24 Lessons

1. It’s better to start out excruciatingly awkward and grow into who God has made you to be from the inside out, than to have it all when you are 16.
2. Truly appreciate and be grateful for suffering of any kind. God is faithful to lead you to an oasis after you have gone through the valley.
3. Sometimes it is better to say nothing than something.
4. Relationships that begin with servant-hearted intentions are blessed by God.
5. Mistakes and failures can grow and sharpen you, or defeat and destroy you.
6. Our society has an addiction to stress and busyness. What a testament it is to live out the fruits of gentleness, and peace. It seems that people have been disillusioned into thinking that they must be busy to be productive and effective.
7. A supportive and loving family is a treasure and a gift from God.
8. Understand your identity in Christ; it is truly the best version of yourself. This will be revealed to you as you serve him, because that’s what he created you to do.
9. Be quick to forgive because you make mistakes too, and grudges are not becoming.
10. Set goals and accomplish them.
11. Imperfection is beauty.
12. A life free of hardship makes it more difficult to relate and minister to others, another reason to be thankful for the trial.
13. Adults are just as insecure, if not more so than teenagers. This was a surprise to me.
14.  Sometimes those with the fewest opportunities have the biggest dreams, and those with the most opportunities do not know how to dream.
15. Relationships of all kinds determine the trajectory of our life stories. Relationships with family, relationships with mentors, hurtful relationships, relationships with things, relationships with food; they all lead us in directions to influence who we become.
16. Wisdom is- filtering tweets and facebook posts.
17.  There is a difference between being convicted by the spirit and being controlled by guilt.
18. Until we truly believe the things that we know, we cannot experience freedom to the fullest extent that God intended for us.
19. God teaches us through allowing us to wait and become patient. We are ultimately waiting for Christ to return, so in turn we wait for Christ in our marriage, our job, and everything else that is not yet complete.
20. To be successful you must have fun.
21. A kind and encouraging word can go a far way. Too often we miss opportunities to tell people the nice things that we think about them.
22. It is not possible, nor should you aspire to keep everyone happy. Follow Christ and love others, you will upset some.
23. Prepare for the battle, but don’t forget to acknowledge the victory, because he has already fought for you and won.
24. God is sovereign, and eventually, everything is gonna BE OK!