By Misty Strieff Prine                 “Some people are going to reject you because you shine too bright for them. That’s okay. They don’t pay your light bill. Keep shining!” – Unknown.                 I have learned this in such a BIG way in my life, even as of late. There’s always going to be someone within your inner circle that just simply doesn’t like your…” brightness”. They don’t like the attention your kindness attracts, the happiness that it ignites like a spark arou

Misty Strieff Prine A simple, whispered prayer can move even the biggest mountain. So many today are grieving over the loss of loved ones, have loved ones in the hospital, dealing with unanswered questions or are simply fighting battles that just seem almost too much to bear. I’ve been amid trials in my life before where I forgot to pray because my earthly body and strength were just too weak to see past the hurt or pain. However, it is in those times when the Lord says to dr

By Misty Strieff Prine Now just sit back and think about the magnitude of that question for a second. Wow. So how about it? Would you like you if you met you? Would you come across as humble and kind or as one of those people who thinks they are above others and are selfish and self-centered? You see, we all need to step back and ask ourselves this question because it will, or at least should, help us to see the importance of our behavior when it comes to those around us. Whe

By Misty Strieff Prine             “Grace is when you get the good things you don’t deserve. Mercy is when you’re spared from the bad things you do deserve. God is generous with both.” – Unknown.             "Mercy there was grace and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me. There my troubled soul found liberty at Calvary." We all know those lyrics. We all have had and still have moments in our lives when we have felt so worthless. Our failures and rejection became

By Misty Strieff Prine “If only we freely forgave with as much strength as we grip grudges.” – Rachel Wojo Grudges, they are nasty little things. What is a grudge anyway? A grudge is a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment resulting from a past insult or injury. Ahhhh. Yep, that would be pretty accurate. I want you to think about a grudge for a moment you may be carrying around. We all have at least one that we carry around or have carried around at some point in time.

By Misty Strieff Prine                 “I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott                 Grace is such a small word with such a HUGE meaning that we often tend to overthink and misunderstand. So, what is grace? The definition of grace is the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. Grace is sometimes hard to gras

By Misty Strieff Prine “The closer we are to the shepherd, the safer we are from the wolves.” Jarrid Wilson             Have you ever wondered why you seem to have one bad thing happen after another? Maybe your life feels like a suspenseful movie that always seems to have a bad ending. Maybe you go to dodge a ball, and you raise up to get hit by ten of them. Bam! Can I ask you something? When is the last time you prayed? When is the last time you got real with God? I'm not ta

By Misty Strieff Prine This is probably one of the most profound statements I’ve read in a long time. Think about it for a second. Here you have a person dangling a fishing line. (The Instigator) This person usually has no place in the argument to begin with and just wants to stir things up. At the end of his fishing line is a lure. (The Culprit) It gets yanked back and forth and jumps up and down, all at the hand of the fisherman. Think of that lure as the person that spews

By Misty Strieff Prine “I don’t think outside of the box; I think of what I can do WITH the box.” – Unknown I have always been the type of person that looks for ways to do the most good with what the good Lord gave me verses thinking too far outside of the box that it overcomplicates and overwhelms me, ultimately making me not want to do it. We so often sell ourselves short on what we can achieve. We may not think we have much but, rest assured, God made us uniquely us and pe

By  Misty Strieff Prine How many times do we pray and pray for something and then, in God's time, we receive the answer that we've been praying for...but then something happens. We find ourselves not praying like we once did because we longed so much for that which He answered that we lost sight of the fact that prayer is something that we are supposed to do every day, not just when we need something or when our heart desires something. We must remember that prayer is a privi

By Misty Strieff Prine “May I live like the Lotus at ease in the muddy water.” – Unknown.             I have heard of a lotus flower but never knew the meaning...until I researched it today...and I thought it was fitting for this week’s message. A lotus flower is a stunningly beautiful flower that lives amid murky pond waters. Its beauty radiates to those who see it as it sits among the muddy, still pond water. It symbolizes three very important things: purity, beauty and reb

By Misty Strieff Prine “Should you ever find yourself the victim of other people’s bitterness, jealousy, lies and insecurities…don’t be mad. Remember things could be worse: You could be them.” Unknown. Have you ever found yourself saying, "I just can't understand why people treat people the way they do" and then you get the response "Well, not everyone was raised like you." It's such a sad situation to know that so many people have faced such hard lives. You are not born with