your story – Page 3 – Erin Ulerich

Heritage Ukraine: A Light in Dark Places

Slavik motioned toward the couch and chairs in his living room.

“Spasiba, spasiba.”

My mind went blank. Spasiba was one of the 5 Russian words I knew, but a 13 hour flight, a race through the Paris airport to catch our connecting flight, and the experience of going through customs had me completely numb.

Our team stood in the middle of the room, smiling and nodding like a collection of bobble heads.

Thankfully, Alyona came in the room and said “Please, sit down.”

The next morning I tried to tell Slavik’s mother Good Morning, but my version of “Dobroe utro” was, no doubt, too Southern. She just waved her hand impatiently and pointed toward the kitchen as if to say “Don’t bother, just go get breakfast.”

Traveling to another culture is so humbling.

I needed help turning on the shower. Which knob is for hot water and which one is cold? I needed help plugging in my hair dryer.

And I certainly couldn’t read the gas pumps.

One afternoon our team sat on the floor of the Slavik and Alyona’s home office wrapping Christmas presents to take to the orphanage that we would be visiting the next day. Suddenly 3 clowns walked down the stairs.

Thankfully, they weren’t the creepy kind of clowns. They were colorful, cheerful, and in full costume from head to toe.

They nodded at us, and we nodded back, bobble head style, as they walked out the door.

I never knew what to expect from moment to moment.

Ukraine had delicious pizza, huge grocery stores, beautiful landscapes, cold weather unlike anything I’d ever experienced. And beautiful, hospitable people who welcomed us into their homes.

There was also brokenness and pain. I spent time with the children in the orphanages and heard their stories. I saw fear beneath their tough exterior. These children were placed there by the decisions of others and are helpless to change their situation. Being helpless can take us to some pretty dark places. And here, in the middle of darkness, Heritage Ukraine is a ray of light. A sliver of hope that things don’t have to stay dark.

The ministry of Heritage Ukraine involves children in one of these settings:

Orphanage ministry: Teams visit the children in the orphanage each month doing a variety of different activities including sharing Bible stories, playing games, doing crafts, teaching life skills lessons, and establishing mentor relationships.

JAM (Jesus and Me) Day Center: ministers to children from troubled homes and their families. Children in troubled homes often end up in orphanages. This center is a way to help prevent that from happening.

Joy Center: ministers to children with special needs and their families.

Camp Lela: Summer camps run from the beginning of June through the end of August. Each week of camp focuses on one specific set of children. The first week this year was for children from the Jesus and Me Day Center, the second was for children with hearing disabilities, the third for children from the Eastern Ukraine Conflict Zone. There are camps for the children from specific orphanages with special needs, camps for children from other orphanages and a family camp in the mix.

Three things I love about Heritage Ukraine: :

Slavik and Alonya are a great team. The Lord has given them the ability to dream big and communicate their vision to others in a way that generates momentum.
They give practical ways for others to become involved in stretching out a hand of relief to those in need. It’s easy to see a need, it’ s hard to know where to step in to help.
Everything they do is consistent with their purpose statement: Heritage Ukraine exists to shine God’s light in dark places for orphans, troubled children, children with special needs, and refugees.

Ways You Can Get involved:

Find out more about Slavik, Alonya and Heritage Ukraine on their website, http://www.heritageua.org/

Subscribe to their monthly newsletters to get an idea of what is going on that month and what they need.

Check out their Heritage Ukraine YouTube Channel to feel the energy, especially in the camp videos!

Like their Facebook page to get updates on Facebook.

Give financially.

Travel to Ukraine and volunteer with Heritage Ukraine on a short-term mission trip.

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This post is part of the Fighting for Those Who Can’t page at erinulerich.com

Fighting For Those Who Can’t is a resource to share the stories of people who are reaching out to the brokenhearted, the forgotten, and the helpless and to give practical ways others can reach out right where they are.

Trusting God in the Moment at Hand

Rain pelted the windshield as I drove away from the doctor’s office. The raindrops sounded forlorn as they hit the car, echoing the state of my heart. The joy of a positive pregnancy test had ended in the grief of another miscarriage.

Grief, fear, and anger vied for first place inside of me. Grief at the loss, fear that we would never have children, anger at the unfairness of it all. And sadness, overwhelming sadness covered all of me in a hopeless fog.

Our tenth wedding anniversary was approaching. A decade of waiting, of hosting baby showers for other people. Ten years of all the questions people feel the freedom to ask.

I had a question of my own. What if it never happens?

Alone in the car I heard Him whisper. Trust Me.

What if we celebrate our 20^th anniversary childless?

Trust Me.

What if you don’t give what I want so badly?

Trust Me.

The majority of the ten years had been filled with similar versions of this conversation. Me, anxious and ranting. God, patiently reminding me to trust Him through His Word and, in a few quiet moments, by whispering hope into my heart.

In one of those moments I sat in an empty chapel between seminary classes, feeling utterly helpless. As I prayed, I began to feel a calm assurance that I would have a baby. I can’t really explain it, but I felt like God had given me a promise.

That calm assurance eroded as years passed and negative pregnancy tests piled up. But God kept saying Trust me.

After the doctor’s visit I stood in the baby section of Walmart, holding a mint-green onesie, wondering if I’d ever hold a baby of my own.

Buy it.

“What for? I don’t need it.” (My tone might have been a little bitter.)

Buy it and remember My promises.

I bought it, wrote His promises on sticky notes and put them on the onesie. They were the same verses I’d written in my journals many times over the years.

Each time I walked by, this outfit reminded me to trust. I read the verses after negative pregnancy tests. I read them on days when the ache to be a mama overwhelmed me.

I still ranted at times, but I also slowly began to trust. I began to trust that He would grant me the desire to be a mother in His time, and I began to accept that it would be in whatever capacity He chose.

As I trusted, the Lord began showing me that I was holding this desire of having a baby too tightly and ignoring the blessings that already filled my life. I was convinced that having a baby would make my life complete. But as I loosened my grasp, I realized that my life was made complete by trusting what God had for me in the moment at hand, and all the moments after.

The Lord did keep His promises, over and above. He has fulfilled my desire to be a mother through my three children and through being involved with French Camp Academy, a Christian boarding school for children from difficult home situations.

And that green onesie? It’s gotten plenty of wear over the years. Holding my babies as they wore that outfit gave me a very tangible reminder of God’s faithfulness, His provision, and His trustworthiness.

I still need that reminder, because on the other side of the promise of being a mom, my focus still has to be on trusting Him in the moment at hand, and all the moments after.

Out of Darkness, Into the Light

The ever-growing list of men in the entertainment world being called out for sexual misconduct is staggering.

I know sexual misconduct is not new. As long as there have been men and women with dark hearts, there has been a misuse of sexuality. But the list coming out of Hollywood grows longer and longer, and as we sit on our couches watching the stories unfold, we might be tempted to say
How did they get there?

But the truth is, it’s not just in Hollywood.

Too many of us have the misuse of sexuality stamped on our own stories.

And yet the problem runs deeper than neglecting to treat others with respect. It runs deeper than not taking no for an answer. It runs deeper than giving other people the power to determine our worth.

The problem runs to the core of each one of us.

How did we get here?

We are here because we are a people who’ve forgotten.

We’ve forgotten that things done in private always become public. Thoughts lead to clicks, which leads to actions. Which leads to treating others as objects instead of real people.

Excessive shopping leads to maxed out credit cards.
Excessive gambling leads to financial ruin.

Excessive eating in private will show up in weight gain, insecurity, and the way we view ourselves.

There’s always a progression.

Matt Lauer didn’t just wake up one day as the host of the Today show making millions of dollars. His career grew step by step over years – small decisions led the way to big decisions. Just as his career grew step by step, his behavior did as well. A look here, a comment there, letting things go too far, whispers in the dark, led to his current state.

And Glee actor Mark Sally didn’t just wake up one morning with 30,000 pictures of child porn on his computer. It was a progression, one decision at a time, that led to darkness.

A drip that became a stream that grew into a dangerous, raging river.

These men are not alone in walking in darkness. We all have hidden thoughts and actions that we’d never want brought into the light of day. And we stay in the dark, thinking that no one will ever know, because we’ve become a people who’ve forgotten.

We’ve forgotten that what we consume, consumes us.

If we fill our minds and lives with truth and light, that will consume us. And if we fill our lives with darkness, it will rot our souls.

We’ve forgotten that we weren’t made to live life in the dark.

We were created by the God of hope to live lives of hope. We were made for hope, yet we live in a very broken world, a world that brings pain into our lives.

Our steps into darkness often begin because we are trying to cope with this pain. What starts as a way to numb the pain, grows into a monster, trapping us and adding to our pain.

We feel pain on many different levels, and we work hard to keep from feeling it. We numb it by staying busy, binge-watching Netflix, eating, not eating, drinking alcohol, shopping, work, working out… really, the list is endless. We want to avoid pain so much that we even take good things and twist them to keep numb instead of stopping and looking our pain in the eye.

These ways of dealing with pain sabotage our fight for hope. They sap our strength, distort our view of reality, create a gap between who we are and who we want to be. These ways of dealing with pain keeps us low, vulnerable, and weak.

I have to admit, it’s a brilliant warfare strategy, perfected by the enemy of our souls. He wants to keep us from hope, because that’s where our strength lies. If we are too busy sabotaging our own fight for hope, then we’ll never reach out and encourage others to fight for hope. If he can convince us that we are alone in our struggle, that we are too far gone to change, that we are beyond hope, then he has won.

And the main problem with all this numbing that we do is this truth: We were not made to live life numb. We were made to push through the fear, look our pain square in the eye, and live life in full.

How can we change the tide? How can we become a people who remember who we are and what we were made for?

Truth helps us remember. I am convinced that a steady stream of truth running into our lives, our hearts, and our minds, each and every day, is the only way to combat the lies of our enemy. He has come to kill, steal, and destroy. He is the father of lies, and he whispers those lies to us as long as we will listen.

We begin with the truth about who we are, told by the God who made us and who loves us. As we begin listening to what God says about us, we will begin believing that we were made to walk in the light. And we will gain strength and courage and bring things hidden in the darkness into the light.

When things are kept in the dark, they are made stronger by shame and silence. But when things are brought into the light, healing can happen.

Being known helps us remember.

We are known – to our very core – by Jesus. Even before we know Him, He knows us. And He promises that we will not face our pain alone.

On the podcast This Good Word With Steve Wiens, Seth Haines says this on the episode called Inner Sobriety.

“The foundational question is, ‘Can I sit in my pain and feel it without needing to eat, drink, do whatever, look at porn? Can I sit in that pain, can I invite Christ into that pain and then can I cultivate a prayerful imagination of what it looks like for Christ to walk in that pain with me?’”

Can you imagine Jesus speaking into your pain? What do you think He would say?

We are a people trapped in the darkness, in need of a rescue.

And through Jesus, God has rescued us.

He rescued us from the power of darkness because He made us to live in the light. No matter who we are, no matter what we struggle with, we were made to live in the light.

Jesus stands with us when we face our pain. He also provides what we need to face our pain. We feel His love, hear His truth, through the actions of other people- broken, struggling people who are fighting for hope.

When we are hurting we tend to close off from others. Once again, that is exactly what our enemy wants. If we shut ourselves off he can joyfully whisper more lies. You are alone, he will say. No one understands, no one cares.

But when Jesus sends people who are fighting for hope into our lives, something happens. Something that is beautiful and terrifying simultaneously.

We are known.

These people see us, really know us, still love us, and chase away the lies with His beautiful truth. We are known. We are loved. We are never, ever alone.

Jesus stepped from the perfection of heaven into the broken chaos of this world to walk with us – every single messy step – out of darkness, into the light.

Stretching Out a Hand of Relief

Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s I spent part of my summers participating in a Multiple Sclerosis ReadaThon. I remember a few details about this fundraiser. I remember that the mascot was a dog dressed in a Sherlock Holmes style hat holding a magnifying glass. I remember folding and re-folding the pledge sheet with my sweaty hands as I went door to door collecting pledges.

I HATED going door to door, BUT I loved to read, and I loved the idea of helping others, so this fundraiser was a perfect fit for me.

One summer I held the information packet in my hand and a thought came, What difference could one little girl in Mississippi really make?

I never participated in the fundraiser again.

Research didn’t come to a stand still from the lack of my contribution. But something terrible did happen.

A lie, whispered as a thought, lodged into my heart and became a truth I believed.

If I can’t make a see-able, sizeable difference, what’s the use in trying?

Fast forward 25 years later when my friends, Matthew and Sheila Nasekos, responded to God’s prompting to adopt a 13 year-old girl from Ukraine.

I wanted to help, but I knew I couldn’t give them enough money to make a difference. They needed thousands of dollars and I didn’t have that. I felt paralyzed by that old lie that I didn’t even know I still believed. Although I didn’t say it out loud, it was there, lurking under the surface.

If I can’t solve the problem, why even try?

Thankfully, God didn’t let me stay in that frozen state.

I began studying James 1:27 and found an answer to that old lie.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

The Greek word for visit gives the idea of stretching out a hand to help, or to give relief.

In the chasm between problem and solution, we are called to stretch out a hand to those trapped in the gap.

We often feel the pressure to solve the problem, when that isn’t even our job.

We aren’t SUPPOSED to have a solution. Orphans and widows exist because of a broken world that contains death, abandonment, and abuse. The state of the broken world is God’s job to fix.

What God asks us to do is to stretch out a hand of relief to these forgotten groups of people who are helpless to change their situation.

There is blessing in being part of the journey, there is meaning in bringing relief to someone’s life.

Stretching out a hand of relief could mean giving to an organization that builds wells so that people can have clean water. It could mean sending birthday cards to children in orphanages so they don’t feel alone on their special day. It could mean using your profession as a doctor or dentist to offer free services to those in need. It could mean opening your home through a hosting program or opening your heart to adopt a child into your family.

And as we reach out toward the hurting and forgotten, the ones who can’t fight for hope on their own, we must keep two things in mind. Stretching out a hand of relief doesn’t erase wounds, doesn’t solve political issues, doesn’t change hearts. And more often than not, the see-able size-able difference will not be seen on this side of eternity.

But in eternity I believe we will see. And the spotlight won’t be on one person bringing a solution to the problem. It will be a beautiful patchwork showing the way God uses many people to touch each person’s life.

It will show how He speaks to the helpless and forgotten through those who are willing to offer a hand. It will show how He provides food, water, and encouragement through the giving and going of others.

On this earth He works through us, seemingly in the background. In eternity we will see that He really has always been in the forefront and we have been participating in His plans to bring healing to this broken world.

Water for Our Heart

I’ve been reading Psalm 65 this week, and I can’t get this phrase in verse 9 out of my head.

“You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water…”

The river of God is full of water. If I read this sentence to my kids they would roll their eyes and say “Mom, of course it’s full of water. It’s a RIVER.”

I know that.

It’s the word full that caught my eye. The river of God is full of water. It is not a trickling stream, evaporated by the hot sun before it reaches its destination. It is abundant, plentiful.

In an agricultural society, water is vital to survival. The land must have the water it needs in order for the seed to produce fruit. God provides that water.

In the care of our heart God also provides what we need. Our hearts are often dry and dusty, hardened by the lies we believe.

The enemy of our soul would love for us to believe that we are out of reach of God’s stream of grace. He would love for us to believe that God’s provision does not apply to us, that our sins are stacked too high, keeping His mercy from washing over us.

These lies dry us up.

The refreshing, life-giving truth?

God is a good God who hears our prayers and provides our every need. He is a God who is strong enough to calm the waves of chaos in our lives. He is a loving God who invites us into relationship and satisfies the deepest longings of our heart.

God is the hope of all the earth, because He created all the earth for hope.

How is your heart today?

When my heart is parched, I’ve found it’s because I’m avoiding the things that God provides to strengthen me.

I sabotage myself and say that God isn’t providing.

I start believing lies and falter in my fight for hope.

If this is where you are today, may I tell you that you are not alone? May I encourage you with these words?

The river of God is full of water and that water is available to you.

When Hope Seems Foolish

I wrote this post back in 2015, and although the news reports in 2018 are a little different, the need for hope remains the same.

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Hopelessness is sneaky. It erodes the hope I’m standing on, as I’m standing on it.

I feel hopeless when I watch the news. Seeing the waves of people fleeing the war in Syria, running from the unimaginable, toward the unknown. The anxious faces of children riding on the backs and shoulders of their fathers, uncles, and brothers. The fear on the adults’ faces as they are stopped by high fences and border patrols.

And the question rings out, mockingly, “Where is hope now?”

The situation is so dire that it seems foolish to even bring up the word hope. It makes more sense to let hope wash away into the darkness and allow hopelessness to take its place.

Or so the darkness would like us to think.

The darkness does not fight fair. It hits us when we are tired, weak and worn. It whispers to our hearts, “You are just one person. How could you make a difference in this situation? There is no hope.”

But the darkness is wrong.

God has been fighting against the darkness for quite a while. He knows the darkness is convincing, so He sends out sparks of hope in the darkest of times.

He gave the first spark of hope in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve realized the cost of that one bite of fruit, when darkness gave a victorious cry believing it had ruined God’s beautiful plan for mankind. Even then in that moment, tucked in among the tragic, world-changing consequences, God gave Adam and Eve a spark of hope, the hint of a Savior who would defeat the darkness, in Genesis 3:15.

Jeremiah 32, describes another dark time for God’s people. The Babylonian army was outside the walls of Jerusalem, marching closer every day. Defeat was certain. And God told Jeremiah to buy a piece of land.

It sounds foolish. But in a city about to be overtaken, for a people about to be carried off and scattered, in the darkest of times, God had a message of hope. He told Jeremiah to buy land and to put the deed into a clay jar because “houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”

So Jeremiah bought land.

This message did not erase the fall of the city, nor did it take away the violence of the invasion. but it provided a spark of hope. It sent a message that this was not the end, this was not the last chapter, and God would bring good again.

And now, all these years later, God still sends sparks of hope in the darkest of times. For the men, women and children looking for safety from a war-torn country, this is not the end. The story of their lives is still being written. This is a very dark chapter, to be sure.

The darkness would convince us that God does not see, or hear, or care because we can’t see Him working. We can stand firm, confident that He is. Or, in those moments when we do doubt, we can take this doubt to Him instead of blindly believing the lies of the darkness. We can cry out, even in the midst of darkness, for God to work in a mighty way.

This holds true for your life as well. As you walk through your days, do you feel doubt rise up and whisper “There is no hope?”

The darkness wants you to believe that you are without hope and powerless to change the situation. It wants to convince you that you are alone.

But the truth shines in the darkness: God is the God of hope.

And because of that, even in the darkness we can plant our feet firmly and cling to truth. This is not the end. This is not the last chapter. God will work in this.

The darkness is as light to Him. He sees. He hears. He knows. And He will lead His people through sparks of hope.

When you find yourself surrounded by darkness, please remember

This is not the end. This is not the last chapter.

And, my friend, you are not alone. Keep fighting for hope.

A Whisper of Hope and An Extreme Rescue

Act of Valor isn’t on the top 10 Christmas movies list, but it does give a vivid description of a rescue mission. It shows the danger a SEAL team was willing to face in order to rescue a CIA operative that had been captured and tortured by the enemy. She was injured so severely that there was nothing she could do to help with her rescue. It shows the sacrifice that team was willing to make to get her back to safety. They put their lives at risk in order to save hers. This rescue is very exciting to watch. It’s a close call to the very end because the enemy wasn’t giving her up without a fight.

This mission reminds me of how God rescues us from darkness. Before we ever whisper God, please save me, before we see that we need to be rescued, an intricate backstory has taken place. A backstory that involved the greatest rescue mission ever.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.” (Colossians 1:19-20)

“There’s no need for peace unless there’s a war.” Rev. Brad Mercer from Highlands Presbyterian Church in Ridgeland, MS pointed this out in a recent chapel sermon.

There has been a war going on since the beginning of time.

It’s a war that sounds like a movie plot. A war between good and evil, between the Creator of the Universe and His enemy who desperately wants to rule that same Universe. But it’s better than any movie plot – because it’s real.

God created this beautiful world, and created man and woman, made in His image. He put in the human race a need for relationship, connection, belonging.

Satan didn’t bring an army in and confront God head-on. No, he slithered in and convinced Eve that the face-to-face relationship she had with God wasn’t enough, his words cast a shadow in her mind about the goodness, love, and intention of God.

O how he must have celebrated as she and Adam bit into that fruit. He had won! The precious souls God created and loved had rejected Him and doubted His goodness. And with that bite the beautiful world God spoke into being became enemy territory.

And then, even in the messy, sorrowful brokenness, God promised to send One who would crush the head of evil. Those were fighting words. With those words God gave a whisper of hope, a promise of a rescue.

The world He made grew dark, the people He loved grew blind in the darkness. His people grew deaf to His words and the enemy’s hold on them grew stronger.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

Pining means to yearn deeply for, to suffer with longing. The people made in God’s image, loved by God, people made for connection, belonging, and love, knew, even while sitting in the darkness that something was missing. They yearned deeply for what they were made for, even though they had been in the darkness for so long that they didn’t know what to call it. They only knew something was missing and they couldn’t find it in themselves.

Some turned to worshipping idols, literally turning pieces of wood and stone into objects of worship. Some turned to worshipping life in this world, living in the moment, keeping busy, or filling their lives with pleasure. Some turned to worshipping control with rigid rule keeping.

All this worship was in an effort to stop the yearning and longing. But only one Person could fulfill that longing to find connection, belonging, and love. Doesn’t that weary world sound like the world we live in and the people like you and me?

“God knows that each and every other thing we idolize holds us captive without us realizing it. He knows that every other thing we worship demands more and more from us until we have nothing left to our names but empty shells.” Meg Lynch

Through all those years God reminded His people. He whispered words of hope, words of Someone who was coming to save them.

Because God is the only one who can answer this longing, He is the only one who can set His people free. And He planned the greatest rescue mission ever.

Light broke into the darkness with an impossibility, a virgin with child. Its beacon was a bright star, and the Rescuer was a baby. God didn’t go in with guns blazing, but as the most vulnerable of all creatures.

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth, A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Everything changed when the light broke into the darkness. The people who were looking for Jesus to come saw the beginning of God’s whisper of hope.

We have the whole picture.

We see that our rescue began with His birth that night in Bethlehem and progressed in His death on the cross, and was complete when He rose from the dead, bringing peace.

Not peace between good and evil, but peace between God and the people He created. This rescue mission was to get His creation, His beloved, out of the darkness, out of the enemy’s hold.

This rescue speaks to our worth and to God’s power, mercy, grace, and love and that is exactly where our enemy slithers in. Our enemy wants to make us doubt the goodness, love, and intention of God toward us. It’s called sabotage and deception – and those are war-time techniques.

The truth?

We were worth this extreme rescue.

God planned this dangerous mission because He says you and I are worth fighting for, we are worth rescuing, and we were made for life in the light.

But when I watch the news, when I talk to people, when I scroll through Facebook, I see people harassed by the enemy of their soul, tossed around like waves in the ocean, living without hope, numbing their pain, surrounding themselves with layer upon layer of rules.

I see people very much like the people that lived in the days when Jesus came.

A people that need to be rescued. A people whose rescue began many years ago. And this rescue, the greatest rescue mission ever, began with a baby.

This baby makes it possible for every heart to have peace with God.

And our part in the rescue? We are like the CIA operative who was injured so severely that there was nothing she could do to help with her rescue. God doesn’t ask us to help with our rescue. He only asks us to believe.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him who He has sent.” (John 6:29)

We can’t help with our rescue because it’s already been done. We only have to believe that we’ve been rescued. Sounds too easy, doesn’t it? Sounds like He did all the work and we just have to write a thank you note.

But what we believe, really believe, doesn’t stay inside us. Living out what we believe will make a difference in every other area of our life – our thoughts, our actions, our words. When we believe that God planned this dangerous mission because He says you and I are worth fighting for, we are worth rescuing, and we were made for life in the light, it makes a difference that lasts forever.

Where are you today? Does the thought of being rescued and having peace with God seem far-fetched? Do you feel you are too far gone, out of God’s reach? Let this crazy truth sink in. Jesus left the perfection of heaven, stepped into time and history to carry out this rescue mission with you in mind.

Wherever you are right now, whatever is going on in your life, this truth stands. You are loved by God, made in His image, made for connection, belonging, and love. You are worth fighting for and you were made to live in the light.

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This post is part of my December Facebook Live series, “What Difference Does Jesus Make?” Please join me on my writer’s Facebook page, Erin Ulerich, on Wednesdays in December. I’ll be live at 6:00 a.m. CST, but the video will be available to watch whenever you can. I am looking forward to connecting with you in these few moments of sanity during December.

I am giving away this spunky little mug through a drawing. To be the lucky recipient of this mug, all you have to do is comment on the Wednesday videos in December. Let me know what you found encouraging or challenging during the video. Each week that you comment I will put your name in the drawing.

It’s A Wrap!

I’m blowing the (virtual) dust off the bog today after a summer of no writing.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

I wrote grocery lists, snarky texts to blow off steam after surviving pre-teen drama storms, and SOS texts to my husband when those storms reached critical mass.

That is not the kind of writing that fills my soul with joy.

In the midst of surviving the summer, I learned something the hard way.

After creating an entire video series on the 5 areas that are critical for taking care of ourselves, this summer I neglected 99% of these areas.

(What kind of person creates an entire video series and then doesn’t follow her own advice? Geez.)

This neglect impacted every part of my life. Not all at once, of course. But as the weeks went by, I grew more agitated, more reactive. I didn’t like being around myself. I wasn’t nice to myself either.

This experience makes me even more convinced that these 5 areas really are CRITICAL for living life with courage, strength, and resolve. Just ask the people who had to live with me while I spiraled into my pit.

Today I am so excited to share the final video in the series, the wrap-up, with a few thoughts about badass-ness and fighting for hope. I encourage you to go back and watch the entire series. The videos aren’t long, because getting back to badass isn’t complicated, it just takes focus.

I created this video series because I firmly believe that the way we care for ourselves impacts the way we fight for hope. When I am feeling badass, when I am living life with courage, strength, and resolve, I make brave decisions, I speak up for what is right, I respond to situations instead of reacting in anger and panic. It gives me strength as I fight for hope.

Our world needs more of this kind of badass.

The Back to Badass Wrap-Up

When Nausea is a Good Thing

We’ve made it to the fifth (and final) area of our video series: Back to Badass: Living Life with Courage, Strength, and Resolve.

This area is Stepping Toward our Dreams. The action point for this area sounds pretty easy, Do one thing each day to step toward our dreams, but you and I both know that pursuing dreams involves overcoming fears, facing our insecurities, and our feelings of worth.

Not so easy.

We need courage, strength, and resolve to even start pursuing our dreams and these qualities actually increase as we pursue our dreams. It’s a wonderful cycle that helps us push past our comfort zones. You know, that place where things feel safe and comfortable and where you hear the whisper “that’s not for you. that’s for other people.”

I’m not against safe and comfortable by any means, but I’ve discovered that if I’m staying safe and comfortable out of fear… then it’s not a healthy place to be.

“If your dream doesn’t make you want to throw up, it just isn’t big enough.” When it comes to pursuing dreams nausea can be a good thing, especially when it’s accompanied by that “I was made for this!” feeling.

I’d love to know your thoughts on these quotes:

If your dream doesn’t make you want to throw up, it’s just not big enough.

It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you aren’t.

As I pursue my dreams, I ‘ve discovered that I am my own roadblock 90% of the time. I think of all the reasons I can’t do something instead of asking “What would it take for this to happen?”

I am more likely to ask this when I am living with courage, strength, and resolve.

What about you? What would it take to step toward your dreams?

Resources:

Podcasts: Chalene Johnson, Lewis Howes, Michael Hyatt

Hopewriters – The community at hopewriters.com has changed my writing and inspired me to continuously step out of my comfort zone. Being a part of this community has helped me move forward in the writing side of writing and in the sometimes-scary tech side of writing. The low monthly fee is the best investment I’ve made toward my writing dreams. (The link on the sidebar of my blog is an affiliate link.)

Weights and Words

Today’s video covers the third of the five areas that are critical for getting back to badass. I’m talking about exercise and the importance of building our strength – inside and out.

I believe success in this area doesn’t begin with having a yoga mat, or the right set of weights, or even the most supportive sports bra.

It begins with words.

In the video on eating healthy, I talked about the lies I believe that sabotage my progress. When it comes to exercise, I can sabotage myself by the way I talk to myself. Words.

If we were cheering a friend up THE HILL from the video, what type of words would we use? Encouraging? Judgmental? I suspect we are more encouraging to others than we are to ourselves.

Exercise builds muscle and tenacity. As we exercise we grow strong inside and out. The words we feed our inner muscles are the equivalent to the protein shakes we drink after a workout.

Words are powerful, especially the ones we speak to ourselves.

Action points:

Look at your options for exercise. It can be as basic as taking a walk, or an involved as a Zumba class. Find something you are interested in or something that challenges you.

Make it fun. If it’s drudgery, you won’t want to do it. I enjoy the resources offered by Beachbody.com. Beachbody on Demand gives me access to workout programs on Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Levels. I love this because of the variety and because I can work out in my own home.

Focus on getting stronger and feeling your best. I love the way I feel after a workout. I try not to focus on weight loss, because I get discouraged when the numbers on the scale go up and down and up and…. When I focus on getting stronger, I am able to track my progress and that encourages me to keep on going!

Exercise keeps me off the sidelines in my own life. I want to LIVE my life, not watch it as a spectator. Exercise helps me physically and mentally as I live life with courage, strength and resolve.

You are worth the time, energy, and effort it takes to do this, my friend.

I’d love to know what you plan to do to incorporate this step of getting back to badass into your life.

What words or phrases will you use to encourage yourself? If you need ideas, I have a Pintrest board that might help – Fitness Quotes to Get Me Moving. I’d love to add to it. Drop your favorite phrase in the comments below.

What will you do today to begin getting stronger? Taking a walk? Take a picture! Tackling a workout? Drink water and take an after workout picture! Be sure to use #bk2ba so we can keep up with each other.