Showing posts with label Help. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Help. Show all posts

Friday, June 20, 2014

The dangers of fear






Fear is normal and natural. Many times, our fears are even well founded. So it is not good to deny our fears or to try to suppress them. Our fears should be confronted and beaten. Sometimes what we need to do to defeat a fear is to share it with someone¾a loved one, an advisor, a teacher, a friend. Other times, we can do research and read about the subject and see how others feel about it. Many times, sharing with others and realizing that others go through the same fears help us deal with our own fears.

            Fear is something we all have to deal with at some point or another. It can be fear about events in our daily life, such as losing our job, getting sick, getting into an accident or losing our loved ones. Or it can be fear about more intangible things, such as fear of certain unexplained experiences. When we were younger, many of us have suffered from fear after watching scary movies about Dracula, Freddy Krueger or poltergeists. Many of us have spent nights without sleep. Many of us have had horrible nightmares or strange dreams, and some of us might even have had weird, unexplainable experiences while we were awake.

            Fear can be our worse enemy. The best way to beat our fears is to call on God’s help. He is the Almighty, and under His wings we can take refuge. All we have to do is pray and call on the power of His name, and He will deliver us from our fears before we know it.

But still, as always, we must do our part. One successful way to protect ourselves from our fears is not to obsess about them. There are many unexplained things here on this earth. We do not need to look into all of them. If we knock, the door will be opened…but we must be careful where we are knocking. Let’s be careful about what we mess with. Some things can easily get out of our control. Let’s set boundaries for ourselves, so that we do not accidentally fall victim to what we are most afraid of. We should stay away from the dark side of life, in other words we should stay away from the occult. If we choose to stay in the light, we will minimize our chances of getting hurt physically or psychologically. Let’s not mess with the esoteric. Let’s let some mysteries remain mysteries. And let’s put our focus and our trust on God. Our Father in heaven loves us and wants to keep us safe under His umbrella of protection.

            We must trust our instincts. Every time we get a bad feeling about something we cannot explain, we should try to listen to it. There are many reasons why we might get a feeling about a particular thing. Not everything can be explained logically, but this does not mean that it is not real. If we become people who rely only on facts, then we will limit ourselves to the five senses, and that will not give us a complete picture. Quantum physics has demonstrated that nothing has been proven for sure and that everything is possible. Time after time, something scientists believed to be the absolute truth has been proven wrong. Now scientists know only one thing is for sure, and that is that nothing is for sure.[1] We cannot choose to ignore the fact that life is a mystery, and therefore we must always leave room for the benefit of the doubt even for those things we don’t want to believe in.

            Fear is something to be respected but not something to be intimidated by. Fear is something to be watchful for, but not something to obsess about. Feeling afraid can sometimes be a warning signal, to advise us not to go in a certain direction or to act in a certain manner. Our fears can be our best friends because they can warn us about areas in our lives we need to be careful about. Other times, fears are the products of our imaginations, and they must be controlled.

            One thing is essential and that is to not let ourselves be conquered or frozen by our fears. We need to have faith and trust that God always takes care of us. God is more powerful than anything, and He loves us and protects us. When we are afraid, we need to think about how God is our refugee and our fortress, and repeat that to ourselves. We who are sheltered under His shadow and are protected by His loving wings must cling to Him in our darkest moments. If we call upon Him, He will protect us. There need be no doubt in our hearts.



Wisdom to contemplate:


“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)



“You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.’ God will rescue you from the fowler's snare, from the destroying plague, will shelter you with pinions, spread wings that you may take refuge; God's faithfulness is a protecting shield. You shall not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that roams in darkness, nor the plague that ravages at noon.












[1] Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters (Harper Collins, 2001).

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Cruel Kids - Have you been bullied?

Cruel Kids?

Have you been bullied?  Many kids have.  Kids can be cruel sometimes, bruising their peers in the most profound way, shattering their self-confidence, making them feel miserable, utterly disappointed and troubled. Isn’t it ironic, that it is only after growing up a bit that we start becoming aware of our looks? I don’t think many parents realize the importance of teaching their children to be kind. And I don’t think many parents realize how much a child can suffer in school. In some people’s opinion, children don’t have problems, only adults. But this is not true. Everything is proportional to the person experiencing it. For little children, a problem that can seem trivial to an adult can deeply hurt their feelings and leave them heartbroken.  

Not everybody is nice in the world, but that that does not mean everybody is mean. Not everybody is nice in the world, but that is no reason to join them. There will always be mean people, jealous people, angry people, bitter people and envious people in our lives. But there will always be good, kind, friendly, compassionate, caring people, too. So, we must open our eyes and search for the people who are worth our while, instead of getting disappointed thinking that people are all bad. By giving a chance to others, we are really giving a chance to ourselves.

It is important to make sure we do not become infected by bitterness or become mean ourselves. We must make an effort to always be excellent, no matter how hard things get. When someone says something to us, we have to know it is not a fact, but just a disputable opinion that person has about us. We should not let it bother us. An opinion is just a guess, a supposition, a generalization somebody makes about us. It is harmless unless we allow it to become important, since it will not be true unless we make it true.


  • Why give people or words an importance that they do not deserve?
  • Why do we insist on being offended by what other people say?
  • Who cares what someone else calls me if I know who I am for real? 
  • Why should it be such a tragedy to be called a name? Who cares? 
  • Why do we insist on giving so much importance to other people’s opinions of us? 

  
We cannot change certain people, but we can ignore them. We cannot change certain people, but we can always change ourselves. Let’s therefore focus on ourselves that we may be stronger and turn into better people, so that we can keep a good equilibrium in this world bringing to it goodness and love. Let’s make a point out of becoming more confident. To be sure of ourselves is one of the most valuable lessons we will ever learn, and it is never too late. Let’s make it our goal to find reasons to be happy instead of reasons to be offended. Let’s make it our life’s task to learn to be less mean. After all, after a while the mean people may get tired of being mean, and after a while being nice and kind becomes contagious.

We all have encountered at some point in time someone trying to hurt us. Let’s be more confident inside from now on, remembering that anything anybody says about us is just their opinion. 



Wisdom to contemplate:



“Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.” (Romans 12:12)


Continue your kindness toward your friends, your just defense of the honest heart. Do not let the foot of the proud overtake me, nor the hand of the wicked disturb me.” (Psalm 36:11-12)





Monday, March 31, 2014

Hold on....help is on the way









I am aware people from all over the world are looking at this blog, and I feel blessed.   I want you to know - I already care for you!  Yes you....you in China....you in Israel....you in Poland.....you in Dominican Republic....you in the USA....you in Costa Rica....you in Canada and so many more.  We have one heart...


I want you to know, that I know there are moments in which you feel like you have no one.   No one who understands you, no one who can help you , no one who knows you in the depths of your heart.  I know that all too often you feel alone, regardless of how many people are around you.  Sometimes it is even worse when we have friends and family, but they seem not to get us! They seem not to know us, sometimes they seem to not even like us.


So yes, to you who have been visiting this blog I want to say....hold on help is on the way!  I will put summaries of my book here, for you to read for free.  Princess in Overalls will help you and inspire you.  The reason for the delay is that I left my files of Princess in Overalls at home and right now I am traveling.  It will take me a little time to get it all figured out.  I think I will be re-typing my book, just for you.


Yes you, you who still hope, you who need encouragement, you who are sad, you who are lonely, you who need advise, you who need a friend.  You who have been brought to Princess in Overalls.



I am here for you so remember:   hold on....help is on the way.














Sunday, March 23, 2014

Time to say goodbye - Isn't it Time to Say Goodbye to Jealousy?



 Isn't it Time to Say Goodbye to Jealousy?


Mother Teresa used to say that to be kind means giving much more than material things.   Do you agree?  I do.  For example, it can mean giving a smile, offering an encouraging word and sharing someone else’s joy. But don't you think that in order to share in someone else’s happiness first  we need to get rid of the jealousy that sometimes arises in our hearts?

            When we are jealous, we are unable to feel happy for others, and many times, instead of giving a compliment or praise, we sometimes end up spoiling another person’s happy moment by doing or saying something mean. Jealousy is like a disease that sometimes creeps inside us without us realizing it. 

How do we know for sure if what we feel is jealousy? Do a self-check! If we have a feeling of sadness, even if it is slight or deep inside, at the sight of another person’s material or personal achievement, then we have been bitten by the jealousy bug!

  1. Am I bitter about someone else’s good fortune or success?
  2. Do I always try to keep up with my neighbour? 
  3. Do I criticize others so that they will lose confidence in themselves and so that I will look better? 
  4. Do I keep comparing myself to others? 
  5. Am I always looking for praise from others, and if someone else receives praise, does it bother me? Am I slow to thank, to encourage or to praise? 
  6. Am I able to feel genuine happiness when someone else gets something I wanted?
Where does jealousy come from? It often comes from pride we think we are better than others and that we deserve more than they do. Other times, it is the result of our insecurity we desire to have what is not ours, and we unjustly want what rightly belongs to another.


How do we stay away from this dangerous virus? For starters, we must be honest with ourselves. We need to be constantly checking if there is even the slightest trace of jealousy inside our hearts when others are: more fortunate, richer, thinner, more successful, more beautiful, more loved, more popular, healthier or happier than we are. 

  • For us to be happy about our own lives, we do not need to prove that other people’s lives are miserable. 
  • For us to have faith in our own path, we do not need to prove someone else’s path is wrong. 
  • For us to be secure, we do not need to make someone else insecure. 


           An old proverb says that happiness shared doubles.  Let’s seek to always share one another’s joy, because this will make us better people. It will strengthen and encourage us. And it will help us feel happy no matter what. If we rejoice in other people’s progress, we will immediately feel uplifted ourselves. If we let other people’s successes be our successes, others’ blessings will be our blessings, others’ joy our joy. So, be happy for your coworker’s promotion, your colleague’s new car, your old school friend’s good-looking spouse, your friend’s growing business, your cousin’s scholarship! A person who is able to feel happy for others is able to be happy most of the time.



Wisdom to contemplate:


“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation.” (Romans 12:15-16)






Saturday, March 15, 2014

Is the feeling of being "alone" or "sad" hunting you? Hold on...


There is something to look forward to, encouragement right around the corner.  Maybe all you need is a little hope found in the form of inspiration. 

Read this Foreword for the book Princess in Overalls! 

Help is on the way.


"It is rare to find a book that combines the refreshing vision of children and the rich wisdom that comes from experience with life. Princess in Overalls  combines both.  On the one hand, we meet Elllie, the “princess” as she grows from child to mature adult.  On the other hand, we meet Carolina Prada, the author, who captures profound lessons from the events in Ellie’s life.  We also meet important figures in Ellie’s life, her parents Reuben and Anna, and those who entered her life as the years went by.  

Ellie receives many lessons from her parents, lessons structured to her age and experience.  These lessons form, as it were, the basic truths about life that a child and adolescent need to learn.  Carolina then uses these lessons to examine issues importantfor everyone of whatever age.  Most importantly, she presents these lessons from a Christian point of view.  Then, in each case, she quotes passages from Scripture to support and to enrich what she has to say.



What does Ellie need to learn as she grows up?  So many things!  What is fear and how should we conquer it?  How do we relate to others our own age?  How do we relate to those older than we?  How do we react when we encounter people who are unkind and mean?  What dreams shall we form for our future?  How do we know what our role in life is going to be?  What do we do in the face of disappointment?  How do we foster relationships?  How do we face the end of relationships?  How can we recognize that someone is the person we would like to marry?  How do we forgive injuries done to us?

Ellie receives answers to these questions and more.  Carolina moves us beyond a child’s perspective for these questions.  She takes us to a deep level and helps us to see what path will bring us the peace and joy that God wishes us to experience during our lives.  She shows us how close God is to us at each moment and how God loves us.  She also shows how he longs to help us and how he guides us along our way.  We human beings live in a divine milieu:  God is with us.

This book might be called one of “self-help.”  But a much better description would be:  one of divine help.  Carolina shows us that it is by the free gift of grace given to us in Jesus Christ that we can move beyond the self and act in a truly Christian way.  She guides us to see that Christian courage requires us to be kind, gentle, tenderhearted, and compassionate.  She shows that the highest of the Christian values, love, is something far greater and far more challenging than any feeling.  Love is a choice made again and again, both when it is easy to love and when it is hard to love.  Love constantly offers a challenge to rise above the purely natural, to rise above our instinctive reactions, and to make our response one of kindness and mercy.  Carolina shows that to be a Christian is to be someone of courage and valor, someone who insists on the highest level of human behavior, and someone who can envision dreams that become a reality.

This book is a treasure of wisdom for both young and old.  In it readers will find many echoes of events in their own lives.  They will receive guidance on how to prove worthy of the name of Christian.  And they will learn, in their treatment of others, to show the compassionate and loving 
face of Jesus Christ."




Dr. Shirley Sullivan, FRSC
Professor Emeritus of Classics
University of British Columbia


You can buy the book "Princess in Overalls"  by going to Amazon  and typing the name of the book plus the name of the author : Carolina Prada