer that makes you stronger to face them all. There is a huge comfort in knowing that God is doing something for your own good. It does not mean that you will get your prayer answered the way you wanted it, but it means that God answered it according to what He thought is the best for you.

"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."

(Romans 12:12)

So many times when God showed us what He thought is the best answer to our prayers, we do not like it. In fact, it could be the most painful thing in your life. We may never understand why God would allow such thing to happened in our lives, especially because we prayed. But then one day, we woke up and we get what God was trying to do through that painful time in our lives. He wanted to save us from a future disaster, He wanted us to experience His love and  miracles. He gives us hope and strength that nobody else could provide, etc.

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

(James 1:2–4)

But, there are also moments and specific events that we might never understand why God allowed to exist in our lives. But, by faith, we just have to believe that God knows what He is doing, it is above our own understanding to know everything in this world. We just have to pressing through our problems, move forward with our lives and knowing that God is good, even when painful things happened to us, He is still a good God. Why? because that is faith; Pain, suffering, death, persecution, famine, and war will never separate us from God's love. 

Our destination and home is heaven with Him, where there is no suffering, war, pain, sickness and death. This world filled with evil thoughts and acts, but this is not our forever home. Our hope and faith is in God, who is preparing our forever home in heaven. 

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

(Romans 8:28)

Some gives up hope and faith when painful events took place in there lives and hating God for not helping them, for allowing those things to existed, for leaving them when they needed God the most (or at least that's what we thought, while God is thinking and act differently). God will NEVER leave you, forsake you or laughed at you when you are in pain. He cry with you, laugh with you and died for you so that you could experience eternal life, not death (Read/click: 1 Thessalonians 5:10 and 1Peter 2:24)

"Be strong and courageous. 

Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. 

He will not leave you or forsake you.” 

(Deuteronomy 31:6 )

Some gained hope and faith when those things happened in their lives and experience God's love like never before, because they knew that only God could take away that pain from their lives and replace that with unspeakable joy, healing, peace of mind that surpasses their own understanding and fear. 

It is OUR choice to see and experience life differently!

We may chose to be happy and moved on or we chose to be miserable and walk backward to our past. We could chose to give it all to God or to carry all of our heavy burdens to ourselves and let it consumed our lives. We may chose to let God do what He think is best for us or we may chose to do it ourselves and screwed it up because we have no idea what we are doing. We could chose to be free or a slave to our own misery, sickness, pain and troubled life.

My prayer today for you who read this post is that God will gives you peace of mind, strength and comfort, hope for a better tomorrow and love that will filled your heart with gladness.

May God be with you and bless you,

May God takes away your pain and heals you,

May God comfort you and hug you with His arms,

May God wipe away those tears from your face and gives you peace,

May God take away the pain that enslaved your soul and gives you hope as your new anchor for the soul.

Be free in Jesus name! Amen

"do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

(Philippians 4:6–7 )

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"Still" by Hillsong

xoxo,

Lindsay

From Trial To Triumph

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James 1:2-3 ESV

When we are facing struggles, problems, trials and all of those not so fun circumstances, the last words that will come to our mind would be "pure joy". What is so joyful when we are on trial? if anything, that would be unpleasant, uncomfortable, painful and not fun. But yet, the Bible teaches us to consider those moments as pure joy. Consider does not mean it is what it is, but to think outside the box, to fix your mind on a different approach, to see things on a different perspective/angle.

 "We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance" 

(Romans 5:3).

And then there is another verse who basically says the same thing; to rejoice in the suffering moments! What?? How could I rejoice when my child is very ill? How could I consider it pure joy when my husband just left me for another woman? How could I rejoice when I just get fired from my job? How could God asked me to do such things and if He is a good God, then He would never let anything bad happen to me (or the world). The list of questions, doubts, denials, anger and unanswered questions will always occur and will never end, until we fully understand the power of rejoicing in the midst of our problems, the power of laughing in the midst of an unhappy moments, the power of letting go and let God, the power of faith because there is nothing that you could do as a human being to change it. 

It is easier to say it than done it and I am still struggling with that everyday of my life. I am a Christian who loves and believes in God, but when someone treat me unjustly, when I am facing problems, death, sickness, unfairness, etc, I have my "Why God?" moment and I also have my denial moment as well as my complaining and self pity's moments. But, the denial, complaining and self pity's moments do not get me anywhere and those stuff never solved my problems, sheesh, if anything, they make my problems even bigger, complicated and not to mention I am more depressed when I let those thoughts and attitude enter my heart and mind.

This world will never be perfect because of everything and everyone in it are not perfect and therefore the sickness, poverty, famine, war, fight, unjust, etc, will exists simply because we are human with our own pride, strength and weakness and we used it without wisdom, love or compassion for others. 

We, human, tend to keep everything for ourselves, our selfishness defeats our own humility or compassion toward others, may it be for other human, animals, plants. We killed animals so that we could have tasty foods, even though we would be fine without eating animals. We destroyed our own environment in the name of comfort and survival. We declared war against other nations in the name of power, politic, religion and wealth. We neglect our own body to live a healthier lifestyle and then we got sick. We failed as a parent to be the role model for our kids, we failed as a child to obey our parents. We failed on a lot of things...yet we blamed God for everything that went wrong in our lives.

However, there are times when we did our best to prevent bad things from happening and they still exists. There are things that is beyond our control and there are things that God allowed us to experience so that we could help other people who are facing the same situation. 

There are also things that God allowed us to experience because He wants us to experience His love, power, grace, miracle and blessing. When the doctor told us a long time ago that my dad only had a couple of months to live due to his liver failure/damage, we were devastated, but God allowed it to happen because He then showed us that He healed my dad completely and He is still alive until today. 

When my uncle fell deep into the drug addiction's world, we thought he would die. Then, God took my grandpa to heaven and at that moment, my uncle turned his life around to Jesus and he is living the best life today. It takes a death of my grandpa to save my uncle's life. But, we are rejoicing for his life and yes, we mourned when my grandpa died, but we all going to die anyway. Grieve, cry and feel the pain, then get back up and live the rest of your life with gladness. Just because someone die, it does not mean that you must die either. Their job on this earth is finished, they are resting now. Our jobs are not finished yet, so we better live our lives and cherish the moments of being alive.

Consider it a joy or rejoice when we face trials speak about faith, hope, and love. Life happens, whether we like it or not. Surprises comes and go, whether it is a good or bad ones. We could not control everything and we could not control what other people will do to us, we could try to prevent certain things from happening, but everyone of us has a free will to do whatever we want. Some made wise choices, some made bad choices and it caused pain to themselves and other people. 

Faith does not mean everything will always be O.K., faith means possibility, faith means ability, faith means chance, faith means you are not alone. God promised to be with us until the end of time (Matthew 28:20) which simply means, we will never going through it all alone. He was there before you were born, He is still here with you and will always be there for you until well..forever. He comes, he stays and will never leaves..HA!

TRIAL => TESTING => PERSEVERANCE => MATURITY => TRIUMPH

The power of training to become a champion!

Suffering produces endurance, perseverance and patient. Every athlete or successful people do not just get it, they were going through a LOT of pain, gain, learning, defeating, winning moments. They were going through a hardcore training that requires strength and suffering along the way, for their own good. The stronger you are, the better chance you have to become a champion.

Trial exists to produce endurance, we persevere so that we could be stronger to face life, growing and mature in our faith in order for us to survive the life until the end. Strength is NOT an overnight process! It takes a lifetime of continuous process of training, endurance, perseverance, getting knock down and get back up, determination to become a winner not a loser, focus on the goal ahead instead of the circumstances, which is temporary. 

If you want to have a strong healthy body, then trained your body everyday to become stronger. If you want to have a strong mentality, trained yourself to not giving up when life is hard. If you want to have a strong faith, pray and understand God by reading His word and obey Him, trusting Him and train yourself to rejoice even when things go south. Yes, to rejoice takes training! We have the ability to chose how to react when trouble comes. We could trained our soul, mind and body to accept certain things the way it is, to endure, to be happy even when life sucks, to switch our mind from useless thoughts to useful ones, to rejoice when we are pushed down. Do you know that it is very painful for our enemy to see us rejoicing even when they meant evil toward us? Haters hates happy people, their goal is to make your life as miserable as possible just like theirs!! LOL.

Push through your problems, stop complaining and comparing, stop the pity party and the blame game. Push through your pain, reach for that strength, reach for wisdom, be still and know that God is in control.

Hardship builds a strong characters and attitude toward life, which helps a lot when we are under pressure :)

"Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him."

(James 1:12)

xoxo,

Lindsay

The Waiting Room

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One of the thing that I hate in life is waiting!

I just do not like the anxiety, the unknown, the uncontrollable mixed emotions!

I just hate looking ahead and see nothing,

or I see something but I could not reach it.

"Waiting Room" for me is a period of time/place in life when we are getting ready for something ahead of us, a process of being and having a better life.

If we are wise enough to wait, learn and moving forward, 

 those waiting moments in the waiting room are very rewarding in life.

It taught us about being patient, trusting, hoping, surrender and admitting that...

 "I am just a human."

We become smarter, wiser, stronger and more mature.

The waiting moments also taught us a lot of things on how to reach the top, how to get ready, how to grasp what we have been wanting- waiting - working  for in life.

Sometimes, we rushed things that we are not ready to received and we got burned,

we failed!

Stupidity, impatient and pride are a very bad combination while we are in that waiting moments. 

Think of the waiting moment as a step that you need to go through before the next step exists. 

There are steps that we could skipped because we mastered them already or they are not that important, but there are steps that needed to be precisely done step by step or you had to start all over again.

But,

many of us stuck in the waiting (moment's) room because we do not want to let go of the past (before the waiting room) and too afraid, too stupid, too lazy to walk to the next room.

We hold on to our past because the future is uncertain,

-understandable but arguable-

How do you know what tomorrow hold if you are too afraid to let go of your past?

Whether it was your golden moment or dark moment..

let it go!

If it is your golden moment,

be proud of it, 

keep it as your best memory 

and use it to motivates you.

But, 

it happened in the past, 

you need to let it stay in the past 

and create your new golden moments.

If it is your dark moment,

be proud that you get out of it, 

keep it as a lesson 

and use it to motivates you to be better 

or not to do the same mistakes you or the persons who did that to you.

It happened in the past, you need to let it go!

I hate being in the waiting room, 

but I keep myself busy in any waiting room,

may it be the dentist, doctor appointment, job interview, waiting for my food or for my next chapter in life.

I try to switch my frustration of being stuck in a waiting room into looking forward for the next room's surprises so that I could move forward.

Once it is my turn to go to the next room,

I am so ready,

sometimes nervous,

excited, scared, 

but ready.

Every process in life will either make you stronger or destroy your strength.
Choose strong and be strong! 


An athlete who won a gold medal did not just win it without training.
It is a long process of dreams, focus, motivation, patient, sacrifices, learning, up and down, sweat, tears, strength, hope, pray, dedication and work,
..in the waiting room..
but the reward is priceless!

-Things that we have seen are history, things that we see now are history in the making, things that we will see are still unknown. But unknown does not always mean bad..it could also mean great, awesome, exciting, better, promising, life changing, blessings-

xoxo,

Lindsay

I Hate You!

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HATE!

A strong word.

I REALLY HATE YOU/HER/HIM/THEM!

Bitterness & powerful statement.

I WISH THEM ALL THE BAD THINGS ON EARTH!

The "Karma" thoughts

I WANNA DO SOMETHING BAD TO THEM!

Revenge.

I WILL NEVER FORGIVE OR FORGET IT!

Consume your life.

When people do bad things toward us, especially when all we do was being good to them, or at least that is what we thought we did, is hurtful.

When strangers do hurtful things toward us, we get mad but it is easier to let it go because we do not know them personally. The anger comes fast and might be gone faster too because there is no emotional connection. We get mad, we punch them or say bad things, then/or we move on (in some cases, not really, lol).

When people dear to us, like a family member, spouse, children, and friends do us wrong, that is even more unbearable. The hurt, the betrayal, the pain and the "I cannot believe it," moment. They are family and friends, they suppose to be nice-supportive-good toward us, right?!

Ideally, we suppose to be nice to each other, especially those who are dear to us.

But, in reality, people are people.

We all have our own strength, weaknesses, flaws, needs, hot button, past and present life.

We will say or do things that we do not expect us to say or do based on what our past taught us or what the present moment offered us to say or do.

People comes with a different baggage on their back, some has been carrying it for way too long, never unpack it.

In other words, many of us carried the extra weight that we do not actually need in life.

There are things that we need to let it go because it is beyond our control.

There are moments that we need to forget because it is not worth the space in our brain and heart.

Do YOURSELF a favor and learn to let it go.

The bad things that people did to you, may it be a lesson for us not to do that to other people and not to fall on the same mistake twice.

We will not be able to go back to that moment and do something differently, it is already happened in our past, beyond our control. 

The hatred that you have in your heart and brain is consuming your life. 

What does it mean? 

It means it dictates your every move, it follows you like a ghost, it limits your ability to trust-love-care again, it makes you sad and depressed, it makes you sick physically, it makes you crippled mentally and drained your faith spiritually. It takes away precious moments from those who loves you because you are too busy thinking and in a way buried yourself in your old wound that suppose to be healed by now. 

If you keep stabbing the wound, it creates deepest scar. 

You do not need that in life, do you?.

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

Romans 12:19

"For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."

Romans 13:4

"So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."

James 4:17

"The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light, but the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended." 
Isaiah 60:19-20

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

From my own experience, when I did wrong to other people, I cannot sleep well, I keep thinking about it until I make peace with them. In other word, those who hurts you has its own "nature punishment". 

We reap what we sow, right? 

It simply means if we do something bad, that seed will haunt us and we will pay the price of what we did. 

This is why we need to make peace with ourselves, people that we hurt and people who hurt us, for our own goodness and sanity and because God said so! (John 14:15)

Have a good day,

Unpack those extra weight,

Give your back a rest 

:)

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xoxo,

Lindsay

The "What If" Factor

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I am sure that we all have our moment when we feel like we could have done something different in life. May it be a career choice, spouse, diet plan, etc. We also have one of those moments when we doubt our decision. Sometimes we even get mad at ourself for letting us down.

I was talking with one of my relative and she was still drowned in sadness because her husband died years ago. She could not or should I say, would not, move on with her life. It is OK to mourn and cry when someone died. It is OK to start slowly with the moving on process, but it has to be done. Moving on has nothing to do with forgetting the person.

Moving on means you have to live your life and let that dead person, that we love, rest in peace. Those who died has finished their duty in life, not the living though. We are still living our life, so please don't die with them while you are alive. We need to let go of some things in our life that needed to go.

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There is also a dangerous factor of don't want to move on with life or don't wanna let things go the way they should. Holding onto something like this is unhealthy. It ruins your life and others who actually cares and loves you. Do you have any idea how many hearts has been broken just because you are too busy caring for the dead and forget the living?. Your husband might be dead, but your children are alive. Your wife might divorced you, but your children depends on you. Your boss might fired you, but you don't have to be a jerk to everyone around you.

INHALE LOVE, EXHALE HAPPINESS

INHALE HATE, EXHALE BITTERNESS

I am not just talking about death. I am talking about broken heart because someone break up with you. I talked to my friend who seriously wounded because of her boyfriend. She thought they should be together forever and he did not think that is a good idea for them. Fast forward, years later a.k.a now, she still think that her life would be much better had she married him. I mean..COME ON!

When are you going to wake up and starting to realize that certain thing happened for a reason? In her case, BETTER reason. The end of something bad, might be the beginning of a new season of greatness in life. If we are willing to let go and move on with our lives.

I have been there and done that and wear the t-shirt!

I am not trying to be mean. I just want people to realize how much potential life has to offer them, had they willing to think positive. Even when bad and sad things happened to us, we have to survive the life. If we want to change the way we live then we must move on.

The sad part of don't want to let go and keep thinking the "What If" factor in our heads, is losing. We lost opportunity to love a new person or be loved by them. We lost relationship. We lost chances. We lost a lot of times that should be filled with happiness, instead of depression and pills to make you sleep.

Stop thinking about "What if I married him, life would be better" or "What if she is still alive, I might not be like this" or "What if I did not break up with him, I might have 5 kids by now" and so on. Appreciate what you have now and NOT what you could have had, IF __ (fill the blank)

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The "What If" is a pity cry because you are too afraid to move on with your life. It is a fantasy that will never happen. So, unless you are willing to shake it off your head and think straight ahead, you will live the same miserable life forever. Let's be honest, nobody wanted to live with regrets of the "What If" that suppose to be that way. The what if in your head eliminate opportunities in life, break your life and others around you.

If it is not meant to be, then it is not meant to be. Don't push your life to turn around and stay in the past. Push forward, no matter how hard things might get during the process, keep pressing forward. You do not want to live in that "What If" prison of mind. What's not meant to be, must not meant to be. Don't try to take control over something that is already over.

Accept the fact that many times, life doesn't turn out the way we wanted to be. There are things that we can still do something to change it, but there are things that needed to be done. Do not try to win something that is already been defeated. Do not try to change something that cannot be changed. Some things are the way they suppose to be because that is the path that God prepare for your future. But, if you don't trust Him and take things into your own hands then be careful, because things might get messy and you will never find the right way unless you chose a different path in life.

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What if can either makes you more creative in life or hold those creativity from you. Be free and enjoy life. Your future is not over yet because someone died. Your life should not end because someone break up with you. Your family don't have to suffer just because you can't control your emotion, etc.

People who could not letting go tends to rejected happiness because they thought they could not be happier unless things go BACK the way it should be. They think life as a tragedy and they are the reason people say, "Misery loves company."

You do not wanna be the misery followers or friends. Life is too precious to waste it.

Enjoy life!

Let Go and let GOD! 

xoxo

Lindsay