February 2022 - Healthy and Free Living

If you’re familiar with enneagram, I’m an 8w9. The 8 means that I like to be in control and don’t want anything to control me. The w9 means that I have a peacemaker side. How this often looks in my life as an 8w9 is that I want to control people’s emotions and have everyone be happy.

I used to think that I wasn’t an empathetic person, however that isn’t true. My empathy just has a time limit. Meaning, I will empathize with you, but then I want to get you feeling better again. Yes, I am great at seeing the silver lining and finding the blessing in the pain, but I tend to rush people to feel better. I want them to “shake off” the emotional pain as if it were just a scraped knee.

But, I need to be willing to sit with people in their pain and not rush them. God isn’t in a rush, so why should I be?

Job’s Faith

I’ve been reading through the book of Job in the Bible recently. Job is known as “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” Satan comes to God and claims that Job would curse God if you took everything away from him. God disagrees. He know Job will remain faithful.

Job loses everything! His livestock, his farm, his children, and eventually his health as well. He is utterly destitute and miserable. Job doesn’t sit and think about how blessed he is or look for the silver lining. Job is mad a God. He is severely depressed and wishes he was never born. BUT, he never turns from God and curses him.

I love that God has the book of Job in the Bible because it reminds us that it is okay to feel mad at God and/or depressed. He can handle it. So, hold tight to the truth of God through the hard time. Job trusted God even through the hard, even as he waited for a change.

In the meantime, I’m going to work on letting people “feel” and not trying to manipulate or control their feelings. Because it’s okay to have feelings, it’s okay to be angry, and it’s okay to be hurt. And it’s also okay to find joy and see God’s work even while your still struggle. God’s not in a rush — we don’t need to be either.

The top of my LinkedIn profile says “Empowering Freedom” and below my profile picture it says “Empowering women to design a life they love.” I talk a lot about empowering women and moms, but what does that actually mean?

Empowerment is defined as the process of becoming stronger and more confident. On LinkedIn, it’s about women finding their way in business and their personal lives. I believe that as women, we were created to do so many things and that we can do big things! I want women to feel empowered to thrive in life.

However, society says that what you need is inside you and you just need to dig deeper to find it — that you are to rely on yourself and no one else. It says that empowerment is taking control of one’s life and claiming one’s rights.

But I believe true empowerment is found in Jesus Christ. See, the amazing thing about Jesus, it that he was all about women’s empowerment! Jesus took women from a place of shame (in their culture at that time) and gave them honor…and he still does today!

If you want to know what a strong woman is, look to the Bible. If you want an example of a man bringing honor and empowerment to women, look to Jesus. You don’t need to look to yourself, you just need to trust Jesus and look to him for the honor, respect, strength, confidence, and power he has given to you already.