Moving from Broken to Beautiful Through Forgiveness Book Review

When you feel Broken down...let Yvonne Ortega teach you how to move from this broken state to a beautiful light hearted state through forgiveness.  Her novel Moving from Broken to Beautiful through Forgiveness shares her personal life's story of how she suffered, hated, begged God for revenge and justice, and was able to find peace of heart through forgiving her ex-husband for all the abuse he put her through.  Her story is unique to her, but one that many feel they have experienced in some degree as well.  Ms. Ortega knows how to reach everyone, for we all have experienced something that has caused us to hold onto anger, hatred, or a grudge, we have all felt broken down at some point in our lives.  With the 12 steps that she goes over in this book, you learn why forgiveness works, what it is, and why it is so important for your health, your love, your sanity, and for God to work on you.  She goes over scriptures that tell us God's stance on forgiveness, and what He wants us to do.  This book is short, but full of amazing nuggets of gold very precious to life.

Light as a feather floating on air...I chose this book so that I could give it to someone I care about a lot.  I felt they could use what was said, even though I had never read it before, to benefit and better their life.  I wanted them to feel light as a feather, as they were going through some very crazy, deep, not so happy stuff in their life.  Yet, when I started reading it, I realized there is so much that I can learn from God about forgiveness.  I didn't realize how much weight I was holding onto from various things that have happened to me over the years that I have been reminded of.  This weight is from not forgiving others for their wrong doings to me, or their wrong doings to someone in my family.  I haven't really ever thought about this weight, or how it has been affecting me.  Happiness is important to me!  I love feeling light as a feather floating on air as I take on the world!  But that can't always happen, feathers don't float in the air when it's raining, or storming, or snowing.

Beauty is more... for women especially we feel a need a deep desire to be beautiful.  To be beautiful all the time!  We feel judged about pretty much everything: wife-hood, mommy-hood, education, house, pet, shape of body, food we eat, where we shop, how we parent, etc.  That list could go on and on and on, do I sound like a broken record yet?  This isn't new, to most of you, it isn't new to me.  And we just saw and heard all about the Women's March USA 2017, that caused quiet a bit of controversy all over the country.  The scriptures tell us God's point of view on beauty, and what true beauty is.  Ms. Ortega really understands how to help us open our eyes and take a long, hard, deep look at our selves, she helps us open up all those forbidden closets we've locked up inside us.  She helps us understand how to heal, how to move on, how to successfully move forwards in life, how to be Beautiful.  Because Beauty is more than how we look.  In her book, Ms. Ortega has left us journal space to write down our thoughts, feelings, and experiences to help us move through the forgiveness process towards beauty.

I highly recommend this book to anyone to everyone.  It is worth the read!  Worth the time put into yourself!  And if you like this book, check out her other books in this series.

To comply with the Federal Trade Commision's regulations, I must mention as part of every review because of BookCrash, that the publisher has provided me with a complimentary copy of the book, through BookCrash, in exchange for an honest non biased review.

Anchors, Storms and a little Faith

As I have been scrolling through my Instagram feed, and my Facebook wall, over the past few weeks I have noticed a pattern.  People I follow post something that is personal to them like a challenge, a vent, a rant, an issue they are dealing with, and even something really upsetting or sad, and then they post positive things to help counter that negative post.  Its neat to see what helps people turn to when they need to be up-lifted.

I've seen cute baby animals, flowers, funny animal videos, positive quotes, snarky quotes, smiley faces, landscape pictures, ocean pictures, beach images, pictures of their family, pictures of their past, pictures of their friends.  All of these things are just a few ways people deal with negativity, hardships, trials, challenges, sadness, hurt, pain, etc in their lives.  I love seeing these patterns it really helps me build my hope for mankind keeping a love for others in their hearts.

So this pattern seeking got me thinking about what helps me when I deal with all those negative things in my life.  And when I started to ponder this question, I noticed I would look at the paintings on my walls.  We have paintings I have painted, paintings we've bought from stores, paintings our kids have done, etc.  But of all the paintings that I would look as, there is one that really sticks out to me personally.

 Why did I paint an anchor of hope?  It stemmed from a quote I heard about Being of Good Cheer, Having Hope, and having an Anchor for the Soul.  Here is the quote:

"There are tremendous sources of hope beyond our own ability, learning, strength, and capacity. Among them is the gift of the Holy Ghost.Through the marvelous blessing of this member of the Godhead, we can come to “know the truth of all things.” ² 

Hope is the anchor of our souls. I know of no one who is not in need of hope—young or old, strong or weak,rich or poor."  By James E. Faust  

Here is the Link where you can find the full message.  Who needs "Hope"? I do for sure, and I'm sure you do too.  See for me Hope a key to Faith, such an important key that without it Faith will falter and fail.  Let me explain.

Recently I was struggling with something really hard.  This trial was literally filling my husband's and my minds with fear, confusion, worry.  Our bodies were fighting our anxiety.  Each time we prayed about this trial, we kept getting the same answer "have faith that things will work out".  Okay, well, that is nice, and comforting, but only for a little while.  It is really hard to have faith, when so much rests on this trial we are facing.  So each night as I would kneel to pray I would look to this Hope Anchor painting, and just stare at it until I felt at peace once again.

While staring at this painting a thought in image form or even more like a quick moving image came to mind.  I pictured myself on a little row boat in the middle of the vast ocean.  The first image was me in the boat on calm serine ocean water just enjoying the beauty and peace.  The second image was of a terrible storm coming upon me and my little row boat.  I tried to row away from the storm but couldn't.  So instead I threw my anchor over board and hoped that by being anchored down I wouldn't be swept away by the heavy rain, whipping wind, and dizzying symphony of waves.  Every time the waves would pull me out, and drag me this way and that my faith would start to waiver, and tremble and falter.  But right before my faith was over come completely by fear, the rope which held the anchor would pull me back to safety and I was then given hope that all would be well.  That Hope from the anchor allowed my faith to hold out longer than it would have, and stronger than it would have, had I not had hope...in this little thought of mine.

Here is to us all holding onto our Faith because our Hope is anchored to safety, peace, calm, and anchored to the one who provides that for us.  Jesus Christ.

The Wind Parable

The other day we were reading morning scriptures as a family and it was a passage we felt might not be easily understood by children.  Many times when this happens, we try to be like Jesus and use parables to help teach the lesson to our kids in a more easily understood way.  The passage of scripture that we were reading was Alma.  It was a conversation between a man who believed in Christ, being confronted by a man who didn't believe in Christ and who decided to go about the land preaching and teaching the people why there is no Christ.  The basis of the disbeliever's cause was to the effect that no one had or did at that time (in history) seen Christ in person.  So he taught that if you cannot see it you ought not to believe in it.

With this confusing talk in the scriptures we felt it best to put his case, though very much a scientific case, to the test. Wind came to mind.

The Parable of the Wind

Can you see the wind?

Can you feel the wind? 

Can you hear the wind?

Can you see Christ? Or God for that matter?

Can you feel Christ?

Can you hear Christ?

Wind can't be seen by itself, until it is manifested in the power it can bring. But we can see the wind blowing the trees, flags, water, flowers, and the rain.  We feel the wind blowing our hair, blowing over our hot sticky skin, cooling it down. We can feel the wind whip through our fingers when we stick our hands our the window of a moving car.  We hear the wind blowing the dry leaves, blowing the fresh green leaves in a russle and tussle sound. When the wind brings forth it's  mighty power we can hear the wind whipping objects back and forth and against each other with creaking, snapping, cracking whistles.

Even though we can't see wind as a solid object  we have evidences that it can move other objects, which movement we can easily see. We also have evidences that wind can be felt by our skin receptors; and the evidence is plain to behold that wind can be heard.

We can't see Christ because he is in Heaven. However we can see the miracles that He performs in our lives. We can see the creations He has made with his mighty power. We can feel the tender mercies and love of God by the Holy Spirit testifying of the truthfulness of Christ.  We can hear prophets and apostles bear record and testify of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, their divinity, power, love and truth.  

It is on these evidences that we can each on an individual basis have faith in Christ. We have all evidence that there is a Christ, that he loves us, that he died for our sins, giving us the a toning power to repent and be forgiven of our sins so that we can return and live with him. Through all these examples  of evidence of Jesus Christ, we can truly have faith in that which we cannot see...right now.

So the next time you see evidence of the wind, have your faith strengthened in Christ who loves all mankind a like.