Love Yourself First

"You have to get to a place where you see yourself as God sees you. And also love yourself like you deserve to be loved, because it's impossible to have the expectation of experiencing true love and somebody respecting you the way that they should if you don't do it for yourself." We can't find real love before we have learned to love and respect ourselves.

Marriage Advice

Craig and Claudia Donnell give their best marriage advice in this video. I like what they have to say about the importance of being selfless and not "keeping score" in marriage. Be the first one to say "I'm sorry" and only compete against each other by trying to outlove each other. When you have two people in a relationship who try to outdo each other in showing love and respect towards the other person you get a great relationship.

Love Works

Whether you are single, newly married or divorced this sermon by pastor Holly Wagner from Oasis Church in Los Angeles will give you some great tools that can help you learn to love others well. Holly Wagner shares insight on the essentials to Real Love in relationships, and how to treat one another with love and respect.

Diamonds out of dust

Hawk Nelson's song "diamonds" is one of my favorite songs to listen to in the middle of the struggles of life. It's comforting to be reminded of the fact that it's often in the fire that the most beautiful changes happen. I wish I could say that this isn't true, but looking back at my life I can't disagree with that fact. I have definitely learned a lot more from the uphill battles in life than I have learned from the days that everything is great.


I didn't understand why it's so important to not use people and break someone's heart until I experienced my own first heartbreak. I didn't think that it was that important to always show everyone around me appreciation and respect, until I experienced others treating me without appreciation and respect. I definitely come to God more often and pray more when I'm in the middle of a struggle than I do on a good day.


Although I don't like the struggles of life I know that I wouldn't be who I am today if I had not gone through what I've gone through in life. It's often in the fire that our character is refined the most. God has his way of creating beautiful diamonds out of all that dust. If we stay strong through our struggles and don't give up we will come out on the other side of each struggle more beautiful than we were before.

The new beauty ideal: Natural Beauty

I have to admit that I have never bought the magazine Today's Parent before. Last weekend I was looking through different magazines at Chapters as usual when I suddenly saw the cover of the may issue of Today's Parent. I can't even begin to describe how awesome it was to discover that Today's Parent had chosen to put real women on the cover of the may 2015 issue. It's so wonderful to see a magazine take a step towards encouraging women to embrace and celebrate their natural beauty instead of hating their imperfections.

It's so great to read messages like "Celebrate You!" instead of the usual "How to look younger than you are" at the cover of a women's magazine.

We can't really escape the fact that our accepted cultural ideals set the standard for how we view ourselves. The good news is that if this natural beauty trend continues to be promoted in media little baby Estelle (pictured above) might not have to grow up in a world that is as superficial in the future. I hope that all women (not just Moms) will embrace natural beauty in the future so that together we can build a better culture, where eating disorders start to decline rather than increase.

This is how Jessica Birak describes her view of her body in the may 2015 issue of Today's Parent:

"I had an eating disorder when I was 15. I was gaining confidence in how my body looked when I got pregnant at 22. I had rock-hard abs and no cellulite, and I seriously thought I would go through pregnancy completely untouched. When I got big, red stretch marks all over my belly, I cried for a week. After I had my oldest, I sometimes felt very insecure-I lost the confidence I'd gained. Then, six months after my youngest was born, somebody asked me if I was expecting. It sunk me. I thought it must mean I'm ugly because my stomach has a little paunch. But I realized it was ruining my day because my idea of beauty was defined by something unrealistic, something superficial."

I find it so sad that so many of us women have perfectly healthy bodies that work, that take us around town every day, but still we hate them or at least we don't find them beautiful. We think that we are the problem, but isn't it time we realize what the real problem is once and for all: the unhealthy ideals we are fed daily. I'm ready to throw out all the magazines and other influences in my life that make me dislike myself rather than celebrate my body!

You can read many inspiring stories in the newest issue of Today's Parent about how these women used to dislike their bodies and how motherhood changed how they view themselves. These women all discovered that there is a greater meaning for why we are given our bodies, our bodies have the ability to produce life. After all, that's one of the most beautiful functions our bodies have, we are not only beautiful objects walking around on this earth, objects that we constantly need to criticize and modify. Our bodies deserve more respect and loving care than that, we deserve more love than that! Let's stop objectifying ourselves!

Loving unhealthy people without getting sick

Christmas morning, a time of joy or a time of frustration?

Living “The Life of Love” is all about loving people everywhere we go, it sounds so nice but as we soon discover is a lot easier said than done. My mother used to say: “human relationships is the hardest thing in life”, and the older I get the more I tend to agree with her. When it comes to loving people it is far from easy at times, even if we know that the ones who deserve our love the least often need it the most.

I love books and by now I have a few favorite books that I like to go back to every now and then for wisdom and advice. One of my favorite books is “Soul Detox” by Craig Groeschel. One of the chapters in Soul Detox is called “Radioactive Relationships: Loving unhealthy people without getting sick.” This time of year, after a big holiday season, I have a feeling many of us could need the advice in this chapter.

Some people make you smile, others suck the energy out of you.

Most of us have at least one person in our family or inner circle who isn’t that easy to love. Although we know that it is our duty to love each other we often find it really difficult. Craig Groeschel have a few tips on how we can manage to love the unhealthy people in our lives without getting sick. Groeschel explains that most “toxic people” are of three different types: the chronic critics, the controllers and the tempters. Whatever the type of unhealthy person you have in your inner circle the first thing you need to do is set some clear boundaries.

It is our mission to love everyone equally, but that doesn’t mean treat everyone exactly the same. The more difficult a person is, the stronger boundaries you will need in the relationship. Craig Groeschel writes: “First, you can tell people. “I won’t let you talk to me or treat me that way.”  Set the boundary, explain where you stand and then stick to it. Be loving but firm as you establish the boundaries.

Next, if the difficult person in your life refuses to respect your boundaries and continues to criticize, tempt or violate you it’s time to seek help. Get together with others in your family or inner circle and decide to show a united front. If this doesn’t help you might need to seek professional help, call a counselor or therapist. If you can’t all attend the visit to a counselor together then go alone and get some advice from a professional on how to deal with conflict.

The last resort will be to cut off this toxic relationship from your life. Cutting off people isn’t something you should use as a way of dealing with conflict on a regular basis, but it might be needed in some extreme cases. If the toxic person in your life continues to criticize, abuse, threaten or harm you there is a real need for you to cut this relationship off. You don’t cut off people in your life just because you are having a difficult time with the relationship. The decision to cut someone off needs to be based on more than difficulty getting along. Once the relationship is so toxic that it has made you mentally unhealthy or is putting you in physical danger there is a need to end the relationship. Don’t tolerate a toxic relationship, cut it off so that nobody gets sick.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to decide to make some changes in your relationships.

Don’t settle for anything less than a relationship where you get treated with respect and love. When you decide to cut off a bad relationship remember why you do it. You cut off a relationship to protect yourself and keep yourself mentally, spiritually and physically healthy. If you are mentally unwell or in physical danger you will spend all your energy on just surviving. You need to be mentally, spiritually and physically healthy to have the time and energy to go out into world and love and care for other people. Don’t let a toxic relationship steal that positive energy and the ability to love others from you.