Good morning, Born2Shine.  I’m so happy that you chose to join me this morning. In fact, I would like to invite you to join me every Monday morning for Rise and Shine. This is going to be an interactive blog, and I would truly welcome your input. Subscribe to my blog (to your right, simply enter your email address and hit subscribe), and you will receive a note in your inbox each time I publish a post.

Someone once said that “we were all born geniuses, but being in the world ungeniused us.”  Each one of us wants to be the best person possible, and each one of us wants to have the best life possible.  Yet, at some point, each of us confronts a problem that is too big to overcome alone. We all need help sometime or the being ungeniused spirals into “I’m not worthy and everything bad is my fault.” That is not just a problem; that is a loss of self.  God is leading me to create a global resource for healing in order to offer powerful tools to each individual who wants and needs to believe that light can triumph over darkness. With such a belief comes hope, and with hope comes the power to choose to become a healthy individual rather than a broken one.

Rise and Shine is one of those tools.  There will be a new post each and every Monday morning.  The first one tells a story of a time in my life that was so traumatic and so devastatingly painful that I, to quote myself, “fell through the bottom of the universe.”   When these times come to each of us, we will either be mangled beyond recognition by events which seem to be more than we can bear, or we will RISE AND SHINE.  There is always a choice.

 I pray that you will partner with me by using Rise and Shine as a powerful key to unlock your ability to see yourself through the eyes of God – to see that you were born to shine “as children do”.

Close your eyes and imagine an incredibly beautiful gate.  Can you see it? It is the entrance to a land of wondrous and limitless possibilities.  You have the key. If you use the key to open the gate, you and I will begin a journey together that may transform each of us.  How or if we are changed will depend on the choices we make; will we remain locked in the cold, dark tunnel, or will we step into the light to transform the world… and ourselves. 

Choose.