Vol. 4 Issue 18: Inertia of Peace...

All too often, our news, social media feeds, and even our conversations with friends and family are centered around anxiety-filling and rage-inducing content. It can be so difficult to believe good things happen every day when the things reported or shared are examples of the worst humanity has to offer.

That’s why we started Real Positive Vibes. We wanted to create a haven inside your inbox to share some good news with you. We hope that while you read our newsletter, you can recharge and feel refreshed.

In His service,

Chaplain Michelle

For a biblical devotion, you can go here.

It is our privilege to pray with you. Send us your confidential prayer request

About Us

The mission of Real Positive Vibes, RPV, is to help society move toward goodness, finding it within themselves by seeing it in others. RPV is a service of Church Builders Bible Training Center whose mission is to help each person discover their vision for life, find their passion, and focus their purpose. Our beliefs are interdenominational. We are unapologetic about our non-religious Christ-centeredness. Find out more: bibletc.com/vision

Make Peace Your Default State

We've talked about inertia in the past but here's your refresher. Newton's first law of motion, " An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force." Don't worry, I am not planning on using our time together this week to give you a physics lesson. But I was thinking a lot this week about how often unbalanced or outside forces impact my mood.

The more I thought about it and what I could do to help hold myself steady, as much as possible anyway, then I remembered this little principal. As I understand it, the force necessary to change the state of the object at rest or in motion has to be greater than the force that created its current state. So for our purposes, the events or circumstance that flood against you to impact you mood and perspective have to be greater than your desire or intention to hold steady.

Now of course, I am not saying that if you dealing with hurt or pain or anything else that its your fault that you feel that way. This week's discussion is about the petty annoyances and inconveniences that can balloon and set a bad tone for our day. For example the incident that got me thinking of this topic was running late to work. I hate being late, like I am sure you all do, and naturally I try everything I can to avoid it. I pack my work bag, lunch, and pick out clothes the night before. But on this particular morning, nothing went as I planned and it took me an extra 40 mins to get out of the house. To add icing on my cake, I hit every red light between my house and the office, or at least it felt that way.

I spend the rest of the day keyed up and irritable, trying to hide it from my coworkers and when I finally got home I felt terrible. So that night, as I sat reflecting and planning for the next day, I wondered why was today so bad. That's when I realized that I had carried my annoyance about being late in to every other facet of my day. Nothing else had gone wrong. Yes I was late but I didn't miss any meetings, I got everything done, and I remembered belatedly that if I hadn't been so in my head there were many opportunities for laughter that I missed.

So what's the point? If I had let it go earlier, I could have still enjoyed by day. If I had resisted the urge to be mad, and held on to the peace that I had the night before as I was planning, being late would have been a small bump in my road not the feature. So my friend, I encourage you to hold onto your peace and don't let the petty and small things steal it from you. Let your emotions be at rest, let the weight of that rest be a formidable foe because in this instance you can use inertia to your advantage.

Email us and let us know how you bring a little positivity to your life. We would love to hear it and we may feature you in a future issue.

Outreach

My Journey to South Africa

Thank you all for your patience as I post this journal. My trip to South Africa was so amazing; I do not know if this will even tell the story of all that the Lord accomplished in me and through me. I pray I can convey it all.

Read the full story.

My Sister's Closet

My Sister’s Closet of West Michigan, is a service of Church Builders Bible Training Center to survivors of domestic violence, former incarceration, or other devastating tragedy to meet the need of one of the three basic needs of survival, clothing. Find out more and how to volunteer here.

Goodwill Industries hires new retail operations director

Goodwill Industries of West Michigan is pleased to announce the recent hire of Steven Jackson as the nonprofit agency’s new retail operations director.

“Steve brings a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience in retail operations management and logistics, customer service, project management, and motivational team-building,” said Goodwill President and CEO Jeanette Hoyer. “We are thrilled to benefit from his comprehensive expertise and people-centric leadership.”

Jackson has over 30 years of senior management experience with retailers such as Target and JCPenney. Jackson steps down from his position as site director for Urban League of West Michigan’s Cure Violence program in Grand Rapids. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Ferris State University.

“Colin Powell once said, ‘Leadership is solving problems' and it relates to retail so well,” Jackson said. “I’m excited about the opportunity to join the Goodwill team and share my retail knowledge and problem-solving abilities.”

Goodwill Industries of West Michigan’s retail division operates and manages 17 store and donation center locations, an outlet center, ecommerce sales, donated goods production, and transportation departments.

Hero Pilot Guides Novice Aviator in Emergency Landing After He Sees Her Tire Fall Off

A young pilot is thanking her lucky stars there was someone on hand to guide her down into an emergency landing after she lost part of her landing gear during takeoff.

Chris Yates, a veteran pilot at the airport, radioed the control tower to alert them of the potential disaster, but the control tower operators had never seen it happen before and didn’t know what to do.

The tower patched Yates through to the young pilot, whose name was Taylor Hash. Hash was only on her third-ever solo flight, and the anxiety was thick in her voice.

Little by Little | charity: water

Honorine didn’t always have clean water, but she did always have joy. It radiated in her wide smile and contagious laugh.

“It’s been my habit since I was a child. It’s a part of my character. Maybe it’s just my talent.”

Honorine’s hope was forged through difficulty. For years, dirty water made life challenging for her community in rural Madagascar.

Honorine’s day used to begin at 3:00 in the morning. The journey was taxing both physically and financially. The only water source was several miles away, and Honorine had to pay 500 ariary (around 13¢) for a single 19-liter jerry can.

Please join us for bible study and fellowship. Check out all of our upcoming events. We would love to have you.