Every Experience Is A Treasure That Can't Be Bought

Experience is the greatest teacher. It is true. Experience is invaluable, important, and exceptional in making us better if we choose to allow it to.

Even hard things teach good lessons. In fact, hardship is one of the best teachers because it ingrains understanding, wisdom, compassion, and grace in us. When hardship comes, if we remember that we can learn from it and grow from going through it, we can see it as valuable. We can change our perspective towards it through envisioning it in a different way.

Money can’t buy experience. It can’t buy love or compassion or mercy. Money is valued highly in our society, and yes, it is important in meeting physical needs. But experience is just as important in meeting needs that money can’t buy.

Try to see your experiences as treasures. When going through a tough time, remind yourself that even your current experience will eventually lead you to a better place if you are able to reframe your attitude and belief about it. Focus on elevation-rising above the turmoil and insecurities you are facing in order to see good possibilities coming from your experience. Sometimes it’s tough to do, but well worth the effort. You will be thankful later if you are able to train yourself to stay positive now. Especially if what you are going through is really tough.

Surround yourself with others of a like mindset. Lift and build each other up. Then you will come to know a new freedom and wisdom from the inside out. That wisdom will bring you closer to overcoming your fears and succeeding at accomplishing your dreams!

Waiting On God

Waiting is hard to do. It requires a great deal of faith and patience. In our humanity, we want things to work out in a certain time frame, particularly if we’ve been waiting for something for a long time. Learning to wait patiently is a virtue. And learning to wait in faith without seeing an answer for a long time is also a virtue.

Throughout my life, I’ve wondered why certain things have happened. It has required great faith and dedication to my spiritual walk to be able to come to terms with a lot of those things. Hardship has brought me to my knees and has brought anger and pain to the surface of my life. It has seemed to me that the more difficult the circumstance that I’ve encountered, the more it has taught me, albeit unwillingly much of the time. But I have learned to believe and come to know that whatever is divinely ordered will someday be made right, and will bring me into a deeper understanding of God and the purpose he has for me. It’s been extremely difficult, sometimes more than what I thought I could bear.

The last few years have been indescribable for all of us. There has been so much pain and anguish that it is almost unbelievable. Yet it is happening around us every day. Questions of why will haunt us. Images we see bring pain to us. How do we survive these types of things? By believing that someday we will understand, and by knowing that someday we will find peace on the other side of these problems. It is of little comfort when we try to reason things out ourselves. Trusting in a larger perspective and understanding will open us up to higher truth and meaning. Knowing that “this too shall pass” gives us the hope that one day we will recover and be able to move on.

If you are suffering, please find refuge in the fact that you are loved and cherished. Try not to take things that hurt you to your core in such a way that you will never be able to mend or recover. You have great meaning and value. Your life matters as do the lives of your family and friends. If we could only spread a spirit of kindness and compassion amongst ourselves, we could make this world a better and more palatable place to live and survive in. Pain begets more pain and is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Love and light are a choice, particularly in the face of destruction, anger, and demise.

When my children passed away, I didn’t think I could survive it. I struggled for years in grief, anger, and desperation. I finally came to the conclusion that the only way I could live was to make the decision to be of help to others and to bring good from the horribly bad things that had nearly destroyed me. We need to find a way to continue on, to persevere, and not give up. Procreating purpose and good is a wonderful way to achieve that goal.

I sincerely hope that I can help you decide to continue living within the parameters of hope and meaning. It’s extremely difficult at times but worth it when you come to the other side of your pain. Being an overcomer is a beautiful thing, particularly when you are able to help others be and do the same!

The art piece that I’m sharing below is an illustration of that process. I hope it inspires you and encourages you! It is true that we need to be the change we want to see in the world. Start the chain of hope today by being a light in the darkness!

Becoming by Diamante Lavendar, available here.

What Are Your Plans?

After a year of silence, I have decided to begin posting blogs again. I had a while to think about life, my plans, and what I hoped to do going forward. I’ve been stuck, not sure if I wanted to continue writing. Things that happened in the last year made me unable to write much of anything besides very short 4-8 stanza poetry pieces. I didn’t know how to proceed.

I’ve been feeling the nudge of the Holy Spirit lately and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to post on my blog to lift others up and help them continue on to what they are destined to do. Over the years, I’ve made my own plans and tried to prosper what I was doing within my own strength and I succeeded somewhat, but nothing ever goes as it should if we rely more on ourselves than on God. So I’ve learned to yield to Him, following the desires and dreams He puts inside me but relying on Him to let them go where they need to go and do what they need to do.

I’ve been meditating on hope a lot lately. Hope is essential in following your destined path. And many times hope is very difficult to find, especially when the world gets overwhelming around you. The events of the last couple of years have really been rough on so many of us. This world has changed drastically in a very short amount of time. And hope is the rudder that will guide us through if we don’t lose it. Hope, to me, is a stabilizing factor and a rampart of strength. It is something we need to seek, something we find when we trust in God. When everything is shaky, run for the fortress found in Heavenly peace and discernment. That is where we’ll find safety and strength.

Faith is wrapped up in hope. Faith is defined as, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. That was always a tough one for me because I was someone who had to see things in order to believe. I’ve really had to change my attitude and outlook about that! I believe that’s why we are given an imagination. And we are free to use it however we choose. When we think about our dreams, we are fueling our faith to step out and make them happen! I believe that everyone has a dream in their heart and I think that this world is the place where we need to discover it and walk it out. Sometimes it can take a while, and when it does it’s easy to lose faith and hope. I am reminded of the saying that anything worthwhile in life takes time. And that certainly does seem to be the case. We are tested on our ability to persevere.

If you find yourself going through a rough patch, cling to the promise that there is good planned for you and that you have a unique dream to achieve-one that nobody else can accomplish quite the same way you can. And if you’ve failed before, take heart. Failure is a learning curve for us all. How would we know what works if we hadn’t tried numerous things that didn’t? You’ll find your way. Have hope, have faith, and persevere! You’ll soon discover the silver linings of every failure you’ve been through which will lead you to your path of destined light!

My art piece titled Faith.

Faith is a rainbow of colors wrapped in trails of glittering light!