Good Morning, you guys!

Well, today’s blog is about the FIFTH (but oh so NOT final) quote that my kids can’t stand!!

But the real question is, can YOU??!! LOL!

Well, if so, I will let you know this one came while we were travelling in the Caribbean — not kidding. 🙂

We were walking along the beach one day and into this little town, and on the side of a bank there was a painted phrase about the three things in LIFE that you can always count on: taxes, debt and something else to do with money. $$ 😉

But reading it got me thinking about how there really are three things in LIFE that you can always count on. And again, for those of you who have heard this before, please let it re-soak in your soul, because as I tell my kids each time I say it, it re-soaks in mine. 🙂

1. CHANGE. Yes, there is no way around it. Life is constantly in seasons of shift and change. And really?? Most of us DO NOT like it at all, likely because the next piece feels so UNKNOWN. Most resist it, fight it, pull against it, ‘cause even IF it might end up being a good thing, it still is an UNKNOWN thing, and truly most people just want life to stay the same (unless and until things get really, really bad).

2. CHOICES. Yes, this is a hard one to look at for some areas of life. That there really is a choice in the way we react and respond to the change happening around us can be a hard concept to absorb. ’Cause the CHOICES in front of us, well, we may not like them (at first), we may want to pick something else (at first), and we may not even SEE them (at first), but CHOICES are there.

3. TRUTH. All our choices are decided in the pool of “TRUTH” we choose to play in. Yup, hear me through on this. If your truth base is what your mother has taught you, your decisions of what to do will be based on what SHE says is right (not always a bad thing, but not always a good thing either). If your pool of truth is based on what your friends say is right, well, once again, you will keep “having to” go to THEM to find out just what YOU should do. Or maybe it is the media that guides your decisions on what is correct … or what you read on the internet … or your “church,” your culture … or YOURSELF!

Oh, yeah, it is that last one — OUR OWN HEADS — that, oh, can be the “trickiest” of all. It is the one that can mess us up the most because WE DON’T even realize some of the STINKY STUFF we believe, because maybe we have been believing it all our life.

And so, we go to the CHANGE-CHOICE-TRUTH quote and can begin to SEE how it can be  quite a GAME-CHANGER, if we choose to accept it, 🙂 because:

1. CHANGE: When you can’t believe you can change, you “stay stuck” in hopelessness and helplessness for at least that area of your life, right? But when you begin to shift from spending your time fighting and dodging and resisting the changes around you, to  realizing you cannot stop it, you might even begin to see how it could be a GOOD thing, maybe even a GOD-thing. Then WHOA! You can begin to LEARN to let go of all that negative output and, wonder of wonders, maybe you can even CHOOSE the direction of the change because…

2. CHOICE: Yes, there is a choice to begin to change the situation, and that CHOICE is up to YOU! Once you stop fighting against the CHANGE in your world, while beginning to build the belief that you CAN change, you really do begin to say, “Well, who knew?? I DO have a few (or maybe more than two!) CHOICES for what I can DO in this situation.” And, oh my, sometimes those “only options” left to me really became the best ones in the long run. (Anyone else agree????) And those long-run benefits all begin blooming based on where you choose you will get your point of…

3. TRUTH: Yes, we are the ones who choose WHO we will listen to for the options of our choices in our response to (or to be proactive IN) the “change” department of our life. It is this PIECE that really “makes or breaks” the type of attitude and CONFIDENCE with which we move forward. Like, if I choose to make my choices based on what my mother says, my friends say, the media says, the church says, our culture says, or what I say,  well, all those areas really DO change, vary and shift, especially over time (especially in my MIND — Yikes!!)

BUT, if I CHOOSE to take a TIME-tested and UNchangeable worldview from the Word of GOD, well then, no matter what anyone else says or thinks, I get to land with CHRIST-CENTERED-CONFIDENCE — even and especially if they don’t like it — on the FACT that I am making my life’s CHOICES based on unbeatable FACTS and no longer on fears built upon what other people, or I myself, think.

And so, yes, the kids are SUPER-SICK of this one too. 🙂 BUT it is so good, I just had to share it with you. 🙂 And you will see I’m going to begin to place it at the bottom of each piece as a reminder that, “Lovely lady, YOU can change. YOU DO have a choice. Just make it based on HIS truths, and then watch over time as His GOOD GODLY GROWTH begins to bloom in YOU.”

How DO I know this? Because HE did it in crazy old messed-up me. And if He can do it for me? He can do it in you, and that is the TRUTH.

Carol 🙂

CHANGE-CHOICE-TRUTH — Which part do you feel speaks most to you?