Positive Life Principles for Women , livre ebook

Harvest House Publishers, Inc. - Karol Ladd

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51 pages

English

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Few authors are better at communicating contagious enthusiasm for the truths of Scripture than bestselling author Karol Ladd. This dynamic little book from "The Positive Lady" uses the Bible to encourage women to take their blunders and challenges and turn them around to be stepping-stones for growth, change, and maturity.Short, pack-a-punch chapters offer readers "life lessons learned from slightly imperfect people," lessons such as listen to the right voices, as shown by the life of Eve guard against comparisons, from the life of Sarah reach out and help others, demonstrated in the life of RuthPositive Life Principles for Women is for the type of person who hopes to learn from her mistakes and become stronger despite adversity...and find hope, refreshment, and renewal for her "slightly imperfect" life.

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Publié par	Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Date de parution	01 février 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736950121
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0415€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Verses marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.
Verses marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Cover by Koechel Peterson Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota
Cover photo iStockphoto / Thinkstock
Back cover author photo Shooting Starr Photography by Cindi Starr
Karol Ladd is published in association with the literary agency of the Steve Laube Agency, LLC, 5025 N. Central Ave. 635, Phoenix, AZ 85012.
POSITIVE LIFE PRINCIPLES FOR WOMEN
Copyright 2013 by Karol Ladd
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-5011-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5012-1 (eBook)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Contents
Life Lessons from Slightly Imperfect People
Chapter 1: Listen to the Right Voices
Dealing with Doubts: Eve
Chapter 2: Look for the Possibilities
Changing Our Focus: Sarah
Chapter 3: Guard Against Comparisons
Living with Contentment: Rachel and Leah
Chapter 4: Be an Encourager, Not a Discourager
Guarding Our Mouths: Miriam
Chapter 5: Face Your Fears
Stepping Forward with Courage: Esther
Chapter 6: Reach Out and Help Others
Thinking Beyond Ourselves: Ruth
Chapter 7: Be Proactive Rather Than Reactive
Responding with Wisdom: Abigail
Chapter 8: Believe Big
Trusting God to Do More Than We Can Imagine: The Widow with Two Sons
Eight Transforming Truths That Can Change Your Life
Additional Resources
Notes
About the Author
About the Publisher
Introduction
Life Lessons from Slightly Imperfect People
Despise not the desert.
There is where God polishes his brightest gems.
R.A. T ORREY
Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
2 C ORINTHIANS 4:17
I f you are the type of person who hopes to learn from your mistakes and become stronger despite adversity, then this book is for you. We all stumble and make some not-so-great decisions now and then. Most of us face occasional and unexpected difficulties, but success in life is not based on how many potholes we fall into, but rather on how we learn and grow as we climb out of them.
The most positive people I know are the ones who take their blunders and challenges and turn them around to be stepping-stones for growth, change, and maturity. They choose to become better people as they work through glitches and jump over hurdles. To be quite honest, most of the strengths in my own life have developed as a result of the life lessons learned from the less-than-perfect scenarios in my life. In every mistake, every disappointment, and every trial, there are always new life principles to be gleaned and discovered in the process. These lessons can serve to make us wise, confident, and positive women.
What This Book Can Do for You
Each chapter in this book highlights a positive life principle you can apply to your life in a practical and personal way. The principles are gathered from the slightly imperfect lives of women in the Bible, as well as examples from people around us today. The transforming truths that can be learned from examples in the Bible reach to every age, faith, and social status. We can easily relate to the women whose stories were written centuries ago because, although society has changed, the needs of women have been constant. As women, we want to feel loved. We have fears, worries, and concerns. All women face discouragements at times. We often find ourselves dealing with difficult people. There are times of life when we grow tired and weary, and we tend to get down on ourselves quite easily.
This book is intended to bring hope, refreshment, and renewal to your slightly imperfect life. No one has her life all together, so let s get rid of that image in our minds. Let s not waste time wishing for what could have been-rather, let s take what we have and make it into the best it can be. Although adversities and disappointments may seem like a surprise to us, God is not surprised at all. He has a plan that goes beyond our frustrations, and He can transform our slightly imperfect situations into beautiful new landscapes. We can trust His goodness and faithfulness for the details of our lives. Life may not be good, but God is! He is a redeeming God, and He can bring beauty from ashes.
Taking Positive Steps
If your life is not the perfect picture you had planned, hold on to the hope and beauty of what you can learn as you press on in your journey. The enduring truths throughout these pages will give you inspiration and encouragement to make positive steps forward in your life. Each chapter ends with a Positive Life Strategy offering you a powerful truth, a plan of action to implement in your own life, and a Pay It Forward idea to reach out and bless someone else s life as a result of what you learned. I ve also added an applicable verse to memorize so that you can carry the truths from this book with you continually throughout your life.
Even though this is a great individual read, you will also find that it makes a perfect group study. I ve added a few discussion questions at the end of each chapter if you want to read it together with others. In the back you will find a quick reference to the eight positive life principles you learn in this book, as well as a few additional books I recommend. My prayer is that as you apply the powerful principles in this book, you will also be a positive influence in the lives of those around you, elevating them to greater heights as well. Never underestimate the powerful ways God can use a positive woman to make a lasting difference in this world.
There are no lessons so useful as those learned in the school of affliction.
J.C. R YLE
Chapter One
Listen to the Right Voices
If you would voyage Godward, you must see to it that the rudder of thought is right.
W.J. D AWSON
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.
P HILIPPIANS 4:8
W hat seems to be growing in the garden of your mind right now? Wouldn t it be wonderful if the thoughts in our minds resembled a lovely, well-kept garden full of refreshing, hope-filled thoughts-thoughts that always saw the best in others, our circumstances, and ourselves? The secret garden of our minds can flourish with vibrant, enriching colors, but so often the dull, monotonous weeds of discouragement, despair, and self-doubt seem to crowd out good and truthful thoughts. If we are not careful the weeds can take over our mind-gardens and we can grow into bitter, negative, joyless people. Thankfully, we can learn to be attentive to our thought life and the things our minds tend to dwell on. It is possible to weed out negative thinking and nurture life-giving truths instead.
Each day, seedling thoughts are continually planted in our minds-some good and some not-so-great. A critical family member, a hurtful co-worker, a past mistake, a frustrating disappointment can begin to dominate our minds and completely discourage us if we let it. It s easy to default to the negative. It happens quite naturally, just like weeds. That s why we must be diligent caretakers of our minds, planting good, healthy seeds and not allowing weeds of negativity and doubt to take over our brains. A.W. Tozer said, What we think about when we are free to think about what we will-that is what we are or will soon become. 1 In other words, our thoughts soon become our actions. The mind is a powerful tool, and we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

What voices are you listening to? What voices direct your life? Do those voices introduce truth, or do they insinuate fear, discouragement, and doubt? Perhaps you remember this old nursery rhyme:
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.
There are numerous theories on what this quaint little rhyme was referring to, but we can use it as a reminder of the fact that we must carefully tend the garden of our mind to foster what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. Although Mary might have been quite contrary, antagonistic, and disagreeable, we don t have to be that way. Our mind-garden can be different depending on what we plant there. So we must ask ourselves, how does our garden grow? Are we planting seeds of truth or are we cultivating a garden based on assumptions and worries?
We can become extraordinary women simply by thinking above our daily circumstances. When we fill our minds with the truths that God is faithful and cares for the details of our lives, we begin to see life from a new perspective. We are able to have peace in the midst of the storm as we keep God s unfailing love at the forefront of our thoughts. Tozer also said, What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. If we know and believe that God is truly good, then we recognize that even the challenges that come our way or the unanswered prayers in our lives are for a greater purpose than what we can se