Too Afraid to Live

When fear is your master, life is your prison.


Fear doesn't have to be the enemy, fear becomes the servant when you face it with truth and courage. So many of us live our lives either in the clutches of fear or in avoidance of it. The fear will come, become it's master and your progress is accelerated, avoid it and it is still YOUR master. Every time you face fear with the truth you grow stronger, more clear. FEAR can be your Servant instead of your enemy or your master.

Courage has the power to overcome fear, because courage comes from love.


Liz King Bradley

In His Grace Confidence, for Life and Relationships

I have a grandfather, who is now departed, who taught me about in-His-grace confidence. He was a quiet man, and never said much about grace or confidence. I learned it from being in his presence. He never said much about what he believed, but you KNEW what he believed.

There is a deep and stabilizing power in a person who is founding their life in God. When you are in the presence of such a person, you may not be able to articulate what it is about them, but you feel comfortable with them and somehow see yourself better in their eyes. As they talk with you, the only discomfort is the realization that they see who you are and you are far more than you thought you were. However, the discomfort is overcome simultaneously by their easy love and acceptance.

These people are able to give such love because they have first obtained it. They not only know it and feel it, it is in them; part of them, it comes to us through them, but not from them. They have become purer conduits for God's love.

How? I think this is something we overcomplicate. They finally decide to accept the fulfillment of God's Word, let go of preconceived expectations, and let the Light dissolve the darkness. They chose to trust that God is in their life, guiding their steps, supporting their best interests, and making up for what they couldn't do, be , or overcome on their own. They let go of the need to "do it myself", "make it work", and learn to "do it in Him", and LET Him work.

I think that we get so consumed in being busy and working hard that we forget to calmly take steps and trust in His outcome. We can never accept that we are enough until we have checked everything off the social/religious checklist of the "perfect"...whatever. God can tell us it's enough, and we accept it only until we get on FaceBook and see what all the other people are doing...suddenly our "enough" seems NOT enough.

The In His Grace Confidence comes from allowing God to make us enough and LETTING our ENOUGHNESS flow from us. We can't help but spread goodness and truth when we have fully accepted it, but as long as we are seeking it in desperation we are pushing it away. (Think of the person in the water flailing around desperately who keeps the help they need away in their fear of not being safe.)

I loved this video today and thought it was a great bridge to In His Grace Confidence. :) (it won't embed, you have to go to the page...sorry)



Liz King Bradley

Resurrection and Rebirth

This is one of my favorite topics.  When we talk about the word resurrection, we usually think of the scriptural references to the resurrection of the body after death, the reunification of spirit and body.  Yet the power of resurrection is not limited to the resurrection from physical death.  Each of us have experienced a death of something possibly as difficult than physical death.  We have experienced the death of hopes, dreams, desires, relationships, etc.  

*Christ has said that if we come to him, he will heal us and that all things are possible for him.  

The death of our hopes and dreams comes not because the realization has become impossible, but because we believe them to have become so.    We stop turning to God for solutions, and instead seek consolation, and I believe that there are times He gives us what we ask for instead of what He could give us if we had the courage to seek it.  

Yet, when that flame of hope, love, faith, etc. has gone out, we still need a spark to relight it.  The fuel of possibilities is still there, but the light has gone out.....sometimes the fuel is burned up too and we need a total refill or recharge.  But most often what we need is that flicker or glimmer of hope that we get as we remember and are grateful for the many blessings we already have. As we remember these blessings space is created for the Savior to come in and resurrect our joy, and even to enlarge our capacity for it.