Your Life Is Worth Celebrating (Prepping for this next year ahead)...

I was 6 years old, a gymnastics kid, liked by most of the kids in my class, had great neighbor kid friends too...

My birthday was coming up and I remember exactly the success I had last year when I personally called and invited every kid to my gymnasium birthday party, and all 25 kids showed up.

One of the greatest successes of my life in phone sales.

This year my birthday was going to be epic. My mom planned out an entire room at the movie theatre, the kids would show up, we'd eat cake, and then go watch a movie after – We would remember this day for the rest of our life.

The time came for people to start arriving and I looked at the decorated room with a joy that made me smile from ear to ear, I was so excited.

10 minutes passed, no one had arrived yet.

I thought to myself, "This is going to be great." I waited patiently, eagerly.

30 minutes passed, still, no one.

I thought, well, maybe I'll give my neighbor kid friends a call, I know I can rely on them and it'll still be awesome once they show up.

I called them, no answer.

Called again just in case, no one.

I sat there in my party room thinking of what people might be doing, if they were ok, or if they'd just forgotten about today.

"Surely they know, I called everyone of them and even talked to their parents."

Not even my neighbor kid friends showed up that day.

To say I felt disappointed was an understatement...I think I experienced what you could call kid devastation that day.

People said they would come.

Does their word not matter?

Wait...

Do I not matter?

--

I'm writing this to you on Monday even though you're reading this on Saturday.

And it's my birthday on Wednesday 🥳🥰 I'm so freaking excited.

I want you know something about that day when I turned 6...

I held onto that disappointment until I was 31 years old...

I didn't know it was there.

I was at a retreat where we focused on healing from past memories and this one came up out of nowhere.

And when I say nowhere, I'm not kidding you.

Blindsided.

I sat with my coach going through this story, this memory for the first time since I experienced it, and my heart opened up to a tidal wave of disappointment and sadness.

But there was a miracle on the other side of this uncomfortable and messy moment of healing...

A truth, a realization, a statement of "My life is worth celebrating."

You see,

I couldn't have realized that truth or even believed it until I allowed myself to go back to that memory and open my heart to feeling that disappointment.

What happens when we shut off memories or things we never wanted to feel?

...we keep them stuck in our hearts and no matter how many motivational quotes we post on Instagram, we still become a dysfunctional adult.

If we believe we don't matter, we never get close enough to others to allow them to truly love us.

We become guarded in our own clever ways. We can pretend to get close to others but deep down we're too scared to have them matter to us with fear of being hurt again.

On my birthday this year, I want every one of us to pray and ask God if there are any memories in our life that are keeping us from loving ourselves and loving others in the best way we can.

👑 Let God reveal those things to you.
👑 And then ask Him to heal them once and for all.
👑 Ask him to change your heart, to change you.

✨ Watch Him work a miracle in your life after that.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

– Ezekiel 36:26 NIV

In the book of Ezekiel, the Prophet Ezekiel was sent by God to warn the Israelites of the judgement that was still to come to their nation. They didn't want to hear a word. When all of his prophecies came to pass, this verse in Chapter 36 was written in the time after judgement, where Ezekiel's message turns to one of hope and restoration.

This verse today comes from the heart of God that restores us from the judgement of the past, it restores us from our ignorance that caused us pain. If you find yourself with a piece of your heart that's afraid to step out and love and serve others in a deeper way, if you have a guarded heart in any way, recite this scripture and ask God to give you a new heart.

Pray it with me:

"Father in Heaven, thank you for this revelation that you restore our hearts from one of stone to hearts of flesh. I ask that you fill me with your Holy Spirit's love and power to restore the disappointments I've been holding onto. Reveal to me any moments that I've repressed and forgotten about and help me heal them Father. Help me see them Father. Help me feel them now."

Take a few deep, yet calm, breaths 💕

"I declare that I am free from these moments, I break any agreements with the enemy's lies that my life doesn't matter, I break free from the lie that I am unworthy of your perfect and unending love, and I declare that I have been made new and righteous by the work of your son Jesus Christ. I Am worthy of your love Father. I Am Your Daughter. I Receive this new heart now, In Jesus's Mighty Name, Amen."

--

God is Good, and He uses everything for good.

I still don’t know what the heck all those kids were doing that day when they didn’t show up for my party, but it became an opportunity to see and appreciate my life in a new light:

That my life, and yours, is truly one worth celebrating.

Choose to trust God today that He is bringing a deeper restoration to your heart so that your motivational quotes on Instagram can mean that much more when you post them.

Next week's newsletter, I'm going to write about Goals, and if they're not making you cry when you write them down, are they even goals?

Love you all sm,
Lauren
💕