Monday, Sept. 21: A favorite quote/expression and how it has impacted you.
Today’s prompt is an easy one for me because I have always had a favorite quote that I sort of lived my life by.
Life is what you make of it.
This has always been something that has been very encouraging to me because like I’ve mentioned before, I haven’t had the easiest life growing up. I come from a pretty broken family (my dad is an alcoholic and my mom was diagnosed with clinical depression) and I have always somewhat felt like this was kind of who I was, like it was a part of me and I have always been pretty ashamed of it.
When I discovered this quote (quite a few years ago) it made me feel better, that I don’t have to have my past determine who I am and that I always have the option of making my own destiny, as cliche as that sounds. It doesn’t matter what type of family you come from, or what types of mistakes you have made. You always have today to change the course of your life. It all starts with yourself and just making better choices.
The one thing that I have learned over the course of the years though is that without Jesus, we are destined to make bad choices – without His love that changes our heart, we are just in our nature, sinful people who choose selfish things. When we encounter the one true living God, He changes our hearts and we start to desire good things and He helps us have the strength to make the right choices.
Life doesn’t have to be difficult and it doesn’t have to be what we’ve always known it to be. When we trust in what Jesus has done for us, He promises us a better future.