Equipping young women professionals with young families to find fulfillment, contentment and joy as mothers and home makers without losing sight of who they are as women.

Volume 01, Issue 50: Losses are Inevitable, but Misery is Optional

Life may deal you harshly, giving you opportunities to be bitter about your lack or loss, and wallow in depression and self-pity, ignoring opportunities around you for joy. Nothing could lead you faster to the house of misery than a self-destructive attitude.

Some people manage to look good on paper despite what is going on beneath the surface. They never let others see them sweat. This is a winning approach to life. It is all about having immovable faith no matter what is happening around you. What do you do when life hands you a bowl of lemons? 

The great do not give in easily to crisis. They do not allow it to change their demeanor. They understand disappointments and setbacks are inevitable, but misery is optional. Don’t be bowed by your pain. Rather, learn to transfer pain into a positive thing. Let not your circumstances walk all over you. Master the art of living over your circumstances.

When jammed in a crisis, don’t get caught up in wanting to tell everyone about your problem, broadcasting your misfortunes to the world so to speak. Quietly search for a solution instead, before getting everyone excited. If all attempts fail, resign yourself to your loss and weather it by continuing your life gracefully.

Those who weather the storms of life and stand the test of time and tribulation eventually receive the honour due to them. There is a tree that grows in the mountainside in Lebanon that has been cruelly broken by the strong winds that rage against the side of these enormous hills time and time again. In their brokenness, they grow anyway, releasing resin to patch the break. They grow tall in spite of the elements that threaten to destroy them. Over time, the cedars of Lebanon gained the reputation for being the strongest of woods.

Adversity is the refiner of integrity and character. Allow your trouble to birth a graciousness in you. Become truly great by bowing under the weight of your pain and then rise from the ashes, smoothing your garments to continue on your way. Never breaking, always bending and lifting yourself to a place higher than you were before. Determine to survive and excel against all odds. Like the cedar, bow but don’t break, releasing what you need to in order to heal yourself, enduring the trials of life and turbulent conditions.

When disappointment comes, walk softly and resist the urge to submerge yourself in your pain. Rather, turn your focus on the solution and pursue it. Don’t give room for bitterness but arise with grace to embrace even those that you see as the source of your pain. Stand in the face of tribulation keeping your eyes on the true source of strength and restoration, and believe that all will be well.

Purpose to live life gracefully at all costs, weathering life’s difficulties with your head held high. Embrace and use pain to make you stronger. Given your misfortune, don’t give up the fight to bring your dream back to life.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 01, Issue 49: Take Responsibility for the Bad in Your Life

It would be nice if we got to choose all that happens to us. But the reality is that we do not get to determine all the events in life. However, the response to life’s events is purely our prerogative. How we respond to those events determines our outcome. If you do not like the outcome, do not blame the events. Take an inner look and evaluate your responses.

In the face of unpleasant circumstances, the best news ever is the realization that the outcome of those circumstances is entirely up to you, and not the circumstances. Nothing and no one but you can manipulate the outcome of the events in your life. This knowledge offers the much needed hope that it can still be alright after all. It changes everything, doesn’t it? It is not what others do to you but how you respond to what they do that determines your ending. It is not what happens to us but how we respond to it and draw lessons from those experiences that determine where we end up.

What do you do when storms of life threaten to consume you? How do you respond? Do you volunteer yourself to be a victim of your circumstances? Every circumstance affords a choice of response. Every time a circumstance of life attempts to do you in, think of all the choices available to you. People may hurl their trash on you. Don’t keep them. Shake them off and move on. Life may throw you in a pit, but you don’t have to stay there. If you make the right choices, you can come out ahead of the game, smelling like a rose.

Your may have your dreams shattered, or your hopes dashed, or your heart broken, or your finances wrecked, but you still have a choice. You still get to choose what becomes of you. No one has to live with other people’s choices. Make your own choices in the face of daunting circumstances. Turn the tables around and take control over your circumstances. Rather than give in to it and allow it to consume you, embrace your pain and squeeze life out of it.

Take responsibility for the bad in your life. You are the only person responsible for your outcome. Taking control over circumstances that seem to darken your life will give you a greater competitive edge. Make the right choices in the storms that test the depth of your ideals. Many through adversity have soared to heights of lasting success. Given your limiting circumstances, recognize your choices and act on them.

Determine not to be a victim of circumstances. Embrace the power within you to enable you to see your circumstances clearly, make choices wisely and come out triumphant. Though you encounter many defeats in life, you must not be defeated. Remember struggling is not the same as failing, and a great man or woman is great whether thriving or broken.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 01, Issue 48: Do the Things You Can Do Well

In addition to what you love to do, there are things that you are naturally good at, things that come easy to you. Each of us has abilities that we were born with. These are our natural talent endowments. The Bible says that God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. Some people have natural athletic abilities; other people are good at sciences while others are good at arts. Some are good at cooking, some at music, some at other forms of entertaining, some at organizing, some at mathematics, and interesting enough, some people are good at talking. There are thousands of abilities among us, hence the reason we each perform at different professions, putting to work different abilities as bestowed upon us by our Maker.

We were interested in different subjects in school and college, which then led to our different careers in the work place. Based on our unique abilities, some of us are administrators, some doctors, some accountants, some artistic designers, some mechanics, some programmers, yet still, others have the ability to build businesses, make deals and sales. The list is endless.

Are you in the right profession, using your God-given abilities, or are you pretending to be someone else, doing a job you loathe because the abilities required are not in you? Our abilities are important to God and he desires that we make use of them. When he wanted to make the Tabernacle and the utensils of worship, God provided artists and craftsmen who had the skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of crafts to make artistic designs. He is still in the business of bestowing abilities for specific tasks today.

Each of us has dozens of untapped, unrecognized, and unutilized abilities that are lying dormant within us. When I learnt that the human brain can store 100 trillion facts, it freed my mind to start doing things I thought I couldn’t manage. You are a bundle of incredible abilities, an amazing creation of God. There’s a place where your specialties can shine and you can make a difference. Find that place and put your abilities to use.

What you are able to do, God wants you to do. Examine what you are good at. Your capabilities are a match for your purpose. Your abilities were not given just to make a living but to fulfill your life’s purpose as well. Whatever you are good at, do it excellently, and it will provide a platform for you to serve before great men.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 01, Issue 47: Serving and Loving it

There are things that you just love to do. It is not a coincidence. God intentionally wired you to love doing certain things. You are the way you are because you were made for specific functions.

Have you ever wondered why some animals hop, some run, some burrow, some swim, and some fly? God formed every creature on the earth with a special area of expertise. Each has a particular role to play, based on the way they were structured by God. The same is true with human beings. Each of us was uniquely designed to do certain things.

Physically, each of us has a unique heartbeat, just as we have unique thumbprints. In the same way, each of us has a unique emotional heartbeat that races when we think about the subjects, activities or circumstances that interest us. We instinctively care about some things and not about others. God designed each of us with a unique set of desires, hopes, interests, ambitions, affections, and dreams. These determine what we love to do.

There are subjects that you feel passionate about and others that you could care less about. For me, the subjects I am passionate about are on personal development, parenting, interior design, and a few others. These inborn interests are indications to my purpose. There is a reason you love to do certain things. Consider how you might use them to serve others and bring glory to your Maker who wired you to love doing them. The Bible repeatedly tells us to serve God with all our heart. Doesn’t this mean that God wants us to serve him passionately, and not dutifully? We cannot serve passionately at tasks we do not enjoy doing or feel passionate about. God’s expectation is that we use our natural interests to serve him and others.

You know you are serving from your heart when you are enthusiastic about a task and you look forward to doing it. When you are doing what you love to do, no one, and no form of reward or applause has to motivate you to do it. You do it out of sheer enjoyment.

When you do what God wired you to love to do, you get good at it. Passion drives perfection. You are unlikely to excel at a task that you don’t care about. The greatest achievers in any field are those who do it because of passion, not duty or profit.

In what way can you passionately serve others and love it? Figure out what you love to do, what God gave you a passion for, and then do it for his glory. Serve in ways that best expresses your heart.

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 01, Issue 46: Finding Your Love

Self discovery involves finding out what drives you, what excites you, what consumes you, and discovering your passions. Before doing anything great, you have to become it. Self discovery enables you to become.

The beauty of self discovery is that you get to know what you love most. Once you do, don’t stop there. Begin to do it. Rearrange your life to do what you love most every day. Find ways to make the most passionate parts of your job the most part of your job.

What we are passionate about are the things in the sphere of our strengths. It then follows that we are most fulfilled when we put our strengths to work. Since passion excites and drives us, when you begin to do what you love to do and more opportunities of what you can be and do with yourself begin to emerge, the last thing you will be looking for is the end of the day. You will want your day to last longer. Herein lies your purpose.

Purpose in life is about unveiling what we passionately love. Our strengths are our God-given talents and gifts. They are the basis of our purpose. However, talent is not enough. We must sharpen it for favourable results. Develop your passions. Take the time to learn the appropriate skills and relevant knowledge to reinforce your passion from mere excitement to a core competency. Then serve it where it is most needed.

What makes you come alive? Determine to work at your strengths, doing activities that you are most passionate about. Each of us has a purpose to fulfill. It is what gives our lives great significance and value. Let your strengths steer you towards discovering your purpose. Once you do, connect with it. It is only when you build your life around your purpose that you begin to make a difference by prioritizing according to that purpose.

Lillian Chebosi