While sitting enjoying my morning tea, I read two sayings on the Good Earth bags that really made me think.

ASPIRE TO INSPIRE BEFORE YOU EXPIRE

This really spoke to me as a mom. I’ve been entrusted with the gift and opportunity to inspire my daughter. I started thinking what does it mean to me to inspire her? I can safely say I want to inspire her to love God, be an amazing person, change the world for the better, be kind, loving, honest, help others, contribute to growth, educate herself, work hard, create… and so much more, but what am I doing to inspire her to develop in this way? Am I modeling the behaviors that will shape her experiences so that she can be the best she can. These questions can really plague us especially as moms. It’s really hard to navigate this whole parenthood thing. You want to provide the best life you can for your children but you also want to teach them and inspire them to have the best lives they can imagine. Your hope is that their life will be even better then what you  picture for them. It seems that we take pieces of our own childhood we loved, pieces from our friends and others that we saw that we liked and pieces that we read or dreamed about even “envied.”Anything we hated or disliked about our childhood we take out and we take these pieces and hope to make a complete pie that we day dream about giving to our babies. This is how we want to inspire and train them to make an impact in their lives. To stimulate ideas and creativeness in them to grow and change and make the world and their lives better. To do extraordinary things.

These things take courage and this may be the best trait that we can exemplify and model. Courage to accept who we are and courage to look into our hearts and just be honest with ourselves. Courage is a heart word, in latin cor means heart. I have had so many times where I had to look inside my own heart for courage and for what to do. I’ve had times where I just couldn’t figure it out and I’ve had times where I have just had to trust my heart and follow it not think so much about things. When I was 21 I moved across the country from North Carolina to Nevada. I moved to a city where I didn’t know anyone, it was really hard at first and I cried myself to sleep most nights; but I picked myself up and went out and created the life I wanted to live. I’ve always gone for opportunities and walked through open doors, even when I’ve failed I’ve learned from the mistakes and had courage and been inspired to pick up and move on. I just follow my heart along to the next adventure. Being a mom this past 10 months I’ve also grown so much and grown spiritually and sometimes this takes more courage then any move or any show I’ve done or any time I’ve stepped outside my safety zone.

I want to enCOURAGE you to not be afraid to look inside and figure out who you are supposed to be and what journey you are going on. To encourage and inspire your family, neighbors and friends to do the same. To understand we are all on a different journey. To continue to grow and not be afraid of failing but to learn from it. Webster online goes on to describe the meaning of inspiration in the 14th century – “it had a distinctly theological meaning in English, referring to a divine influence upon a person, from a divine entity.” So the act of being inspired comes from inside of you, from your heart, you feel it. I learn this from growing in God while some of you may have different ways to look inside, it’s important to find out how to make the eyes of your heart illuminated so you can find your courage to accept your self and others for themselves. Then you can continue to inspire and change the world around us for the better.

Take time to look inside your heart and ASPIRE to INSPIRE someone. Remember you don’t have to make national headlines to be an inspiration or to encourage someone. You just need to know that you’ve stepped up to make things better!