Have you ever longed for “a place of quiet” where you can be yourself and briefly hit the pause button to gain a sense of peace and encouragement for your mind, heart, and body? Just reading or hearing the words “a place of quiet” could and should send your thoughts and senses on a mission – a mission to find “a place of quiet” where your challenges and anxieties disappear into an awareness of peace and encouragement. Come with me for a few moments and let’s make a list of things that steal your peace, joy, and contentment. Use this list to help you identify areas that express a negative force, lack positives, or create situations and circumstances that invade your life and steal your peace.
Negative Forces:
- Emotional, physical, and/or spiritual overloads.
- Circumstances that overwhelm you.
- Things you struggle with.
- Things you wish you could change or resolve in yourself or someone else.
- Stressful situations that you know and can see coming.
- Seemingly impossible situations you confront over and over again, never getting an answer or finding change.
- People who bug you to death . . . and I know you know who they are.
- Time management, your calendar, your planner, and those things that swoop into your “time” and steal “a place of quiet.”
- Relationships that have many difficulties.
- Career choices.
- Daily job expectations.
- Social media – peer pressures.
- Something you are facing right now as you read this letter that just hurts and drags you further and further down the slope into despair and depression.
Just reading this list probably brings on anxiety and feelings of struggle and hardship. Right? Go back to the top and let’s write out our thoughts on small pieces of paper. Choose 1-2 to work on right now. Then weekly choose 1-2 more Negative Forces to break them out so you do not become overwhelmed. Take each topic and try to be honest about how the situation affects you. Next, fold each piece of paper and place it into a ziplock bag, seal it up, and put it aside.
Now we are going to apply that same action to creating a list of positive thoughts. After you have written out the positive thoughts listed below on small pieces of paper, fold and place them into a ziplock bag and seal it up.
* Or you could print out the positive thoughts listed below, cut the thoughts into individual small pieces of paper, fold and place them into a ziplock bag and seal it up.
List of Positive-Attitude Choices:
- “Who we are today is the result of choices made yesterday. Tomorrow we will become what we choose today. To change means to choose change.” ~ John C. Maxwell
- “Great is the Lord and great in power; His understanding is inexhaustible and boundless.” ~ Psalm 147:5
- “God is great not because nothing is too big for Him; God is also great because nothing is too small.” ~ Mark Batterson
- “Give me faith enough to take the steps needed to climb the staircase within my heart, mind, and soul. The journey ahead is unseen . . . I take the first step in the shadow of the Almighty God. Amen.” ~ Jeannine
- “Sometimes God delivers us from our problems; sometimes God delivers us through our problems.” ~ Mark Batterson
- “God will hear us, even if we complain or have some sense of failure, discouragement, or struggle that enters our lives. God has promised to answer and supply enough light, strength, and peace as we approach problem areas if we trust His wisdom to guide us through. His best work is at hand. Allow God to give you His perspective on the situation; thank Him for the hard times, because difficult journeys accomplish many blessings from above as you walk toward the Light of Eternity. Just like in the movies you have seen, “no conflict, no story.” It’s not easy to walk through the circumstances of struggle and hardship, but this could be the change you are looking for. Identify your conflict. Pursue and seek out change. Commit. Fail forward. Chapter by chapter, you are writing your story and it’s a bestseller.” ~ Jeannine
- “Some things that happen to you, you cannot control. Some things happen that you can control. You still have a choice in your attitude and reaction. Success and failure go hand in hand. It will take faith to step out of the boat and walk on the water during your life’s dream at the hour of courage I call the ‘three-o’clock-in-the-morning.’ Press on!” ~ Jeannine
- “Battle in prayer on your knees. Guard my steps . . . Bless my path . . . Carry me when my strength is gone and I’m used up. Amen” ~ Jeannine
- “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” ~ Romans 12:2
- The process of transforming your thoughts and habits will be just that, a process, not a single event. God will help lead you spiritually, physically, and emotionally, guiding you with unexpected resources, unexplained good things, and empowering necessary decisions according to His word. His word is in a book called the Bible. The Bible is actually a love letter and user manual to help you with your journey you call “my life.” God wrote this personal love letter to you and it’s been a bestseller since He spoke the world into existence.” ~ Jeannine
P.S. If you do not have a copy of the Bible, I recommend the following translations:
The Message – Eugene H. Peterson
This version reads like a storybook in a contemporary idiom; very understandable, very current language . . . like how we actually speak.
New International Version
This version reads with accurate expression of the original Bible; text is clear, contemporary English, remaining faithful to the thoughts and meaning of the Biblical writers.
The New American Standard Bible
This is a contemporary word-for-word translation, highly regarded for its scholarship and accuracy.
The Amplified Bible
This version uses synonyms, punctuation, and clarifying words or phrases to reveal shades of meaning of key words in the original text.
- “Ask and it will be given to you; Seek and you will find; Knock and the door will be open to you.” ~ Matthew 7:7
- “A.S.K. – for what I do know. A.S.K. – for what I do not know. A.S.K. – for what God knows is far better than a world of me knows.” ~ Jeannine 😉
- “God’s love is unconditional and embraces the company of heaven and to the ends of the earth. Mount up with the wings of an eagle and remember: the best is yet to come. Amen.” ~ Jeannine
- “Letting go of the past. Pressing toward the future. Living in the moment of a more moderate light touch. Guide my thinking, Lord, in areas of wisdom, insight, and discernment. Help me tackle the challenges of this day, fueled by prayer that will drive everything. Encourage my heart. My hope lies in your problem-solving power. I resolve to “a place of quiet. Amen.” ~ Jeannine
- Words have power! “I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” ~ Psalm 139:14
- “Giving God space in your life, learning to appreciate life, knowing His words have power. You can live this day in stability and through the calm, unclouded serenity of peace.” ~ Jeannine
- “Two types of voices command your attention today. Negative ones fill your mind with doubt, bitterness, and fear. Positive ones supply hope and strength. Which one will you choose to heed?” ~ Max Lucado
- “Nothing paralyzes our lives like the attitude that things can never change. We need to remind ourselves that God can change things . . . If we see only the problems, we will be defeated; but if we see the possibilities in the problems, we can have victory.” ~ Warren Wierbe
- “My friend, never, never give up!” ~ Jeannine
- “The strength of a man consists in finding out the way in which God is going, and going that way too.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher
- “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” ~ Psalm 37:4
- “One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar!” ~ Helen Keller
- “May you be blessed by the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” ~ Psalm 115:15
- “Hope is one of the principal springs that keep mankind in motion.” ~ Thomas Fuller
- “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~ Anne Frank
- “Let God’s promises shine on your problems.” ~ Corrie ten Boom
- “Your Father already knows your needs.” ~ Luke12: 30
- “Why not discuss things with Him and allow Him to guide and give you some perspectives from His standpoint. It might be a wise choice to listen to the creator of the universe. He’s listening because He is the hearer of prayers and wants to have a close personal relationship with you. You can be as close to God as you want. Enjoy His presence as you draw near to Him; He wants to help you restore your sense of direction. Doing less and accomplishing more is one of God’s gifts when you trust Him with the outcome. If He already knows, why don’t you just talk to Him? He takes great delight in you – really, He does. Anticipate His best because He reads you like a large-print book, knowing your needs better than you do. Keep walking. It’s truly the path of life created by God in you. Anticipate. Keep walking.” ~ Jeannine
- “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.” ~ Anne Lamott
- “Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden, which you do not know (do not distinguish and recognize, have knowledge of and understand). ~ Jeremiah 33:3
You may be asking, “OK, I have two ziplock bags full of pieces of folded paper. What do I do with them?” Each day, pull out a slip of paper from the Negative Forces ziplock bag and one slip of paper from the Positive-Attitude Choices ziplock bag. I would like you to read both thoughts and choose to actively oppose the struggle, conflict, and hardship with your focus not on the layers of noise and distracting clamor but on the Positive-Attitude Choices, changing up your thoughts and reinforcing an unfaltering attitude to take action within yourself to changing through the love and grace of God. Remember: He knows your thoughts even before you think them or say them. God does not want you to get trapped by life but to live your life to the fullest and in the abundance of Christ Jesus, His (Shalom) peace, joy, and strength and direction. Remember, you cannot control all circumstances, as we all know. But we can begin to begin and enter a place of what I call “soundless speech” as we pursue thoughtfully those things that are problem areas and hardships. Everyone goes through mind and body stresses and tensions. But, I think this reflective appointment with you, using the two-ziplock bags, will lead you toward a unique crossroad as you write out the problem areas you are struggling through. As you may have noticed, I wrote “struggling through” versus “struggling with.” Why? Because if you do not go through the problem areas with God’s guidance, you will get stuck in the mindset of hopelessness, and the enemy of your soul will regularly, consistently, and deliberately attack you. There is always hope in front of you even within the stormy struggles, frustrations, and complaining challenges of real-time life. I want to let you know that you have just spent some real time in “a place of quiet” as you have read this letter. J Even though life is busy, you have been successful this very moment, listening to the promptings of your mind, heart, and soul through God’s Holy Spirit. The real you has found “a place of quiet.” Real. Hope.
Praying for you,
Jeannine.
“Never underestimate the power of a single prayer.” ~ Mark Batterson
