Tag: identity in Christ

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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From the Manger to the Cross: Finding True Identity

Published by Leslie Newman Identity 8 comments
There is a deep love for you and me and a God who sent His Son to earth as a tiny baby so we could understand it. In seeking His face from the manger to the cross, we can understand our true identity.

{Guest Post at www.LoriSchumaker.com}

I looked into those precious baby blue eyes. They seemed to peer right into my soul. We had just come home from the hospital, and I was having my first few moments alone with my sweet baby girl. I just couldn’t quit looking into her face, and as her eyes were searching mine, they seemed to be looking straight into my soul. I felt something I had never felt before, a love deeper than I had ever known, something that cannot be put into words. As I rocked her back and forth, I remember wondering at a love like that. It came to me at that moment, just a little whisp of a thought that flickered through my mind, “This must be how God loves me. I understand it better now.”

That was over 20 years ago. In most of those 20 years as I raced through the responsibilities of being a mother and wife in those child-raising years, the joy and wonder of the kind of love that God wanted me to understand became dulled until I could barely see it.

But one day I heard the Lord calling me back…..

Find the rest of this post by clicking below!

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Give Hope to the Hurting – Share Your Scars

Published by Leslie Newman Identity 32 comments
Your story has a purpose, and sharing it will make a difference in ways you can not imagine! Click through to find courage and hope for you and others in a story only you can tell!

{Guest Post by Lori Schumaker}

The other night I sat across the table of a group of women. Remarkable women.

All beautiful and all with scars.

These are real everyday kind of women. The kind that smile and give you hugs when you see them. The kind that laugh at the funny stuff, shake their heads at the nonsense, sit with a friend in need, and love their people like crazy. They are also the kind that push themselves each day, run late, miss deadlines, yell at their kids, get irritated behind the wheel, and cry.

Real everyday kind of women.

Each of them have a story uniquely theirs. In each there is much good, yet in each there is pain.

Pain

… from loss and from gain.

… from lack and from abundance.

Pain that comes simply from the fallout of the sin and brokenness of our world.

Each has a story and each has hope.

*Click below to read more of this guest post by Lori Schumaker. Find hope and purpose in your own story!!!

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A New Kind of Peace

Published by Leslie Newman Identity 20 comments
There’s a peace waiting just for you. It’s so full and rich and beyond what you can imagine. Join me today to find out more.

I sat in the stillness of the early morning with a new kind of peace. It came from deep inside, quiet, strong and sure.

It was a long time coming, this new kind of peace. It had always been there waiting for me, but every time it tried to come out of its hiding place, it was beaten back into the recesses of my heart by an enemy bent on blinding me to it.

My new kind of peace was strong though. It was patient and knew how to wait for me. My new kind of peace never gave up and was steady, not changing with the ebb and flow of my emotions. My new kind of peace understood me better than I understood myself. And it accepted the other one and felt their pain. My new kind of peace was not mine at all. It was His.

It was all about my identity.

Over the years I had found my identity in all sorts of things, good grades, awards and activities, my jobs, my relationships, being a wife and mother, and sadly, even in my mistakes and failures. The ups and downs associated with any of those things tended to dictate my level of peace and happiness. The truth was, the messiness of the ebb and flow of my emotions left me feeling at a loss most of the time. And very much far away from the peace I was seeking.

But that fact was conveniently folded away like an unnecessary piece of paperwork, tucked away into a sliver of a place where my heart could not dwell on it but always felt its presence. I didn’t want anyone to know. And it weighed on me.

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A Grace that Defines

Published by Leslie Newman Identity 8 comments
Perfectionism can make it hard to receive His grace, and this issue holds us back in ways we often don’t see. Read to find out more.

We’ve been talking about grace for the past few weeks.

• We’ve talked about how God’s grace was available for us before the foundation of the world.
• We’ve talked about how God gives us grace each day in just the right amount for what we need for that particular day.
• And we’ve talked about how grace sets us free.

Today we’ll continue or conversations about grace by looking at an insight that might help us, especially if we struggle with perfectionism.

A huge issue in perfectionism is understanding God’s grace. Our perfectionism can make it hard to receive His grace, and this issue holds us back in ways we often don’t see. Even if we do not struggle with perfectionism, this grace issue is one that many of us face at one time or another in our lives.

There can be many reasons why we find it hard to receive God’s grace, but one particular hindrance to receiving grace is the issue of our own expectations.

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A Grace that Sets You Free

Published by Leslie Newman Identity 6 comments
There is a grace that will set you free. It’s a gift waiting for you. Read more here about what the Bible tells us about that freedom. {Free printable bookmark!}

Freedom. It’s a powerful word. It is a gift given through the most costly of circumstances.

When I think of freedom, I think of God’s grace. It’s a deep, deep love, wrapped up in a gift created for each one of us. If we will reach out and take that gift and experience the freedoms wrapped up inside it, we can move forward into a better place.

Here is what grace can do.

Read more by clicking below and find a {FREE PRINTABLE BOOKMARK} too!

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A Grace that Sees

Published by Leslie Newman Identity 18 comments
Sometimes we feel unseen and the truth of how we feel inside is hidden from others. But there is a grace that sees and a grace that understands. It comes straight from the heart of God. Join me here today as we begin a series of discussions that will take a look at the depth of the love that God has for us.

I see you.

• I see you when you wear a bright smile, but you feel a strain of sadness inside.
• I see you when your life is full of good things, but you feel empty.
• I see you when your activities paint a picture of confidence, but insecurity fills you inside.
• I see you when you feel like you never measure up and when you feel invisible and inadequate.

These things are hidden in the fast pace of your everyday life. Sometimes you can ignore them because you always keep going. You always keep giving. You always keep doing more.

But other times, it wells up and you feel overwhelmed. It leaves you feeling utterly exhausted.

Yet, in the midst of all of that, there are truths that you know.

• You know that God is kind and merciful and full of love.
• You know the Bible contains the truth, and you believe what it says.
• You love Jesus, and you know God as your Father. Most importantly, you know that because of all Jesus has done for you there is forgiveness and new life.

But sometimes it’s hard to feel the security those things should to bring you. To understand this sort of love deep down inside takes something you just haven’t quite been able to grab on to yet.

I see these things because I’ve been there, too. Even in a life surrounded by people that loved and cared for me, a life full of good things and God’s provisions, I still felt all of the things I just described to you.

So I want you to know I see you, and grace does too.

And because of His grace, there are answers for you.

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How to Strengthen Your Prayer Life Through Grace

Published by Leslie Newman Prayer 39 comments
Are you putting too much pressure on yourself? Remember GRACE and receive it to bring strength into your prayer life. His strength is made perfect in our weakness!

Grace has always seemed like a gentle thing to me. A soft something that settles down in the heart unnoticed at first, but there, nevertheless. And we feel it’s peace. The thing is, I’m not good at grace. I might be good at giving grace to others, but when it comes to receiving it for myself, that’s a whole different story.

I think we all probably struggle with being harder on ourselves than we are on others, but for some of us, it is magnified, especially if we struggle with perfectionism.

If you struggle with perfectionism one of the things that you may be doing is putting entirely too much pressure on yourself. It’s a vicious cycle because perfectionism tells you that you are never good enough. And that’s the total opposite of what grace says.

Grace would tell you that you are enough, because of Who God is. He created you and He loves you. All of you. Just the way you are.

If you listen to perfectionism and the voice inside your head that says you are not good enough, you are in for a rough journey. It’s a path that leaves no room for receiving God’s grace.

Satan doesn’t mind us traveling this road though, and this is because he wants us discouraged and defeated in all areas of our lives.

He especially wants to defeat us in our prayer lives. Prayer is where the battles are fought and won. And Satan is always the looser. This means that he will do everything he can to discourage us and keep us from praying. Often, these discouragements will come through negative thought processes.

One of these negative thought patterns involves the tendency to be way too hard on ourselves which creates a whole lot of unnecessary pressure in our lives.

Think about the things we say to ourselves sometimes. We would probably never say these things about other people, but we might constantly repeat them to ourselves.

• “I skipped my prayer time today. God will be disappointed in me.”
• “My prayers seem too simple. I’m not really smart enough.”
• “I don’t really understand the Bible. Who am I to be talking to God?”
• “My life is so chaotic. I’m a mess. God wants someone who has it more together.”
• “I’ve done some pretty bad things. There’s no way God can accept me because of the things I’ve done.

This list could go on and on, couldn’t it?

But there is an answer for this. Read to find out more! {FREE PRINTABLE!}

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What God Thinks About You Changes Everything!

Published by Leslie Newman Identity 27 comments

What we think about ourselves is so very important! It is absolutely essential that we realize the truth about who we are. And because of that, the enemy is going to try to feed us lies and attack us in many different ways to mislead us about our identity, value and worth. But friends, we are so very, very loved and valuable to God. If we can get that truth deep into our hearts where we can begin to believe it, that changes everything! Read more to find out how He feels about YOU! {Free Printables!}

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