Author: Leslie Newman

Leslie is a wife, mother to two, writer, teacher and friend. Currently, she spends her days home educating, reading, writing, and being a full time household manager. Drop by and visit her at her blog, www.journeytoimperfect.com, where she’d love for you to join her in conversations about faith, prayer, and letting go of perfect.

Consider This if You Lack Confidence

Published by Leslie Newman Overcoming Perfectionism 17 comments
Do you lack confidence? Sometimes we have to work through inner issues before we can move forward. Read more to discover one thing that might be holding you back!

Do you ever find yourself asking these questions?

Where is my confidence?
What is holding me back?
Why can’t I move forward?

I think these are common questions we might be asking if we find ourselves stuck and unable to take that next big step. Asking these types of questions puts us on the right track. You see, sometimes to move forward we have to stop and uncover the issues inside – the things that are keeping us stuck in a cycle of fear.

The thing is, it’s hard to figure these things out. I don’t know about you, but the hardest person I’ve ever tried to understand is myself! Fortunately, God has shed a little light on the picture so to speak, and I discovered one of my biggest problems is perfectionism. My friend, Terri, who writes for you today, also struggles with perfectionism.

Perfectionism puts the brakes on moving forward, and it instills a lack of confidence. It’s also very sneaky and hard to see! It can hide in many forms and fashions. But it’s time to bring it out into the light!

Join me today as Terri uncovers perfectionism and points us in the right direction so we can find confidence in the right place. Click the purple button below to read more!

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How to Trust God in Your Waiting

Published by Leslie Newman Equipping the Believer 5 comments
Something has happened in your life. It came without warning. You find yourself in a long wait. Join us and discover three things to help you trust God and wait well.

Waiting. It’s something everyone has to go through at one time or another. Some waits are full of joy, such as waiting for the wedding date or waiting for the baby to be born. Other delays are long and hard and full of worry or anxiety. We never really know ahead of time which kind of wait we’ll be facing, right?

Today, I am over at my friend, Maree Dee’s, at www.embracingtheunexpected.com. Maree writes about embracing life in the unexpected. Waiting is often like that, right? Unexpected. Something has happened in your life. It came without warning, and now you find yourself in a long wait while you look for answers.

If you find yourself in a place like this today, click the purple button below to read more. You’ll discover three things you can do while you are waiting. You’ll find Bible verses as well – God’s words to you at a time like this. Find these verses on a FREE PRINTABLE while you are there!

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This One Simple Verse Will Help You Fight Your Fear!

Published by Leslie Newman Blog Posts 12 comments
Are you emotionally stalled by a fear of failure, lack of confidence, or feelings of inadequacy? Fight your fear with this one simple verse!

Are you lacking confidence or feeling insecure? Are you stalled in taking that next step to go forward in something the Lord is leading you to do? Is fear getting the best of you?

You and me both. We’ve all been there – probably in many different situations throughout our lives. The fear is real, friends, and it takes many forms in our lives. Becuase of this, we’ve talked recently on the blog about finding confidence and overcoming insecurities.

Overcoming fear and being bold is hard, but it is something within our grasp because of the truth of God’s Word and the Holy Spirit within us.

Let’s take a look … (Click below to read the rest of this article!)

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How to Build a Battle Ready Faith

Published by Leslie Newman Equipping the Believer 3 comments
Do you want to conquer uncertainty, beat insecurity and overcome discouragement? Find out how to become battle ready here!

Today I’m so happy to share a guest post by author Kelly Balarie. She has written a book called Battle Ready. Friends, this is a book you need to read. It’s a hands-on type of book with a Scriptural plan that teaches you confidence-building mind-sets designed to transform your thoughts. We need this kind of transformed thinking because we have an enemy who is working diligently to defeat us. He wants us to believe lies. He wants us to have the wrong ideas about God. He wants to distract us and disarm us. He wants to keep us living in our fears and insecurities.

Let’s change that right now. Let’s work on being prepared for the battles we will face. This book will help point you in the right direction if you want to overcome doubt and insecurity. You’ll find thought provoking questions, real life examples, Scriptures and more that will help you live victoriously. Click below to read Kelly’s post!

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7 Verses to Pray When You Lack Confidence

Published by Leslie Newman Equipping the Believer 8 comments
If you struggle with a lack of confidence, you are not alone. For those times when feelings of inadequacy get the best of you, repeat these 7 Scriptures to fight back and fill your mind with truth from God's word. #confidence #feelinginadequate #Bibleverses #equipped #Godstruth #journeytoimperfect #trust

Have you ever felt inadequate or suffer from a lack of confidence? Me too, more times that I’d like to admit. There are so many reasons behind it, and they are different for each one of us. And I believe I’m not alone. We all suffer from a lack of confidence at one time or another.

One particular situation where a lack of confidence may especially be an issue is when you feel God calling you to do something. These are going to be the times when Satan will attack the hardest, filling your mind with lies to try to convince you that you are not the right person for the job.

Friends, we’ve got to fight hard to overcome those kinds of attacks. They’ll bring us down if we don’t call on the Holy Spirit in us to do the fighting for us.

Do you need some encouragement in this area? Click through to find 7 verses that will remind you that you are not in this fight alone. Find truths from God’s word that will help you conquer your doubts and give you God given confidence.

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Who, Me? Truth for When You Feel Inadequate

Published by Leslie Newman Equipping the Believer 12 comments
Have you ever felt the Lord call you to a task but feel inadequate for the calling? Find one truth here that will help you move forward.

Have you ever felt called by God to do something, but it seems an impossible thing for you to do?

•Perhaps you feel inadequate or that you lack the necessary knowledge.
•Maybe you are asking yourself this question, “Who, Me?” (The calling is way out of your comfort zone.)
•You may feel that you lack abilities or talents to do what you know Lord is calling you to do.
•Perhaps you have a physical limitation or an illness that makes it difficult to follow through.
•You know of others that would do a much better job and be more suited to the work.
•You fear you don’t know the Bible well enough.
•You think you will make mistakes.
•In a nutshell, you are afraid.

These concerns and fears are so common that I imagine each one of us reading here today can relate to at least a few if not all of them. If you are experiencing this kind of fear in your life or you are trying to discern what the Lord wants you to do, there’s something special for you in the following verse.

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How to Trust God When Life is Painful

Published by Leslie Newman Suffering 24 comments
When life is hard and we don't understand our circumstances, we may feel that we can't put our confidence in God. Nothing could be further from the truth. Click through for encouragement and help from God's word.

When life is difficult, it can be hard to trust God with our circumstances. Pain, no matter what form it is can last a lot longer than we’d like. Waiting for a resolution, trying to understand our situation – all this can take its toll and start to wear us thin spiritually speaking. We wonder if we should place our confidence in God when we can’t seem to find the answers.

If you find yourself in that place, here are some thoughts and verses that may help.

Click below to read more!

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What Can God Do With Suffering?

Published by Leslie Newman Suffering 16 comments
God keeps track of all our sorrows and is always working even in our suffering. Click through to learn more about what God can do.

For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:5 NASB)

The sufferings of Christ are ours. On the surface, this truth from 2 Corinthians 1:5 doesn’t bring favorable feelings, does it? When we think about suffering, all sorts of thoughts about the awful things we see in the world today may come to mind. Or perhaps we might think of long-drawn-out painful situations we’ve experienced or watched others walk through. Suffering, on the surface, really seems to have no benefits.

But if we are walking in faith, something surprising happens – suffering becomes a powerful catalyst for growth. And incredibly, in His kindness and grace, God sends Jesus to walk beside us and comfort us in as we walk through adversity. Even when we can’t see the changes as they happen, even when we have no answers to the “whys” we may be asking, one thing is sure – the abundance of suffering we see around us or face ourselves today is always balanced by the abundant comfort we have through Christ.

Click through to read more! FREE PRINTABLE! A Prayer for Adversity

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Finding Answers in the Midst of Suffering

Published by Leslie Newman Suffering 21 comments
Suffering is part of life that all of us would like to skip right over, but leaving out the messy middle would change the ending of the story. Click through to read more!

I held the book in my hands, one that I had read hundreds of times it seemed. I was exhausted. I could hardly keep my own eyes open, and her big brown ones had, much to my relief, finally closed. I was ready to be done and go to bed myself, but I knew it was a delicate matter with a toddler who was so in love with books. I was careful and kept reading even after her eyes had closed. Then I did it. I flipped ahead, but I kept on right on going just like nothing had happened. Quick as a flash, those big brown eyes opened right back up and said, “Mommy you missed the middle!” She was not about to let me leave out part of her favorite bedtime story, so I gave in and turned back to read the parts I’d missed. And the long night-time ritual continued.

It’s a lot like that in life. We live in the middle, and sometimes it’s messy and complicated. The thing is, if we skip any part of what God has designed for us, our story just won’t be the same. Arriving at the end without experiencing the middle would change everything, especially the ending, which is so connected to what happens in the in-between.

Click below to read more and find encouragement in the pages of God’s Word.

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How to Find Hope That Will Not Disappoint You

Published by Leslie Newman Hope 18 comments
Hope can be hard to find in difficult times, but there is one kind of hope that will not disappoint. Find out more here!

What do you think of when you think of the word hope? A dream, A wish? Me too, until recently.  My definition of hope has changed. Yesterday, hope used to mean that something good would happen and my current difficult situation would go away or get resolved. Yesterday, hope was something that I “hoped” would happen and just kept waiting for. It was a wish for better times. This kind of hoping led to disappointment. But today hope means something different. It’s trust – trust in a God who never changes and who does what He says He will do.

Click below to find five things that will help you discover hope that does not disappoint.

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