Personal Change

A Beautiful Moment

jbloustein — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:41:35 -0600

How did I know I was meant to be a makeup artist?

Well, sometimes the course of your life can be clarified in an instant, a single transcendent moment when you discover how your God-given gifts can make a difference for someone else. A light goes on, something clicks inside. Your path is clear.

That’s what happened to me at the Westminster Mall in southern California when I was 18.

A Symbol of Hope

jbloustein — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:19:52 -0600

I looked at the basket of yarn on the floor by my chair in the living room.

It was 7:00 p.m., the end of a long day. Can I really do this? I wondered.

Once, I’d loved knitting. I carried yarn and needles everywhere. I knit while watching TV, standing in line at the store, even on lunch breaks from my job with the customs service in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Almost Perfect

admin — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:45:00 -0500

How can you tell if your a perfectionist? Say you're addressing an envelope in your best handwriting. You've already affixed the stamp and aligned it just so in the top right corner. Your made-to-order address label sits parallel in the top left corner. It's ready to send...but wait. You turn over the envelope and see that you've addressed it upside-down. What do you do?

It's Up to You

admin — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:36:18 -0500

Lots of us have been there. Stuck in a job that gets us down. You know the feeling. You dread Mondays. You watch the clock, praying for the workday to be over. This can be a recipe for misery. On average, Americans spend 80 percent of their waking hours at work. That's way too much time to be unhappy. Every job has its challenges. Everyone has bad days at work. But if you find yourself screaming, "I hate this job!" once too often, it's time to change your life a little—or a lot.

Study Says Kindness Comes from Community

batch — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:05:08 -0600

The next time you hold the door for someone or donate a little pocket change to help out a stranger at the parking meter, consider yourself a worldwide peacemaker.

That's the conclusion of a new study that was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—kindness spurs kindness, Wired.com reports.

Pumped Up

admin — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:50:00 -0600

She bench-presses 90 pounds, squats 135 and dead-lifts 95. Pretty impressive for a woman who's just five feet tall and 100 pounds...and 86 years old! Maybe the most impressive thing about great-grandmother Morjorie Newlin of Mount Airy, Pennsylvania, is that she wasn't always a powerhouse. She became one—in her seventies.

The Healing

jbloustein — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:18:57 -0500

One phone call.

No doubt you’ve heard those overnight success stories—the actor getting the breakthrough part, the struggling musician whose song everyone is suddenly talking about.

The book I’ve written, The Shack, has proved to be hugely successful in ways that I couldn’t possibly have imagined.

But the phone call that got it all started was something that threw my ordered world—what I desperately wanted people to believe was ordered—into pain and chaos long before I ever put pen to paper.

Living on Faith

jbloustein — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:57:03 -0600

A faint glow appeared on the dark horizon.

Nashville was close, I could feel it. Goosebumps ran up and down my arms.

I’d made this six-hour drive down I-71 from Columbus, Ohio, so many weekends to sing at karaoke bars with my cousin Jay, who lived in a tiny one-bedroom not far from Music Row.

But this time was different. I was moving to Nashville for good. Every time my truck hit a bump, I heard everything I owned rattle in the back, reminding me of what a huge leap I’d made. The biggest of my life.

The Change GPS

jbloustein — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:34:21 -0600

When moving through change, it’s easy to get stuck.

That’s because change brings up emotions that keep us trapped in what once was. You may be overwhelmed by change demons—fear, blame, guilt, doubt, impatience and shame—or maybe you’re repeating a story that keeps you thinking like a victim.

Get unstuck by turning on your Change GPS! A GPS navigator only asks two questions: Where are you now? And where do you want to go?

Churchgoers Shop for Spirituality

batch — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:05:15 -0600

Residents of Temple Hill, Maryland, can not only shop the aisles of their Giant Food supermarket for milk, coffee filters and produce, but now they can also say a prayer and have a place of worship before heading through the checkout line.

For the past month, Reverend Anita Naves has been using Giant's community room to deliver inspiring sermons and meet with worshippers.