When Grief Feels Like A Forever Good Friday

Sorrow . . . turns out to be not a state but a process, 

 It needs not a map but a history. _C. S. Lewis

I stumbled onto dry bones. There’s a wasteland of them, and at times they still overwhelm my heart.

Months and even years can pass while I stay far away from the path that leads me there, to the empty place.  But one word, one moment, one look can steal my heart away from its present calm and drop me right in the middle of this desolate graveyard.

My family is on a healing journey, and it’s forcing me to open the door to a pain I thought I could escape.  It turns out I can’t.

Grief , it seems, can feel like a forever Good Friday. The terror of the night sky that drapes the midday sun —the tears, the guilt, at times the numb indifference— how they rip a heart from top to bottom, all in a singular exhale.  Sorrow unmercifully crushes the soft confines of the soul and crumbles hope into a thousand tiny clumps of clay. Right before my eyes.

My soul cries out…

How do I let go?

How can I run away from this place?

Will life ever feel safe again?

What could I have done to prevent this pain?

These are the things that spill through the cracks in my heart.

I wonder if that’s what Mary Magdalene felt on that day —that Good Friday when her world fell apart, when everything that was Truth and Life was lifted on two rough-hewn pieces of timber and there was nothing she could do to stop it? Nothing she could do to silence the sound of nails piercing flesh. Nothing she could do to lift Him up for one more gasp of air.  Nothing.

Grief is the emotional realization that life will never be the same from this moment forward.  It is the helpless struggle to accept that there is nothing we can change or control.  It is our heart’s final surrender to loss. CLICK TO TWEET

Jesus knows the pain of grief and anguish.  He knows precisely the darkness of Good Friday —how walking towards God’s plan didn’t quell the agony, didn’t calm the fear, didn’t right the wrongs of injustice, didn’t prevent the exhaustion, the dread, the total destruction of body and soul.  Each step He took towards the cross.  His death.

And sometimes I can get stuck right there.  I don’t want to but I do.  I can get stuck in the pain of my present circumstances.  I can cling to my sorrows and drag them behind me as my cross. I can crave them as familiar companions to protect my heart from risking again.  I can keep them close to numb myself from moving forward into the unknown —alone.  

There are three things to remember when your grief seems like a forever Good Friday:

Good Friday visits each of us.  

Ann Voskamp declares, Life is loss.  Life on this earth will always be accompanied by death —physical death and emotional death.

Jesus knew his Good Friday was coming.  He had lived preparing for it His whole life, yet it didn’t make His suffering any easier. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He offered, Not my will, but Yours be done (Matt 26:39, NIV) In surrendering to God’s plan, He tells each of us that we too can surrender to our grief, we can accept the cup of suffering knowing He is with us every step of the way.  Understanding that He knows perfectly what it means to be broken.  Spilled out.  Empty. CLICK TO TWEET

Don’t try to hide from the pain of grief, don’t try to get around it.  You will never escape it.  Grief is the medicine God uses to heal the loss-disease that infects the most vulnerable places in our hearts.  Healing happens in hard places.  CLICK TO TWEET

The sky will feel black as night.  The thunder will terrify the uncertain tremors in your heart.  You will feel as if hope will never rise again…

But it will.

Good Friday’s don’t last forever.

Even in death, God prepares life.  As I learn to expose my fragile, wounded self and accept the cold discomfort of living outside my knowing, God is always right here waiting— waiting to comfort me, waiting to hold me, waiting to feel the sorrow with me.  

I hear Him as He whispers quietly,

Hold on.

Stay close.

I’m not going anywhere.

You’re safe here. CLICK TO TWEET

I wonder if Jesus whispered those words from the cross to Mary Magdalene that Good Friday?  I wonder if He was comforting her as He gave Himself for her?  I wonder if she felt His presence with her on her road to Sunday?

Your grief will groan for a season.  There is no time schedule, no tempo that is dictated to you, even if others need you to hurry along.  God never needs you to hurry along.  He waits patiently with you while you heal.  

He knows…

Easter is on the horizon.

Whatever is pressing within us, whatever sorrow has been exposed bone and marrow, grief will always leads us to the tomb.  Like Mary Magdalene that Easter morning, in the midst of her pain—searching, seeking her Rabbi, her Friend, her Messiah.  She could not have felt, she couldn’t have believed the tomb was empty.  She could never have comprehended that Easter had arrived.  Death had been defeated.  Her salvation had come.  A new season with new life and new hope had been born. CLICK TO TWEET

Right in the middle of a graveyard.  There— in a sea of dry bones.

And all our present pain, all of our brokenness and suffering, all the losses, perhaps all our darkest moments, become places where we can see Him the clearest.  I don’t know about you, but I can. I can see Him around me working and moving.  I see Him raising up dry bones in you and me.  I see Him moving in our midst —reclaiming hopes and hearts, families and dreams.  

He is our Sunday morning.  He is our resurrection hope.  He’s the healing for our wounded hearts.

Good Fridays can seem like forever…

But Easter Sunday is coming!

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About This Community

Don't we all want a little peace?  My heart for this community is to provide just that - a needed refuge from all the burdens that weigh us down, some encouragement and inspiration to keep us weary travelers moving forward on our journeys, and some practical advice to help each of us navigate the challenges of life and relationships.  Whether in our parenting, our marriages, our faith, or the broken places in our hearts, this place is for anyone who dares to reach beyond the hopelessness that surrounds us and embrace a lifestyle of emotional abundance and peace!  

About Peace for a Lifetime

In my book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with myself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

www.lisamurrayonline.com

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

Why Embracing Our Brokenness Is Necessary For Us To Be Whole

  We equate wholeness with perfection, with having it all together, with success. Yet the meaning of wholeness is perhaps just the opposite.

Wholeness, at its very core, implies rather than an absence of brokenness, the innate existence of a fractured, fragile, astoundingly imperfect self. Wholeness, is about embracing our brokenness as an integral part of life.

For most of my life, I longed to be whole. I was hungry for it. Desperate. I became vigilant, some might say obsessed with achieving, attaining. My focus was on becoming as perfect as I could be, on removing any faults or defects. For me, the finish line of success was where I would become whole.

As I walked through the “season of my undoing” and stumbled upon the door of my healing, I discovered that I could lay down this mountain of pain I had been carrying, that I didn’t have to become perfect, that I could accept, even embrace my brokenness.

Embracing my brokenness allows me breathe.

It is exhausting to carry the weight of shame and fear on my shoulders. Impossible to bear up under such an insurmountable and unforgiving oppressor – me.

My Abba Father whispered to my soul, Child, Why do you carry such a weight when my Son already carried it for you?

He hung on the cross for every broken place, every shame, every sorrow. Our past was redeemed. Our present is His gift to us, free and clear. And our future is secure. Why do we insist on placing the weight of our shame back on our shoulders?

I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost likesetting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him. _C.S. Lewis

Wholeness allows me to see myself as God sees me, through the eyes of love, of grace, of compassion as big as the universe. Through His tender, aching eyes I can see more clearly who I am. I am His beloved.

Embracing my brokenness allows me to have greater communion with others.

Comparison is the thief of intimacy. External validation is but heroin to a broken, striving soul. And thus we can never truly be with others as long as we are so terribly needy of them for our fulfillment.

We all come to the table of community broken. We are all like Peter himself, stumbling along our journeys with Jesus, bringing our mess-ups and our failings, our weakest sensibilities to our brothers and sisters in Christ. To be encouraged, strengthened, comforted, and built up together. Yes, together.

Settling into a newfound rhythm of release—from needing what others cannot give, and embracing an identity that no one can steal away—we are at once home with our brothers and sisters. Accepting their humanity allows us to embrace our own.

As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you. _C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Embracing my brokenness creates greater intimacy with God.

Nothing stands between us. No longer needing pretense to validate my existence, I can allow myself to come right up to His outstretched arms and dive in. I am utterly and divinely safe. I have no need to hide. No need to fear. He is here. He is with me. Embracing my brokenness tears down the wall and creates full, unfettered intimacy and vulnerability with the Creator of my soul.

Isaiah 53:5 (NIV) tells us, But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

How can it be? When we're naked and ashamed and alone in our brokenness, Christ envelops us with His intimate grace. When we're rejected and abandoned and feel beyond wanting, Jesus cups our face: "Come close, my Beloved." When we're dirty and tear-stained and despairing, Jesus Christ is attracted to us and proposes undying love: "All that you're carrying I take... and all that I am is yours." How do you ever get over that? _Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way

Embracing my brokenness allows my authentic self to grow.

I am learning to see all the parts and pieces of me as one singular, beautiful mosaic. As I learn to hold the myriad of shapes and shards in my hands, I can finally see them through the eyes of compassion, as He sees them. This is the sacred place where God moves me from being healed to being whole.

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever. _Vance Havner

Brokenness keeps me planted in the good soil of redemption.

Brokenness keeps me drenched in the love I cannot live without.

Brokenness is the one thing that keeps me reaching for, clinging to the Truth that molds me, and transforms me into who I am not yet, but who I am becoming.

Brokenness does not make me weak.  It  is perhaps the strongest part of who I am.

Because in my most broken, wounded, fragile places, I know He is strong.

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About This Community

Don't we all want a little peace?  My heart for this community is to provide just that - a needed refuge from all the burdens that weigh us down, some encouragement and inspiration to keep us weary travelers moving forward on our journeys, and some practical advice to help each of us navigate the challenges of life and relationships.  Whether in our parenting, our marriages, our faith, or the broken places in our hearts, this place is for anyone who dares to reach beyond the hopelessness that surrounds us and embrace a lifestyle of emotional abundance and peace!  

About Peace for a Lifetime

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with myself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

When You Feel Soul-Weary and Saddle-Worn On Your Journey To The Manger

Luke 2:1-20 (NIV)

It happens sometimes. Most years Christmas is a time of joy, filled with decorations and celebrations, gatherings and festivities.  Still, there are some years my journey to the manger feels more lonely, more overwhelmed, more soul-weary, and saddle-worn than I could have imagined.

Do you ever feel that way? Sometimes I wonder if that’s how Joseph and Mary felt on their journey to the manger?

I can only imagine that the dusty, dirty road to Bethlehem in those last days of her pregnancy drained every ounce of Mary’s energy from her bones; the  soreness of her swollen belly and the ache of her ankles having travelled all those miles when all she wanted to do was rest and prepare for her baby’s birth. Perhaps she and Joseph arrived at the inn too weary and too exhausted to go one step further.

Mary and Joseph’s journey to the manger certainly wasn’t ideal. They weren’t settled, they weren’t rested. They weren’t. They were barely holding on. And when they finally stumbled into the stable, finally made a pallet to lay their heads, He.  Met. Them.  Yes, He met them, right in the humblest, dimmest, messiest of places.

Maybe that’s how Abba, Father wanted it. Maybe He didn’t want Mary and Joseph to be dressed in their finest for baby Jesus' arrival. Maybe He didn’t need them to set a table fit for a king. Maybe God in His infinite wisdom knew this King would spend His life reaching out to the broken, healing the diseased, and loving the outcast. How fitting that Jesus be born in a way that He lived —meeting people right where they were and transforming everything simply with His presence.

Isn’t that just like Jesus is with us on our journey? He sees the road we’ve been on. He knows the sorrow in our bones and the cry of our hearts. He isn’t waiting for any of His children to get fixed up to embrace and love us. He meets us right where we are. He makes His glorious entrance in the middle of our mess, in the moment of our need. He does. Always. That’s who He is. He is Jesus. God with us. And He longs to be with you, right where you are today.

When you feel soul-weary and saddle-worn on your journey to the manger

The journey to the manger isn’t always ideal, isn’t always easy or joy-filled. You don’t need to wait until next year to invite Him in. You don’t need to get more healed to allow Him into your life. You don’t need to pretend until the season passes by. Don’t. Please, don’t.

Come to Him. Call out to Him. He will hear you, He will forgive you. He will make everything new. No matter what you feel like today, He is waiting to make His entrance into your heart, your life, your world. He will meet you with His love, His grace, His glory – right there at the manger.

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About This Community

Don't we all want a little peace?  My heart for this community is to provide just that - a needed refuge from all the burdens that weigh us down, some encouragement and inspiration to keep us weary travelers moving forward on our journeys, and some practical advice to help each of us navigate the challenges of life and relationships.  Whether in our parenting, our marriages, our faith, or the broken places in our hearts, this place is for anyone who dares to reach beyond the hopelessness that surrounds us and embrace a lifestyle of emotional abundance and peace!  

About Peace for a Lifetime

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with myself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

Because Sometimes The Most Beautiful Things Spring From The Deadest Places

Sometimes the most beautiful things spring from the deadest places. A few weeks back my husband and I were attending a celebration of life service for a family friend. The service was everything beautiful and sacred, allowing us to pause for a moment and savor the words expressed over a life well-lived, a heart well-loved.

A mixture of emotions ebbed and flowed inside of me, as each refrain expressed another shade of sorrow mixed with reverence, with love, with sadness— sadness for the husband minus his soul mate, his wife; sadness for the lonely little one sitting in the wings with his friends. This sort of occasion purges from the shallowest of depths the most melancholy and tender emotions. A catharsis of sorts.

It began as nothing really, until it was something. I sat quietly watching the family pour in, ever so stately, solemnly as they took their seats. It was just one glimpse, one look that sent me reeling. In an instant a lightning bolt of anguish, anger, dare I say hatred, coursed through me. I had no idea. It had been so long ago, the pain, so old, I thought it had healed, had passed, had dissipated from the inside out. I thought.

But in an instant, my brokenness was exposed, my wound revealed in the most irreverent and untimely of ways. I exhaled, trying to rid myself of this lingering pain. To no avail.

This pang stirred inside my belly, right underneath the surface of my knowing, until a few days later as I sat in another pew, a Sunday morning pew, listening to another sermon. This sermon was about life and faith, and all sorts of truths that I forever try to stuff inside my heart to carry me, strengthen me for another day. But on this day, as I was listening, I heard the pastor say, But above all else guard your heart.(Proverbs 4:23, NIV) It hit me again.

Was He speaking to me? Was this one of those moments of revelation, of conviction, of healing, when He reaches into the deepest places in my heart to reveal His truth? For me, it was.

Somehow, years ago I had picked up an offense. I had let it steal into the corners of my heart and plant itself in the most loathsome of ways. I wasn’t even aware. On that day, my heart revealed its unholy alliance with an offense and my spirit heaved a terrible grief.

The Gift of Conviction

We will all as Believers have moments like this on our journeys, when God steps into our routine and shines His light on the dimmest, most forgotten places in our hearts that need to be healed. He speaks life and conviction, using the most tender of measures to sanctify us through and through.

I love how God never finishes with our transformation. He is never satisfied to leave us soaking in our sin. His love for us knows no end.

Romans 2:4 (NLT) shares God’s heart toward His children and their sin, Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

Still, the one thing we can trust about our Abba Father more than anything is that just as He would leave His flock to find the one lost sheep, no matter where we are, He will find us. He will convict us, teach us, heal us, and make us new. He will never leave us in the pit. His conviction is life-giving in that the gift of repentance removes the sin that has become a cancer in our souls. The gift of repentance restores our relationship. It forms God’s character in us. Sets us free.

2 Corinthians 7:10 (NIV) states that, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

The Blessing of Repentance

C.H. Spurgeon says of conviction,

A true physician makes incisions only in order to effect cures, and a wise minister excites painful emotions in men’s minds only with the distinct object of blessing their souls.

And isn’t that what Easter is all about? The weight of sins that hangs heavy on our shoulders is all at once swallowed up in light, in life, in eternity, in redemption. This great salvation is for all because Jesus bore it all. ALL.

I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.Isa. 43:25 (NIV)

He wipes them clean. Our hearts, our lives. He forgives. He scrubs our souls with the blood of the Lamb so that now we can stand spotless.

All we have to do is repent and confess. Such little things in the grand scheme of life.

To turn away from death, and reach toward life.

Sometimes the most beautiful things spring from the deadest places.

What is God revealing in your heart that He wants to heal?  How can you begin today to embrace His gift of conviction, repent, and reach towards new life in Him?

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Blog

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About This Community

Don't we all want a little peace?  My heart for this community is to provide just that - a needed refuge from all the burdens that weigh us down, some encouragement and inspiration to keep us weary travelers moving forward on our journeys, and some practical advice to help each of us navigate the challenges of life and relationships.  Whether in our parenting, our marriages, our faith, or the broken places in our hearts, this place is for anyone who dares to reach beyond the hopelessness that surrounds us and embrace a lifestyle of emotional abundance and peace!  

About Peace for a Lifetime

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with herself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

Four Key Elements To Discovering Your Purpose

And how to make the days ahead the most meaningful ever 

Delores had always been a vibrant, passionate woman. She had been active in her church, taught Bible studies for more years than she could remember, and routinely invested herself in the lives of the women she taught.

Sitting with her, her eyes welled up with tears. She seemed lost.

Ever since she retired and relocated to be near her children, she hadn’t been able to find a church community in which to invest herself. Every church already had their programs, their teachers. Her children and their families were busy with their lives and she struggled to nurture the kind of relationships she had always dreamed of with her grandchildren.

Her husband was now passed and this woman who had lived with such strength, passion, and purpose, now struggled to make sense of her life. She ached to have a place to plant herself. Her spirit was parched for soil in which she would thrive. Lonely, she began to sink into depression. Was this it?, she wondered. Was there a purpose at all to her life? 

Katie is in her late 20’s. Though she has a job, she longs to find her purpose in life – God’s unique calling to which she can dedicate her life. She searches to find her purpose every day in her career and her relationships, yet ends up feeling more confused and farther from her pursuit than ever.

Without a compass to give stability, direction, and meaning, she remains locked in a cycle of emptiness and wandering. Some days life feels overwhelming, almost unbearable.

Most of us can recall similar feelings at some point in our lives—the emptiness, the yearning, the confusion, the lacking, and the depression. They all merge together, and they always seem to present themselves in the dimmest moments of twilight.

We all need purpose. 

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian existential psychologist, created a school of thought called logotherapy. Frankl believed that our dominant driving force is to find meaning in life.

In the 1940s, Frankl was held prisoner in Nazi concentration camps. He felt the horror of losing everything only to be tortured and terrorized. With all the agony and brutality, what kept Frankl from giving up his relentless fight for his life?

Purpose. He was able to find meaning in his struggle, and that’s what gave him the power to push forward through unimaginable pain.

After escaping the concentration camps, Frankl published a book called Man’s Search for Meaning, which explores his experiences and includes an overview of logotherapy. A quote by Nietzsche nicely sums up his philosophy on how people were able to survive the camps, without losing the will to live:

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

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That is the power of purpose. We can find meaning and purpose in our relationships, we can find it in our values and beliefs. We can find purpose in our relationship with God, and we can explore our God-given passions to cultivate potential purposes for our lives.

In my book, Peace For A Lifetime, I explore three things that must align for you to discover your purpose: identity, beliefs and values, and passions. However, there’s one vital piece to the purpose puzzle that’s missing.

God’s purpose will always be connected with giving, not getting.

We tend to look for something external that will provide direction or purpose, that will fill the void inside. It’s counter-intuitive, but our search for purpose will emerge from what we are giving of ourselves to others.

Viktor Frankl describes,

Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.

Do you want to be loved? Love someone. Would you like more joy in your life? Give joy to people. Sounds so simple, right? The more we learn to serve others, the more fulfilled and satisfied we become.

[clickToTweet tweet="Do you want to be loved? Love someone. Would you like more joy in your life? Give joy to people." quote="Do you want to be loved? Love someone. Would you like more joy in your life? Give joy to people."]

God’s purpose will always align with how He has made us.

As we define our identity (our core strengths and weaknesses) and our most deeply held beliefs and values, our curiosities used in service to others will explode into a relentless passion that emerges into a vibrant dynamic purpose.

1. Know your identity – write down a list of strengths and weaknesses.
2. Define your beliefs and values – write down your beliefs about life, faith, relationships, work.
3. Explore your passions – write down a list of things that interest you or make you curious.
4. How can you use the above three to serve a cause, a person, a community, or an organization other than yourself?

Once you identify these things, you will have a map to begin discovering your purpose. It may not include fame, it may not have a giant salary attached to it; it may be different than you had ever dreamed. Yet finding and engaging the purpose for which you were created will provide the greatest meaning and satisfaction you can imagine.

Do you enjoy talking with people? Where can you begin volunteering to talk or read with people who perhaps are lonely and would love a good conversation?

Do you enjoy cooking? How can you identify individuals, families, or organizations within your community for whom you can begin cooking meals?

Are you gifted at teaching, writing, organizing, helping? There is no right or wrong. Get creative and try out several things.

Your purpose today may look different than it did twenty years ago. God is always growing us to develop new passions and purposes for every season of our lives.

Explore the things you love today and begin to look for ways you can use your gift to bless someone. In the end, you will be giving yourself the biggest blessing of all. You will be living your life on purpose with purpose.

How have you struggled to find your purpose in life? What is God showing you about Himself and about you along your journey? 

I’d love to hear!

If you haven't joined our community on Facebook, I would LOVE to have you be a part of our little online family!

Facebook: Lisa Murray

Blessings,

Lisa

About Lisa

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, author, coffee lover, and wife. My online community lisamurrayonline.com provides a compassionate place in the midst of the stresses and struggles of life. At heart, I am just a Southern girl who loves beautiful things, whether it is the beauty of words found in a deeply moving story, the beauty of a meal cooked with love, the beauty of a cup of coffee with a friend, or the beauty seen in far away landscapes and cultures. I have fallen passionately in love with the journey and believe it is among the most beautiful gifts to embrace and celebrate. While I grew up in the Florida sunshine, I live with my husband just outside Nashville in Franklin, TN.

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About Peace for a Lifetime

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with herself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

www.lisamurrayonline.com

Facebook: Lisa Murray

Twitter: @_Lisa_Murray

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

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Three Questions That Will Empower Your Peace

How To Stop the Chaos and Embrace the Life You’ve Always Dreamed 

Life just keeps coming at us. With all of the demands and distractions, it can be tough to focus, to find our way, to discover the things that matter most.

Most of us tend to live reacting to whatever crisis is thrown at us. We can’t even envision a life where we get to experience the fullness and abundance we’ve always dreamed. We’ve learned to settle.

There are three questions that I believe hold the keys to empowering your peace.

1. Are you living the life you’ve always dreamed?

What are your hopes and dreams? What does your ideal life look like? Have you buried your dreams in a faraway place because they seem too unrealistic or just too painful to resurrect?

God gave each of us dreams. He wants to give us a hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11) We will never get anywhere if we are not heading somewhere. I’m not channeling my inner Anthony Robbins, but what I am asking is where are the areas that you’ve given up, settled in, stopped living?

[clickToTweet tweet="We will never get anywhere if we are not heading somewhere. #PeaceforaLifetime" quote="We will never get anywhere if we are not heading somewhere."]

Perhaps some of those areas or dreams are places God wants to bring healing, passion, and purpose to your life. Perhaps He wants to give you more of your dreams than you ever imagined. We will never live our dreams if we have stopped dreaming them.

[clickToTweet tweet="We will never live our dreams if we have stopped dreaming them. #PeaceforaLifetime" quote="We will never live our dreams if we have stopped dreaming them."]

2.  What steps are you taking to build the life you want?

Many of us started out young and idealistic, ready to change the world. But as life wielded its gravitational pull on our hopes and dreams, we gave up and settled in.

Our dreams for our life don’t have to be big. You may have always dreamed of learning how to garden or paint. You may have the dream of becoming a writer, or a Bible Study leader. You may have always wanted to return to school, or build a business. What steps are you taking to achieve your dreams and create the life you want?

Our dreams are rarely accomplished in one step or one moment. Don’t give up on your dreams. Begin to take small steps toward them. It is all of the small accumulated steps that ultimately lead to big changes in our hearts, our lives, and our relationships.

3.  What prevents you from taking steps forward toward your dreams?

There will always be obstacles to our dreams. Insecurities, past hurts, challenges to our time and resources can interrupt or stall even the best laid plans. Yet it is more about what we do with the obstacles than whether or not we will experience obstacles in our lives that will ultimately determine the outcome.

God wants us to learn how to face the obstacles in our paths, to lean into them in order to grow our faith in Him, develop our own inner resources, and along the way discover the path to our greatest hopes and dreams.

When we’re empty, overwhelmed, and distracted, we tend to drift along, reacting to every situation life throws at us.  Some of us try to control every detail of life, but both ways of dealing will leave us exhausted and stuck.

My new book, Peace For A Lifetime, presents a powerful and proven alternative that will empower you to remove the obstacles, heal the wounds, and develop the tools to live your dreams.

Click Here To Learn More About The Book

You’ll learn:

• How to recalibrate your relationship with emotions to get them to work for you in your life

• The reasons you may feel “off,” stuck, or hopeless to move beyond your present circumstances or past pain

• How to discover your authentic core self so that you can grow the investments you make into yourself and your future

• Specific tools to maximize your relationship success

• Powerful applications that will help give you the courage, the clarity, and vision to begin taking steps forward on your journey.

Peace For A Lifetime is available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble Online.

You can begin to reclaim the hope, wholeness, and harmony God desires for your life. You can begin today to build the life of your dreams.

Click Here To Order

What would happen in your life if you were able to remove the obstacles and live your dreams? Leave your comment below.

Blessings,

Lisa

You can also JOIN OUR SOCIAL MEDIA CONTEST and enter to win a $100 Amazon Giftcard!!! Post a picture of your book cover, use ‪#‎PeaceforaLifetime, and tag @_Lisa_Murray. That's it!! Plus, you can enter as many times as you want before March 25, 2016!!!!

I'm so excited to announce the winners of my new fragrance, PEACE!!

Jamie M.

Rachel G.

Timothy K.

Katherine P.

Monica O.

Please email with your address so we can get your gift to you!!!

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Embracing Peace In A World of Chaos

How to discover abundance in the midst of the mess 

Everywhere around us the world is raging. Tragedy – chaos – uncertainty- fill the air. We can’t help but feel the weight of the world every time walk out our front door.

We see it in the news, we read about it on social media. We feel helpless that there is anything we can do to fix what is so terribly broken in the world around us.

We are, however, powerful to focus our energy on changing what is looking back at us in the mirror. We are powerful to live our lives with hope, abundance, and peace.

What would the world feel like to have a strong, solid foundation that would withstand the storms and struggles life inevitably brings?

How would life feel different if we had deep roots firmly planted in rich soil that gives our lives clarity, vision, and purpose?

The chaos of life doesn’t change – WE change!

I wrote Peace For A Lifetime as a result of my journey through brokenness. The lessons I learned, the healing and peace I have found apply no matter what your journey or your circumstances.

Trading Emptiness for Abundance

I’ve found three clear reasons Emotional Abundance will help you navigate the storms and find peace in the midst of the messes life can bring.

1. Maximized HOPE! – Without a doubt your hope lies first and foremost in the person of Jesus Christ. He is your foundation spiritually, emotionally, and physically. As you learn to appropriate His hope into the emotional area of your life, you will experience the fullness, the abundance of hope He promises. Emotional Abundance allows you to walk through all the seasons of our lives and deal with them effectively so that you can face them without fear and find peace in the most difficult days.

Jeremiah 29:11(NIV) states, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

2. Complete WHOLENESS! – God wants you to be not only healed, but whole. Emotional Abundance allows you to find healing for your wounds and experience wholeness within your own heart and mind. As you learn to be a good caretaker for your emotions, to create an environment of compassion and truth, you will begin to discover your emotional identity. God doesn’t want his children limping through life, barely surviving. He wants you to thrive. He wants you to discover your unique calling, your passion and purpose so that you can make a difference for His kingdom. As individuals become whole, the entire body of Christ becomes whole.

2 Timothy 1:7 (AMP) tells us that, “God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well- balanced mind and discipline and self-control.”

3. Enduring HARMONY! – You were not meant to live in chaos. Your relationships were never supposed to be a rollercoaster of pain and disappointment. Emotional Abundance fosters peace and strength in your relationships so that you can enjoy them without being dependent on them for your happiness or wellbeing. When you look inside to find peace within yourselves, you don’t need as much from others, nor do you blame them for your unhappiness. Emotional Abundance allows you to deal with disagreements in a way that leaves you and others on the same team and preserves the openness, safety and respect needed for relationships to flourish.

Romans 15:5-6Amplified Bible (AMP) shares, “Now may the God Who gives the power of patient endurance (steadfastness) and Who supplies encouragement, grant you to live in such mutual harmony and such full sympathy with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may [unanimously] with united hearts and one voice, praise and glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah).

Embracing Peace

Our wounds steal from us a life of hope. They steal our identity, our abundance, our relationships. Our wounds ultimately steal our peace.

Life doesn’t have to be this way. This is not the life God has for you.

Peace isn’t just an illusion. Peace isn’t always for someone else. Peace is for you. Every time you have struggled and fallen has brought you to this place. You are ready. Now is the time.

You can learn to:

• heal the wounds that have kept you stuck

• feel, understand, and manage your emotions effectively

• create an environment in which you can thrive

• develop deep, satisfying relationships in your life

Yes, you can take back your power and discover a life of hope, wholeness, and harmony! If you’re ready, Peace For A Lifetime, can help show you the way.

Question: How would your life look different with more hope and wholeness?

Leave your answer below.

Blessings,

Lisa

How Poor Communication Can Destroy a Relationship

 We all believe we have great communication skills. It is everyone else around us who has the communication problems, right?

The truth is, most of us are not taught how to communicate effectively. We see things, feel things, perceive things from our unique perspective and we assume others see, feel, and perceive things just like we do. When they don’t, we feel frustrated, ignored, unheard.

If we want to have healthy, satisfying relationships, we must learn healthy communication skills.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares how poor communication can destroy a relationship.

Several years ago I was working with a middle-aged couple, Rick and Audrey, who had been married for fifteen years. As I questioned Audrey to learn more about what wasn’t working in their relationship, she openly shared her frustration with Rick. From her perspective, he just wasn’t willing to meet her needs. Her primary complaints were Rick’s lack of affection and lack of help around the house. I followed up by asking what she had done previously to address her concerns with Rick. She replied she had told him repeatedly he was selfish and didn’t care about her at all.

Rick for his part, was mostly silent during my initial conversation with Audrey. He seemed frustrated and angry just hearing her complaints. When I addressed him to find out his concerns, his only response was, “Her.” He described he is usually attentive and doesn’t go out with his buddies to drink; he just doesn’t know what her problem is. “I think when she gets like this, she’s just crazy,” he explained. “I should have known she’d be just like her mother. This really has nothing to do with me. I’m just here to get her the help she needs.”

I asked Audrey if she had ever shared with Rick her specific complaints and how she felt about them. She replied he should know. “If he loves me, he should know the things that are important to me and should try to meet my needs.”

While I understood Audrey’s perspective and her frustration with the dynamic at work between the two of them, thinking that Rick was able to somehow know what her needs were if she was not able to communicate them clearly was a stretch.

To be honest, most of us at some point have had the experience of expecting or assuming someone should know something about us even though we have never communicated our thoughts or feelings to them. So often we carry hurts and frustrations regarding unmet needs that we have never spoken.

This illustration shows, among other things, how poorly Rick and Audrey communicate with one another. In her attempt at communicating, Audrey accuses Rick of being selfish, of not loving her or trying to meet her needs. Rick feels defensive and lashes back by placing the blame on Audrey, calling her names, and belittling both her and her mother. None of this communication is healthy and none of their interactions will bring Emotional Abundance (EA)—being able to effectively manage our emotions so we can appropriately respond to the people and circumstances around us—to the relationship.

Your relationships don’t have to be the source of such frustration. You don’t have to feel so alone with your partner. You can learn effective communication skills that will breathe new life and new hope into your relationship.

I share simple, practical life steps in my book, Peace For a Lifetime, that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

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Why Unlocking the Past Can Hold the Key To Our Healing

We all have a past. No matter who we are, no matter where we were raised, we each have a story, a history that has been etched into the seams and shadows of our hearts.

We didn’t ask for the things we experienced as children. Whether it was a chaotic family life, our parents’ divorce, or financial struggles, whether it was the rejection and ridicule we experienced from our so-called friends at school, by the time we made it to adulthood, life had already begun to take its toll.

The problem is, the wounds we carry from our past into our adult lives don’t just fall by the wayside once we graduate from school. Our wounds affect and infect everything from our work, our relationships, our faith and our inner peace. We can’t outrun our wounds, we can’t ignore them, we can’t escape them.

We can heal them. We can find freedom from them. The abundant life God desires for you doesn’t include your wounds, or your burdens.

If you’ve ever felt hopeless that life could ever be different – it can! Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares why unlocking the past can hold the key to our healing.

Debra was forty-eight years old when she pursued therapy in order to deal with her addiction to alcohol. Our initial conversation revealed that Debra grew up in an alcoholic family. She was the oldest of four children.

Growing up, she watched daily as her father came home from work and began his evening ritual of pouring himself a few drinks before dinner. With each drink, his agitation increased. He would start with angry comments about the news. Then he would bicker with her mom, and yell at the kids to, “shut up so I can have some peace and quiet,” as Debra recalled. By suppertime, he was in a virtual rage. His bickering escalated into cursing and name-calling. Seemingly he was looking for something that would give him an excuse to explode.

Debra remembered a night when she was six years old that her dad stood up from the table and began to beat her mom violently. Debra immediately took the little ones to their room. When she came back to the dining room, she started pulling on her dad’s arm, desperately trying to get him off of her mom. He merely flung her off while he continued his vicious attack.

One night when Debra was fifteen years old, as another fight began, she stood in front of her mom with a knife and threatened to kill her dad if he ever touched her mom again. He never did.

To make matters worse, Debra was molested by a teacher when she was twelve years old. Though she told her parents, they didn’t believe her and refused to take any action that might embarrass the family.

Since then, Debra has always found herself in relationships where there is a lot of drama. Whether the drama is from her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, his boss, or a nosy neighbor, there is always a fight to be had, and she is ready for battle. The relationships usually end when there are no more battles to wage.

The losses have been tremendous for Debra. She began to rely on alcohol many years ago as a way to deal with the pain of the break-ups. She feels so alone, and the sadness is overwhelming. She just wants to feel loved, to feel safe. Her current boyfriend truly does love her but can’t take Debra’s drama anymore.

When I asked what role faith played in her life, she responded she had a general belief in God. She related having a lot of anger toward Him, not understanding how a loving God could have allowed her to experience everything she did as a child. She also felt God had abandoned her just like her parents did when she told them of her molestation. Certainly she could not feel safe with someone else who was going to leave.

Though Debra survived her childhood, she did not escape the emotional residue that contaminated everything in her life, including her relationship with God.

Thankfully, this is not the end of the story for Debra. God had another plan for Debra’s life. A plan for healing, a plan for life, a plan for peace.

God has another plan for your life, too! He has not abandoned you. He has not forgotten your wounds or your pain. He longs to heal all that is broken in you. He longs to give you a new life and a new future.

I share simple, practical life steps in my book, Peace For a Lifetime, that can help you understand the life God desires for you. This material can help you create and experience an indestructible peace – not just for today, not just for tomorrow, you can experience peace…for a lifetime!

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When We're Tired of Living a Counterfeit Life

Have you ever bought a counterfeit? Have you wandered the streets of Manhattan and found a bottle of your favorite perfume or a beautiful designer bag for $20?

Did you think it was real? So many of us, whether we knew it or not, have been duped by a counterfeit. It looked real, we thought it was real —until we compared it to the real thing and realized we’d been taken by an inferior imitation!

Counterfeiting isn’t only for perfumes and handbags. Many of us live counterfeit lives. We’re afraid of letting our real selves be known, afraid of ridicule, terrified of rejection. We never let anyone get to know who we really are. We never get to know who we really are. We miss the joy of experiencing the person God created. Living with a counterfeit self, we can never experience abundance, we can never know true peace.

Here is an excerpt from my new book, Peace For a Lifetime, that shares the importance of knowing and growing our authentic self so that we can experience the life and relationships we desire.

Let’s face it. All of us at some point, whether we knew or not, have bought a counterfeit. Whether we were looking for a lower-cost prescription medication or simply trying to obtain some designer watch, handbag, or boots at a discount price, we have all been duped by an imposter that looked just like the real thing. If we’re honest, many of us don’t mind being duped. We have lost an appreciation for what’s real because we just want what we want—easy, fast, and cheap. Who cares if the item is real, right—as long as the look of status we’re hoping for is supported?

Unfortunately, counterfeiting hasn’t just impacted the world of luxury goods. Over the past few decades, the practice has filtered down into our medications, our food supply, even our home-building materials. What is the saddest to me, though, is the way counterfeiting has begun to impact our relationships and even our individual identities.

With the increasing popularity of social networks, we can now even counterfeit friends and relationships. People are engaged to, and in love with, others on Facebook who they have never met and who don’t even exist. Even the idea of posting status updates makes us feel pressured to present ourselves and our lives as an ideal picture of who we are, or who we would like others to think we are. We become satisfied with a world of pretend people with pretend identities living in pretend relationships.

The problem with spending so much time and energy creating or living an illusion is we never get to experience the real thing. Somewhere in all of us is a longing for something authentic, something dependable. Nothing fake will ever satisfy our souls like a true connection with a friend, a genuine encounter with God, or an authentic understanding of ourselves.

[clickToTweet tweet="Nothing fake will ever satisfy our souls. #authenticity #peace" quote="Nothing fake will ever satisfy our souls."]

You don’t have to keep up the façade. You don’t have to keep pretending. You can experience authentic love that will never disappoint and will never let you down. God created you with all of your strengths and weaknesses, gifts and abilities, for a reason. He doesn’t want an imitation of you. He wants you! He longs for you to find freedom from everything that’s counterfeit so that you can embrace the unparalleled beauty of your true, authentic self.

[clickToTweet tweet="He doesn’t want an imitation of you. He wants you! #authenticity #peace #love" quote="He doesn’t want an imitation of you. He wants you! "]

Blessings,

Lisa

About Lisa

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, author, coffee lover, and wife. My online community lisamurrayonline.com provides a compassionate place in the midst of the stresses and struggles of life. At heart, I am just a Southern girl who loves beautiful things, whether it is the beauty of words found in a deeply moving story, the beauty of a meal cooked with love, the beauty of a cup of coffee with a friend, or the beauty seen in far away landscapes and cultures. I have fallen passionately in love with the journey and believe it is among the most beautiful gifts to embrace and celebrate. While I grew up in the Florida sunshine, I live with my husband just outside Nashville in Franklin, TN.

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About Peace for a Lifetime

In my new book, Peace for a Lifetime, I share the keys to cultivating a life that’s deeply rooted, overflowing, and abundant, the fruit of which is peace. Through personal and professional experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I've discovered how to take the broken pieces of life and find indestructible peace with herself, God and with others. Through my story and other’s stories you’ll realize that you can experience the life for which you long. You can experience abundance beyond anything you can imagine. You can experience peace, not just for today, not just for tomorrow. You can experience peace —for a lifetime!

Peace for a Lifetime is available on Amazon.com.

www.lisamurrayonline.com

Facebook: Lisa Murray

Twitter: @_Lisa_Murray

Book Trailer: https://vimeo.com/155392891

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