Join us to learn how to have healthy relational expectations and live a life fueled by hope!

Thursday’s Trench Truth

What do you do when others let you down? Do you fall down or rise above the disappointment? Join us to learn how to have healthy relational expectations and live a life fueled by hope!

Monday: Yucaipa/ Beaumont

Tuesday: Yucaipa

Wednesday: Redlands

Thursday: Redlands/ San Bernardino/ Upland

Let us know which location you’re interested in and we’ll contact you with all the trench info

Let’s do this!
Kim-Evinda

Join us to learn how to live fueled by hope

 Tuesday’s Trench Truth

Join us to learn how to live fueled by hope, experience a comeback when you have a setback. Coming to a trench near you…

Monday: Yucaipa/ Beaumont

Tuesday: Yucaipa

Wednesday: Redlands

Thursday: Redlands/ San Bernardino/ Upland

Let us know which location you’re interested in and we’ll contact you with all the trench info

Looking forward to seeing you…

Kim-Evinda

TRUTH: LOVE WINS EVERY TIME!

Faith Filled Friday

Recently, I made a decision and I felt justified by my decision to remove certain people from my life. Now I didn’t make a big deal or scene with this decision I made; it was a decision I had made in my heart and mind. I felt no remorse for it and was convinced that God was behind this decision. You see I have been hurt by these people all my life, and my weary heart could not withstand it any longer, or so my weary self thought.

Thanks for joining me today for Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power and Faith-Filled Friday with Trench Classes United.

 Last Sunday during worship they played a song that talked about fighting for love. As I sang this song, tears flooded my face. I was to fight to love these people, not for me, but for God because this is what He instructs us to do. I cried my broken and weary heart out to the Lord. I came before him standing, but in my spirit, I was on my face asking God to forgive my wretched heart. After worship, I dried my tears, and the pastor begins to speak in 1 Peter about loving your brothers fervently.  As I am listening to the message the tears continued to flood down my face. I couldn’t contain them. My purpose is to show Christ's love, and here my heart and mind’s decision was the furthest thing from His love.

1Peter 1:22 New King James Version (NKJV)

The Enduring Word

²² Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth ^[a]through the Spirit in ^[b]sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,

Looking back, I do recall a period of my life where I had fallen away from the Lord, and lived my life the way I wanted for my pleasures, and didn’t want anything to do with God. Yet, He still loved me and sought after me, and here I am throwing in the towel. Needless to say, my heart was convicted to the core, but I love how gentle and tender God is with correcting us. He does it with grace and love.

Can I encourage you beloveds, if there is someone difficult in your life who causes you pain or hurt, just ask God how you are to love them and for the strength to do so. It could be either through prayer or actions, a smile or a simple “How are you?”

You see when we put ourselves and our feelings down and allow God to work it’s not us they see but Christ who lives in us. Let’s be like Jesus, though we didn’t deserve his love or grace, He still gave it abundantly. Let us follow in His footsteps. 

1 Corinthians13:4-8 New King James Version (NKJV)

⁴ Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not ^[a]puffed up; ⁵ does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, ^[b]thinks no evil; ⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

Love,

Ashley

Faith Filled Friday

Psalm 37:5 ⁵ Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him and he will do this

 Thanks for joining me today for Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power and Faith-Filled Friday with Trench Classes United.

Growing up I took care of my siblings. Maybe that’s why others often encouraged me to take child development classes in High School, which I thrived in. Children are God’s gift to me. I love working with them. I always dreamed of being a teacher and/or a daycare provider. God answered, my prayer two years ago, and I have been enjoying running my own in-home daycare. I was content; my prayers prayed since I was nineteen had been answered. WOW! I am so thankful and overjoyed.

So why rock the boat, right? But I find that oftentimes when you are content and thankful, God opens another door, and at first sight, it may look like walking through that door will pull us out of the place of contentment. Let me share what I mean: Just recently I was meeting with my son’s Independent study teacher, and again, for the fifth year, she told me that I needed to go back to school to become a teacher. Each year I would consider it but felt it wasn’t the right time; I didn’t feel like I could take on the extra load.

Well, friends, this time, I felt a stirring in my spirit, and I have been proactive about getting the process started. I feel confident that I can do it! What is ironic about this stirring is that at this time of my life, I am in a very busy season, yet, I feel like now is the time.

I am excited for this new season of my life; I am also terrified.

This is where I will stand in faith and trust and know that God will lead me down this narrow path. God placed the stirring in my spirit, and the abundance of confidence I have in myself to conquer this mountain.  

Of course, this new faith adventure comes with the attacks of the enemy, who is doing his best to detour me from God’s plan, using things like finances, time, knowledge, telling me I am lacking in each of these. I combat these attacks by speaking God’s truths over me. The verse that God has tucked deep in my heart is Philippians 4:8 New Living Translation (NLT) ^8 “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

This instruction weeds out all of the enemy’s lies.

Has God called you to take a step of faith, a new career, a new school, a move, et cetera?

Despite how scary it may look or feel, don’t ignore the stirring in your spirit, for God calls us to great and scary adventures not to harm us but to better us, challenge us, and to make us more in His image. As we embark on our new journeys, we will have to lean ever so deeply into His strength and wisdom to get through the narrow and steep climb He’s called us to.

Take courage, He has a great purpose for you and me.

Love,

Ashley

When we think of ourselves better than those who serve us, we tend to not be so generous.

Thanks for stopping by for Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power and Monday’s Mantra with Trench Classes United. Grab your coffee and come on in.

How many times have you sworn you were right only to find out you weren’t? Well, I’m about to share one of those a-has with you!

Just the other day in my own coffee hour with our Father, I was sitting in the Beatitudes – Matthew 5:1-13 and reading about the eight profound principles, each with an eternal reward. What’s cool is if you’ll notice, the first one’s reward is “the kingdom of heaven,” and the very last one, “those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” is also rewarded with the kingdom of heaven.  

For the sake of time, let’s talk about just the first one; after all, there’s enough in that one to chew on for a while and strengthen your Strand of Faith with more knots. J

Just chewing on this first beatitude, I recognize a misunderstanding I have always had when it comes to “Blessed are the poor in spirit”…STOP!

When I say “Poor in spirit” to you, what do you think it means?

I thought it meant those less fortunate in all aspects…but I was so incorrect. It means humble and charitable!

Humility leads us to generosity!

Now I don’t know about you, but I used to cringe at the mere thought of humility, but I’ve come to welcome it for humility is necessary in the journey of faith. True humility is not thinking we are better than others. For example, have you ever taken a shuttle with a group of friends, or gone to dinner with a group? Well, those are services. I remember one time mentioning how much I wanted to tip someone for their great service they did with such sweet humility while with a group of friends and one of them said “They weren’t that good!”

When we think of ourselves better than those who serve us, we tend to not be so generous.

And did you know that charitable is not just referring to $$$$? Nope, charitable also refers to the generosity of our time, talents and treasures.

So who do you know that could use some of your charitableness today? Maybe a kind compliment, a word of encouragement, or a thoughtful gesture, whatever the deed, practicing this will keep us “poor in spirit,” for we can never out-give when we are relying on the Giver of all good things to sustain us and take us to our reward of the kingdom of heaven.

Love,

Kim-Evinda

P.S. Don’t forget to join me live at 5:45 tonight @ www.facebook.com/trenchclassesunited

Monday’s Mantra

Are you a Boundary Maker or Boundary Breaker?

Welcome to Monday’s Mantra @ Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power and Trench Classes United.

Last week in the trenches (trench classes), we were working on a symptom that more of us have than we realize; it’s this sense of worrying about how others perceive us, what they would think of us if… You can fill in the “if” blank with so many different things. As a matter of fact, I was talking with one of my leaders as she was preparing to share in this particular symptom and she had just had a huge victory in setting a material boundary, “but it wasn’t easy,” she kept reminding me.

I assured her that it rarely is when first setting a boundary, but the more we set them…without an attitude, the easier it is. See the hard part is watching the one who is trying to cross the line struggle when you reinforce the line. We wonder if we should erase it, or move it for fear of them not liking us, which equates to worrying about how they perceive us. We can’t handle rejection, so we erase our line…over and over again and pretty soon, we disappear. Not like Houdini but emotionally, we become incapable of expressing our needs and/or wants so what’s left is really a shell.

I experienced a big a-ha when talking with my husband about this symptom. He really doesn’t worry about how others perceive him and often says if someone doesn’t want to be around me, I could care less; I won’t be around them. At first glance, that seems emotionally healthy, but – yup there’s a but in there – when we pull that back and explore it a bit by reminding ourselves of the relationship that seems to be a thorn in our side, the unlovable person in our life, the one we wish would call and make an effort, can we honestly say we don’t worry or even care for that matter about that person and what they think of us, or is that simply the wall we hide behind so we don’t have to deal with it?

As he and I dug into that a little bit, we discovered that perhaps there are those that we really do care about, wonder why they perceive what they seem to be perceiving, and as long as we have done all we can to encourage acceptance, then we are free to be free from worrying about what they perceive or how they perceive us. This is the journey to self-acceptance.

Truthfully,

Evinda