Life’s a Classroom: Ten Powerful Lessons for Living Your Best Life - Softcover

Solares, Nani

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1504368835 ISBN 13: 9781504368834

Verlag: BalboaPress, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Life is a gift from God and a beautiful journey that each individual gets to experience in a unique way. Within the beauty, however, there are also difficult and painful moments. Too often, people get stuck in their pain, failing to miss the lessons that each experience is bringing. In this compact yet profound book, Nani Solares shares ten powerful lessons she gained under the tutelage of life. The principles within these lessons, though quite simple, will inspire readers to live their best lives and create the destiny they desire. As readers learn to adopt new attitudes and mind-sets necessary for learning and change, own their power of choice, and grow in the confidence to pursue their dreams and goals, they will find that life is teaching them exactly what they need to learn. Most importantly, they will learn to see God in every aspect of their journey, calling them forward into his absolute best for their lives.

Über diesen Titel

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Life's a Classroom

Ten Powerful Lessons for Living Your Best Life

By Nani Solares

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2016 Nani Solares
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-6883-4

Contents

Introduction, xiii, 
Lesson 1: Life's a Classroom, 1, 
Lesson 2: The Lesson within the Lesson, 13, 
Lesson 3: Be Yourself; Everyone Else is Already Taken, 24, 
Lesson 4: Love to Love Yourself., 37, 
Lesson 5: Own Your Power of Choice, 49, 
Lesson 6: Always Expect God's Best, 61, 
Lesson 7: Your Character Precedes You, 74, 
Lesson 8: The Art of the Present Moment, 87, 
Lesson 9: Let Peace be the Umpire in Your Life, 99, 
Lesson 10: Trust the Process, 111, 
References, 123, 

CHAPTER 1

Lesson 1

Life's a Classroom

Life truly began for me at age twenty-seven. That is when I had the nervous breakdown that changed my life forever. At that time, I was struggling with depression, addictions, self-hate, and a world of emotional problems. And on February 20, 2002, a.k.a. "nervous breakdown day," everything reached fever pitch. That turned out to be both the worst and best day of my life. Finding myself in a terribly desperate and hopeless place, I did the only thing that made sense: I prayed for death.

In that moment, I could not fathom taking another step toward my life. The thought of getting up the next day, going to work, and doing it all over again seemed impossible from that vantage point. As I lay on my living room floor in the fetal position, I was suddenly reminded of something I had heard the pastor say the week before at church: "When you feel you need help, call out to Jesus, and He will help you." Having no other recourse, that is exactly what I did.

Much to my surprise, like a knight in shining armor, He actually showed up. I could feel His presence in my living room as His supernatural peace filled the place. Though I did not understand what was happening at the time, I knew it was real. Lying there, unable to move, I was suddenly struck by the realization that everything was going to be all right. Indeed, it was a much-welcomed change from the hopelessness of the prior moment. Somehow I also knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again. And, by golly, it wasn't.

That was the day I embarked on a healing journey that would leave no stone unturned. Though volumes could be written about the journey itself, it is beyond the scope of this book. Instead, I will be sharing with the reader the most powerful lessons I have learned under the tutelage of life. The title of the book itself actually conveys the first and most pivotal lesson about life — it is a classroom, and we are here to learn.

A classroom is only as great as its teacher. The classroom of life also has a great teacher. His name is God. God is the focal point of life, and every lesson points right back to Him. The following verse from the Amplified Bible beautifully accentuates this point:

She will bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus [the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua, which means Savior], for He will save His people from their sins [that is, prevent them from failing and missing the true end and scope of life, which is God]. (Matthew 1:21 AMP)

God is the true end and scope of life. Our main purpose is to live in and share intimacy with Him. This truth has been reflected back to me in each and every life lesson. For me, life is God, and God is life. The two cannot be separated. They are one and the same. He gave me life, sustains my life, and gives my life purpose. Thus, I have learned that anything gleaned apart from Him is deception.

The fact is that we are here to learn, and God is eager to teach us. To that, one might ask, "What exactly are we here to learn?" The answer is, anything and everything. There is so much to learn. Every circumstance and event in our life offers deep lessons concerning life itself, God, the world, relationships, even ourselves. And every day provides new opportunities and a new lesson plan, whether we participate in it or not.

While life can certainly be challenging at times, I have learned the fundamental truth that it is for me and not against me. To live is to continuously grow in God. It is a journey, not a destination. If we did not learn, we would not grow. We would remain stunted in our spiritual and emotional maturity. Growing and learning makes life easier as we go along. Indeed, we are meant to be emotionally and spiritually evolving at all times. To evolve means: "To change or develop slowly, often into a better more complex, or more advanced state: to develop by a process of evolution" (Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, n.d.).

I find an interesting contrast between physical evolution and emotional and spiritual evolution. It is not by choice that our bodily functions are in constant flux, i.e. our body is aging, our organs are performing their respective functions, and our cells are continuously dying and reproducing. These are processes of the human body that happen automatically and organically. While physical evolution takes place automatically, it is not so with its emotional and spiritual counterparts. Nay, emotional and spiritual evolution and growth occur by choice.

I am reminded of a sad, yet profound, moment in my life when someone I knew passed away. As I stared at his lifeless body in the coffin, I had the realization that though he lived a relatively long life, he failed to learn from life what is truly important. I found myself doing what I hope no one ever does at my funeral — praying to God that I would never be like him. Although he had amassed substantial financial wealth and was acquainted with prominent members of society, his family relationships were in disarray. He allowed money to get in the way of love. His legacy of anger and division is still alive and well in those he left behind. In my estimation, he lived and died and never got a clue. As a result, he robbed himself of life's true riches.

I don't know about you, but I want to leave a legacy for my children, grandchildren, and future generations of love, destiny, and a life lived with purpose. And today is the day that we can make that happen. But we can only do so by choosing to be good students of life.

The classroom setting is made up of all sorts of students: good ones, mediocre ones, bad ones, and everything in between. There are students who love to learn. They feel enriched by the acquisition and application of new information. To this type of student, learning's ups and downs and mistakes and failures challenge them to grow and meet the obstacles ahead with gusto. On the other hand, there are other students for whom learning and school are drudgeries. They dislike being challenged by new information. Learning's ups and downs and mistakes and failures are seen as stressful and unpleasant.

Academically speaking, I was never a good student. I did not have good study habits growing up, and school was primarily a means of social interaction and tomfoolery. I always managed to get average grades, but learning was definitely not my priority. What's more, years of struggling and procrastinating caused me to develop some negative attitudes about learning. This caused me to struggle all the more in college. Thus, my legacy of mediocrity lived on. After getting my Associate in Arts degree, I dropped out and vowed to stay as far away as possible from higher education. I told myself it was not for me and passively accepted my...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: BalboaPress
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1504368835
• ISBN 13: 9781504368834
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 146
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland