Strong people have learned the power of forgiveness…forgiving others and forgiving themselves. As long as we insist on playing the blame game, we will fail to thrive in both our lives and in God’s kingdom. Blame keeps us focused on “what went wrong”. Strong people understand that they will make mistakes and so will others. And they know how to move on! Don’t let the distractions of life slow you down.

  Do you understand that you are in the “classroom of life”? That means that everything you walk through…good, bad or ugly…is a place where you can grow. It’s easy to learn when things are good but when life throws us a curve ball, it’s easy to fall back on “seeing” only the bad and forgetting that life wants to teach us something. In the worst situations of my life, I got some valuable information that would serve me well down the road. I learned what NOT to do ever again. I learned who I could trust and who I couldn’t. And I also learned that there is always good mixed in with bad. It’s just harder to find. But the neat thing about God, is He’s always teaching, always pushing us to grow more and more like Him.

  Hurting people hurt other people. The next time someone uses words that hurt you remember this: at some point in their life, someone hurt them first. If we can remember that, it will help let the words roll off. It also gives us insight in how to pray!

  Just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean we don’t think about them. And just because we don’t talk about them doesn’t mean we’ve “gotten over it”. You see, it doesn’t matter if they’ve been gone a day or a year or many years, there’s still times when sadness overwhelms us. If we’re quiet, if you see a tear, if we seem to be a million miles away, pray for us. It still hurts.

You may have had a bad start in life, but you can have a great finish! Today is a new day. God is always your greatest cheerleader pushing you up to be all you were created to be. Those battle scars you got in life are going to be part of your life story. God uses every experience we’ve been through. Trust me, He doesn’t throw out anything! He just has a way of changing what the enemy meant for bad into something very, very good.

  You may feel like you’re a nobody…that you couldn’t possibly make a difference in somebody else’s life but that’s not true. The smallest stone still makes a ripple in the water. God has a purpose for every person on the face of the earth. Some will realize that everything they do affects God’s kingdom and some will never realize what they could have been by believing in Jesus Christ. Every small act of kindness, generosity, help, love (and the list goes on and on) never goes unused or unappreciated in God’s kingdom. So don’t underestimate yourself my friend. You are mighty in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.