Category Archives: Health

Confess Your Sins…

Leave a reply

Confess your sins...

Confess Your Sins

“Whoever hides their sins will not be successful, but whoever confesses their sins and stops doing wrong will receive mercy.” Proverbs 28:13 (ERV)

Do you have some hidden sin that is blocking your success and prosperity? Concealing sins can prove to be a road block or a hindrance to us. Hidden and unconfessed sin can also cause anxiety and inner turmoil. It can begin to eat away at us.

“When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.” Psalm 32:3 (NLT)

“I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within.” Psalm 31:10 (NLT)

God knows this and therefore has given us confession as an outlet. Weights can be lifted and refreshing can come when we confess things and come clean. Proverbs 28:13 promises us mercy when we confess our sins and stop doing wrong. Today I’d like to share four observations that I took away from this verse about hiding sins versus confessing them. 

Hidden and unconfessed sin can cause anxiety and inner turmoil.

Click To Tweet

Observation #1: Hiding sins blocks success

“Whoever hides their sins will not be successful, but whoever confesses their sins and stops doing wrong will receive mercy.” Proverbs 28:13 (ERV)

Don’t hide or try to conceal your sins. You shouldn’t cover them up. Don’t act fake. Don’t act as if you never do anything wrong. Claiming to be without sin is just deceiving yourself and others. Everyone has sinned. So be transparent! Concealing sins blocks success and prosperity.

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.” 1 John 1:8-10 (NIV)

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” Romans 3:23 (NLT) 

Hiding sins blocks success and prosperity.

Click To Tweet

Observation #2: Confess your sins

“Whoever hides their sins will not be successful, but whoever confesses their sins and stops doing wrong will receive mercy.” Proverbs 28:13 (ERV)

Admit your wrongs. Tell God. Tell someone else so that you may receive help, healing and accountability. Confession of sins can bring healing (emotional, physical, etc.) to yourself and to others involved.

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” James 5:16 (NLT)

It will also lift weights to get them off of your chest. It’s important to get sins into the light so that the darkness can be dispelled. Satan wants to keep them in darkness.

“All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.” John 3:20-21 (NLT)

However, keep in mind that all things in darkness and hidden will eventually be revealed anyway!

All things hidden will be revealed…

Continue reading →

Funny Friday: Laughing research

Leave a reply

Funny Friday: Laughing research

“Research has shown that laughing for 2 minutes is just as healthy as a 20 minute jog. So now I’m sitting in the park laughing at all the joggers.” 🙂 …Saw Christine Caine post this one a while back, and it gave me a good laugh. Happy Friday!

“Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”” Genesis 21:6 (NIV)

Healing from Sickness: Some of my rituals and routines to avoid sickness and heal quickly

Leave a reply

Healing from Sickness

Healing from Sickness: Some of my rituals and routines to avoid sickness and heal quickly

Has your community been inundated with sickness lately? Ours sure has! Flu…Pneumonia…Strep Throat…Common Cold…Seasonal Allergies…You name it. In some areas it’s been so bad that they have closed some schools down. Typically my family NEVER gets sick. Truly. I can count on one hand how many times that I’ve had to take either of my children to the doctor for an illness-related visit. We are just a healthy family. Unfortunately though, we’ve been fighting off some sickness in my family recently.

The good news is that our cases haven’t been severe and have been very short-lived. I’ve had several people ask me what we do to avoid sickness and to get over it so quickly when it does strike. This week I thought I’d hit on the “Healthy” part of “Happy, Healthy & Prosperous”. I’ll share some of our rituals and routines that keep us healthy and help us to get over sickness quickly with less severity in the rare case that we do get sick. Feel free to try out some of my tried and true practical steps for sickness prevention and healing!

My Practical Steps for Prevention

Positive confessions

I’m a firm believer in positive confessions and speaking things into existence.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” Proverbs 18:21 (ESV)

“(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” Romans 4:17 (KJV)

When I was little I always used to say, “I never get sick,” and I never did. I looked forward to getting the perfect attendance award at school every year. I asked my mom one time, “Hey mom, why do you think I never get sick.” Her answer was simple, “Because you say ‘I never get sick’!” Now, a frequent saying in our house is, “We never get sick” or “We are happy, healthy, and prosperous”. We have positive confessions of health and/or healing.

Healthy eating

Continue reading →

Is Your “Temple” In Ruins?

Leave a reply

Is Your “Temple” In Ruins? What is the state of your physical body?

Is Your “Temple” In Ruins? What is the state of your physical body?

“Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins?” Haggai 1:4 (NLT)

I recently read this verse during a mini-study of the book of Haggai. Many years prior to this time in scripture, the Babylonian armies destroyed God’s temple in Jerusalem, and exiled the people. The temple lay in ruins for quite some time. King Cyrus later gave permission for the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild. During the time of Haggai, the people should have been in the process of rebuilding the temple.

However as time went, they had limited resources and started facing opposition. When difficulties came, it discouraged the people, and they gave up. Then instead, they started building and working on their own elaborate homes. Consequently, God sent a message to Haggai as a word for Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah. Haggai was to encourage Zerubbabel and the people to continue the work of rebuilding the temple and to reorder their priorities.

I saw this “temple in ruins” message from a different perspective

Haggai 1:4 stood out to me and kind of convicted me in a different way. I saw this from the perspective of God’s house, or temple, as my body. I saw how the state of my body probably isn’t what it should be in order to be fit to be the house of God. Frequently, I don’t take care of myself like I should…in my eating habits, my activity/exercise, and in getting rest like I should.  Often I put other things as a higher priority, and taking care of myself takes a back seat.

Additionally, I noticed that I sometimes tend to give up on focusing and working on my body when Continue reading →

Is There A Secret To Looking Young?

Leave a reply

Is There A Secret To Looking Young?

Is There A Secret To Looking Young?

This week I celebrated my birthday. The thought of getting older hasn’t really bothered me too much yet. I guess because I still feel so young? Hopefully that will continue! Another positive is that many people seem surprised when I say my age. I guess I look younger than my 40+ years? Bonus! I know, I know. Looking young is a vain conceit…but hey, I’ll take it as long as I can get it! 🙂

A lot of times I’ll get people asking me what my secret is to looking young. I usually half-jokingly say “I use good skincare!” Which is probably partially true. I do try to take good care of my skin using mostly natural and/or botanical products. My skincare regime often consists of a lot of sunscreen, coconut oil, shea butter and essential oils. I try and steer clear of mineral oil or petroleum-based products as well as other harmful additives.

Additionally, I try to take caution with other products too even down to my housekeeping. I can be found making my own laundry and cleaning products to keep myself and my family from receiving constant exposure to toxins. I also try to eat fairly healthy, reducing as many processed foods as reasonably possible. We eat relatively clean, but by no means are we die-hard about it.

Other factors to stay looking young

Aside from skincare, diet, and other products though, I think there are probably some more important factors to stay looking young. I remember picking up on something when I was quite a bit younger. I heard people using the description “He/She must have had a hard life.” They were describing a rough-looking man or woman that was quite visibly aged. I’ve also seen people talk about a woman that looked older than her age as being “bitter”.

I remember thinking “I don’t want people to describe me like that!” This initiated some talks with my mom and dad about what those things meant. They explained how a “hard life” and being “bitter” (i.e. harboring resentment, hurt, anger, and unforgiveness) could affect our appearance and the ability to stay looking young. Constant harsh emotions affect our facial expressions, leaving deeply wrinkled lines and hard countenances. Also, poor life choices and our environment can alter our appearance.

Now that I’m an adult I notice Continue reading →

Stay Healthy—Love Yourself!

4 Replies

Stay Healthy—Love Yourself! Try this exercise to show yourself some love...

Stay Healthy—Love Yourself!

Previously, when I attended a Weight Watchers meeting we talked about ways to love yourself (and NOT the Justin Bieber kind of “Love Yourself”!). We did a fun name acronym activity.  We were supposed to come up with a positive attribute or descriptive word for each letter of our first name. It was funny how so many people had such a hard time with that.  They had a hard time either coming up with words that were positive to describe themselves, or they didn’t want to say them out loud because they felt like they were being arrogant or bragging.  Our leader was trying to encourage them that this is the right time to brag and that it was actually helpful to love yourself.

I wanted to yell out, “Don’t you know that God thinks that of you and sees you that way?!”  Then I realized that I wasn’t reading mine out loud either.  Oops.  It can be hard to love yourself sometimes and then especially to show that you love yourself out loud!  We’ve been trained not to speak highly of ourselves because we may come across as cocky and arrogant.  However, I think there are two ditches.  On the one side is the ditch where we ARE arrogant and speak and think too highly of ourselves.  This is obviously wrong.

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Romans 12:3 (NIV)

I like how the NLT translation of the verse reads though because it says “…Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us”.  It doesn’t say we can’t say or think good things about ourselves.  It just says we just need to give an honest evaluation by God’s measurement.  We need to see, think, and speak about ourselves based on how God sees us.  And guess what?  He does think we’re pretty great.  Therefore, we need to see ourselves as pretty great too! 

We need to see, think, and speak about ourselves based on how God sees us. #loveyourself

Click To Tweet

The other ditch is Continue reading →

Funny Friday: Chocolate Is Salad

Leave a reply

chocolate is salad

Funny Friday: Chocolate Is Salad

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, which means that chocolate abounds.  So for all of you health-conscious chocolate lover’s out there…don’t sweat it.  Just remember that chocolate comes from cocoa, which is a tree.  That makes it a plant.  That means that chocolate is salad. 🙂

“‘…I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so.” Genesis 1:30b (ESV)

Top 10 Posts of 2015

Leave a reply

Happy, Healthy & Prosperous Top 10 Posts of 2015

Top 10 Posts of 2015

“Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered” Psalms 105:5 (ESV)

This week I’m sharing the Top 10 Posts of 2015.  I like to take the first of the year to recount some of the top or most popular posts of the previous year.  I like to share them for a couple of reasons…

First, there are several new subscribers/followers who may not have seen or read these posts and might find some of them to be helpful.

Secondly, looking back also helps me to remember what God has done and is still doing through this website (that I oh-so-reluctantly started…and sometimes still reluctantly continue!).

Lastly, it helps me (and hopefully you too) know how to pray based on what the current need or demand is, and when I know that I know how to continue to pray for others.  For example, 3 of the most popular posts have to do with leading someone to Christ or praying for someone to come to Christ.  For starters this makes me SUPER excited to know that people are actively seeking these types of websites out.  To me this means that the body of Christ is continuing to grow, and I know to continue to pray for the people who have come across these posts to have boldness to lead someone to the Lord and to agree in prayer with them that their unsaved loved ones will be saved and grow in their relationship with God.  Another example, is that the posts about being unloved and unwanted are overwhelmingly popular…which makes me so sad to know that there are so many people feeling unloved and unwanted.  I continue to pray that they will know and fully experience the love of God and of others.

Take Some Practical Steps:

  • As you look through this list of most popular posts, please take a minute to pray for one or more of the topics that stand out to you (like my examples above).
  • Please click on and read or re-read one or more of the posts from which you feel you may be able to receive some benefit or of which you might need some reminding.
  • Pay it forward…if one or more of the following posts has benefited you, please forward it/them to others you feel they may benefit (you might prayerfully consider who to share them with), or consider sharing them on your social media channels (sharing links are available at the end of each post).
  • Lastly, please pray for me this year to #1-continue to help others, #2-for me to have to right words at the right time, and #3-for the right people to be directed to my site for God to help them.
    Remember what God has done for you and pay it forward!

    Click To Tweet

Top 10 Posts of 2015

Continue reading →