Tag Archives: Bonnie Bradshaw

It’s All About Confidence!

It’s All About Confidence!

Today we are very busy people. More and More challenges wiggle their way into our lives unnoticed. We can’t keep up, but yet we keep trying to please everyone. How can we please everyone at once?  The answer is we  CAN’T! It’s been my experience that when you try to accomplish this task you make everyone mad because sooner or later you won’t be able to keep up or give attention to detail.

We have to sit back and really evaluate what is most important to us, what we are good at, what we really enjoy doing and then put your priorities in order.  Once you finally come to grips on what means the most to you I promise if you stop giving yourself away you will be happier, have more time and do what feels right.

In my life it’s God, Family, Career, Church and then Friends.  Everyone means so much to me, but you are given certain things for a reason and then you will leave this earth with your most prize possessions which is your family.  Did you spend enough time with them, did you listen, did you love them the way they needed, did you just be there even when you weren’t needed?  There is one thing I always tell my kids, and that is this…. I would rather spend my money building memories than giving gifts that will be tossed away sooner or later and forgotten about.  Vacations, outings, etc. Pictures, videos, creating things together is what they will remember when I am going not what toy I bought them or what X-box game they got for their 18th birthday.  They will remember the time we went to Charleston, SC on vacation and got stranded in the Starbucks on King Street through the pouring down rain that flooded the building. We were sitting on the steps heading to the second floor then were asked to leave because they had to close the building down.  We had to run out in the thunder and lightening. That’s the day mom found a shoe store that sold Merranda Lambert shoes. Of course I had to buy them.

They remember the time we went camping in Nags Head and they met a couple of pretty girls whom gave them their numbers.  Or even the time we went to Northern Virginia and walked a river fishing for the first time.  These are things you can’t take away from your family.  Look at it like this, if you allow others to steal your time away from what you should be doing then you rob yourself of life and adventure.  You rob yourself of true happiness.  Take the time to score your life, prioritize you desire and create a plan for your meaning and happiness.  Those that really care will understand and those that don’t well you will find out how much you mean to them anyway.

Until next time…… Keep building that wonderful life.

Bonnie

Love your family. Family isn't always blood.

Family isn’t alway blood.

Born To Be A Mother

Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a mom.  I wanted a large family with children running around everywhere. As I grew older I found myself with many females problems. A the age of 19 I was told by several Doctors that through my recent surgery my insides looked like a 80 year old woman. I was filled with scar tissue and my tubes were blocked. Right completely and left somewhat. I would soon need another surgery to go in and clean our the scar tissue and attempt to save my tubes.

It soon began to effect me beyond what I imagined.  Knowing they might not be able to save my tubes and well, I was not made of the money it would take for fertility treatments so I would be left with only one concern and that was never being able to be the mom I knew I was born to be.  While my husband and I would drive by parks I would physically get sick watching all the children playing and of course those playing with their parents.

I could hardly stand it. I knew God created in me a deep desire to be a MOM and so why would He do that if I would never know what that joy felt like?  Well, many surgeries later I found a great Dr. and well, I’m the proud mom of three biological children. One C-section and two natural births.  O, the Lord was not finished with me yet.  We have had the joy of being Exchange parents to kids now grown from all over the world. We have fostered hundreds of children and adopted four, but parents of many.  Many meaning they knew we were Mom and Dad and felt that little piece of paper meant nothing to them.  One of our heart adopted children “Chris” just got out of the military and well he came home.  Life is sweet.

Now a new journey awaits us starting in June.  Our youngest birth son graduates from high school and this is the son that always said he would never leave home to go to college. He was going to a local college. Months ago he shocks us with a decision to attend a college 10 hours away so we go to visit and then decides on a Music Conservatory over 20 hours away.  My heart hurt so bad, but I know he will do well and we gave him wings to fly.

My husband and I are starting to prepare ourselves for that day.  What are we going to do without children in the home?  It’s going to be so quiet and I hate quiet.  No more “MOM, come here” every five minutes.  I worry so much because of the world we live in. Will they be safe? Will they make the right decisions? Will they have enough to eat?  Will they be treated fairly? Will they make good friends?  Will they get up on time for school? The list goes on and on.  What do we do as parents to make it?  We of course knew this day would come one day.  I’m not ready, but we grew them up in the Lord and gave them wings to fly the coop and make a life of their own. Time flies by, we are here.

I would love to hear from al you empty nesters on how you handled it and got through.  Email:  bonniespeaks@me.com  Facebook.com/bonniesbradshaw

Part two coming soon……. More decisions made

10 Things Forgiveness Is Not

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1. FORGIVENESS IS NOT APPROVING OR DIMINISHING SIN.
It’s not saying, “Well, it’s okay. Nobody’s perfect. Everybody makes a mistake,” or, “It’s not a really big deal. Worse things have happened.” No, it is a big deal! It’s so big that God died for it. So don’t dishonor the cross of Jesus and approve or diminish something that required the death of God.

2. FORGIVENESS IS NOT ENABLING SIN.
I see this frequently with wives who misunderstand submission. “Okay, the husband is the head of the home, he’s supposed to lovingly lead.” Great. He’s supposed to lovingly lead by following Jesus, and if he’s not following Jesus, the wife shouldn’t follow him because her ultimate allegiance is to Jesus and the first job description of the wife is to be a helper. And sometimes husbands are foolish. They make stupid decisions financially. They make reckless decisions spiritually. They buck godly, spiritual authority trying to correct them. And in the name of forgiving them, the wife comes along and enables him. She just is complicit in his rebellion and sin and folly. You can forgive someone without enabling their sin, participating in it. You can have a friend or a family member who is an addict, for example, you can forgive them without enabling them. Forgiving is not enabling. Forgiving can even include confronting and rebuking, and sometimes it must.

3. FORGIVENESS IS NOT DENYING A WRONGDOING.
“It didn’t happen. I forgot all about it. I just moved on. I pretend like it never happened. I didn’t let it affect me.” That’s not true. It’s not the denial of a wrongdoing. Forgiveness is not denying that you were sinned against.

4. FORGIVENESS IS NOT WAITING FOR AN APOLOGY.
Some of you say, “I will forgive them as soon as they say they’re sorry.” I hate to break it to you, some people are never going to apologize. Some people are going to continue in their destructive, rebellious, and foolish life course. Some people will be stubborn and religious and self-righteous and they’ll never confess or admit. Some people will move away, you’ll never speak with them again. Some people will die before they articulate repentance. And so you forgive them before they apologize.

5. FORGIVENESS IS NOT FORGETTING.
This is one of the great Christian myths. “Well, we forgive and forget.” No we don’t! You can’t forgive and forget. You can’t. You were raped, molested, abandoned, beaten, abused, cheated on, betrayed, lied about. “Forget it”? You can’t forget it. It’s impossible. And some will appeal to Bible books like Jeremiah, where it says that God will remember their sin no more. And they’ll say, “See? God doesn’t remember our sin.” And let me tell you this, God does remember our sin. He’s omniscient, he’s all knowing, he forgets nothing, he knows everything. Right? It’s not like God’s in heaven going, “I forgot a whole bunch of things.” He would cease to be God. What does it mean that God remembers their sin no more? It means that God chooses not to interact with us based upon what we’ve done, but instead interact with us based upon what Christ has done. It means that he chooses to see us as new creations and he chooses to work for a new future. It means that at the forefront of God’s thinking toward us is not all of the sin that we’ve committed, but all the work that Jesus has done for us and in us and, by grace, will do through us. But it’s not like God has no idea what you did yesterday. He forgets nothing. And I see this sometimes in counseling, where one person will sin against another person and they’ll say, “Well, you shouldn’t even remember that.” It’s impossible. I had one situation recently. I looked at the husband, I was like, “You slept with her best friend. She’s not going to forget that ever. Now, she can choose not to interact with you in light of that. She could choose to forgive you. She can choose to not be stewing on that every minute of every day and seething. But she’s never going to forget that this happened because it was cataclysmic.”

6. FORGIVENESS IS NOT CEASING TO FEEL THE PAIN.
Just because it hurts doesn’t mean you’ve failed to forgive. It still hurts. Some of you have had horrible things done to you. Horrible things done to you. With all sincerity, I’m sorry. And it would be so cruel to say, “Well, if you’ve forgiven them, it shouldn’t hurt anymore.” Well, sure it does. See, we don’t hear in the Bible that all the tears are wiped from our eyes until the resurrection of the dead in the final unveiling of the kingdom. It means people are crying all the way to Jesus. It still hurts. It’s okay for it to bother you.

7. FORGIVENESS IS NOT A ONETIME EVENT.
It’s not like you forgive someone and it’s over. Sometimes, they keep sinning, so you need to keep forgiving. Or sometimes you forgive them, but there are emotional moments where it feels fresh. There’s one woman that I know, her husband committed adultery on her. And he earnestly repented and she honestly forgave him and they have sought biblical counseling and they have worked it out. But she confesses there are times, sometimes even at church, where her husband is doing nothing wrong, and it’s been some years, that she’ll just see him talking to another woman, maybe even a mutual friend, and just the sight of him with another woman causes her to feel all of that betrayal again and it rises up in her soul. And she needs to forgive him again for what he did in the past. Sometimes forgiveness is something that is regularly required.

8. FORGIVENESS IS NOT NEGLECTING JUSTICE.
You can forgive someone and call the police and have them arrested. You can forgive someone and testify against them in court. Romans 13 says to obey the government. They’d say, “I thought you forgave me.” “I do. I forgive you. But you’ve committed a crime. You’ve broken the law. And so these are the consequences.” If you’ve stolen, you need to pay it back. If you’ve lied, you need to go tell the truth. It’s not a neglecting of justice. You can forgive and pursue justice.

9. FORGIVENESS IS NOT TRUSTING.
I hear this all the time. “My dad molested me. He said he’s sorry. Can he babysit my kids?” Answer? No way. No way. “My boyfriend or husband hit me, but he said he’s sorry. Should we just pick up where we left off and keep going?” No way. See, trust is built slowly. It’s lost quickly. Trust is built slowly. Those of you, now hear this, I’m your pastor who loves you. Let me put an airbag around this. For those of you who are naive and gullible, trust is to be given slowly, lost quickly. Some of you give your whole heart away and never take it back. Give it away slowly and if someone sins against you grievously, trust has to be rebuilt over time. It’s not trusting. It’s not trusting. Some people can be trusted in time with fruit and keeping with repentance after they’ve gotten help. Other people should never be trusted because the risk is simply too high. This is particularly true with children who are vulnerable. We need to be exceedingly careful with who we trust.

10. FORGIVENESS IS NOT RECONCILIATION.
It’s not that you’re friends and you hang out and everything’s okay. You’re close and it’s back to normal. Not at all. It takes one person to repent. It takes one person to forgive. It takes two people to reconcile. That’s why Paul says, “In as much as it is possible with you, seek to live at peace with all men.” Here’s what he’s saying. Do your best, but you can’t be at peace with everyone. But if it doesn’t work out, make sure it’s their fault, not yours. Right? It takes two people to reconcile. This is where I’ve got a friend right now who’s in the midst of a divorce because she is acknowledging her own sin, her husband really is the problem, and she’s saying, “I love you, I forgive you. If you’ll meet with counselors, if you’ll submit to the authority in our church, I extend a hand to you and we can reconcile and save this marriage.” He’s saying, “No. I don’t think I did anything wrong. I don’t think I need to listen to the pastor. I don’t need to meet with a counselor. I don’t need to listen to anyone. It’s your fault.” There will be no reconciliation. Not with a man like that. Repentance takes one, forgiveness takes one, reconciliation takes two.

FORGIVENESS AND JUSTICE
Now, in hearing this, some of you, like me, will have strong sense of justice. You say, “But if I forgive them, where’s the justice?” Justice comes, friends, ultimately from Jesus. Either they will come to faith in Christ and you will get your justice at the cross, where Jesus’ blood was shed in their place for their sins as Jesus’ blood was shed in your place for your sin, because Lord knows we’ve hurt people too, or, if they remain unrepentant, your forgiving them does not mean that they are ultimately forgiven. They’ve sinned against you and God, and as you forgive them, you’re leaving them to Jesus. And if they live in a state of unrepentance and they don’t come to Jesus for forgiveness, they will stand before Jesus in the end. And they will be judged and sentenced to the conscious eternal torments of hell to suffer forever for all of their sin, paying their eternal debt to the living God. So, in forgiving someone, we are not neglecting justice. We’re leaving it to the perfect judge to enact perfect justice, either at the cross or in hell, but either way justice will be served. And we forgive in light of that.

Foster Care Story From Several Views

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http://www.hamptonroads.com/2009/10/foster-parents-compassion-needed

 

Bonnie Bradshaw can relate. Bradshaw had a rough childhood. Her parents were alcoholics, and she cooked, ironed and cleaned by the time she was 5.

Fifteen years ago, she and husband Glenn became foster parents and they’ve housed an estimated 40 children in their four-bedroom home off U.S. 58. She has adopted three.

“What I have learned is that each child has a gift,” said Bradshaw, an ordained minister and a motivational speaker. “All of them want to be loved. They want the American type of life they read about.”

Bradshaw agreed that most people want a cute baby. They don’t consider teenagers.

“They don’t think about gangs,” she said. “Or hormones. Or dating. Some of these children have children, and you have to make both of them part of your home. Some are on probation. Others have open court cases. They never think they might have to put locks on the windows and doors.

“It takes a special person to work with teens. You have to fight for these kids. If they don’t have a parent fighting for them, who is?”

The rewards can pay off, she said. When her foster son Donnie came to them as a teen he dreaded school. He threw books and punched lockers and had constant behavior problems.

Today he has a GED diploma and a good job in construction.

“You just fall in love with the inside of these kids,” Bradshaw said. “They are awesome if you take the time to search inside. These children come to a stranger’s home. Some have been on their own a long time, and then a stranger tries to tell them what to do. This is where patience comes into play.”

How Bad Do You Want It?

While watching this video I thought of my two sons that are heavy into the music scene. One is part of a great band, recording, touring and the other just getting ready to graduate high school and leave us for Arizona for a degree in Music/Production. This same child has been writing his lyrics and developing his beats, recording his own music and I must say I am very proud of them both. This video is really not just for those who seek a career in the music industry, but to anyone who has a passion to pursue a dream. How bad do you want it and How much do you enjoy doing it? Rather you ever become a millionaire or just make ends meet do you love it that much that it really doesn’t matter as long as you can keep on doing what you love? Just keep doing it and you will find joy, happiness and self fulfillment.

There Must Be Something In The Water, O Yes There Is

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When I come across a song, video or word no matter who it’s from I want to share it with you. I find that most of us can run across something at the right moment in which we needed it. You know we are in such a relevant time as many pastor’s say it’s the End Times and as the world we live in continues to become a bit more frightening with each passing day I wanted to give you something true to life you if you need it or just a time to rejoice.  

Bless you, 

Bonnie

 

 

 

It’s Never Too Late To “Create”.

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So many people think the obstacles are stacked against them and their dreams will never live actively in this world. They feel they are not smart enough, young enough, no one wants to hear what they have to say. There are many many reasons why we freeze in our tracks too paralyzed to move. If we only took note of our individual powers to create nothing would stop us.

Please do not let these thoughts control your entire life, allow freedom to enhance your mind and be happy. No one or nothing has the right to hold you back if your will is strong enough.

You Are

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WE have seen this video many times on social network sites, but it remains TRUTH. Powerful words to bring realization to a hurting society of women who feel a lack of worth. Those who grow up believing the unkind, negativity that is said to them over and over again. Embedding all the harm that has been done to their bodies and mind. Let it go my sisters let it go. You are a one of a kind who the creator developed a plan for your life long before you were thought of by the human mind. Those who have hurt you along the way did so of their own free will and you sister have your own free will to wipe the slate clean. Forgive those who have harmed you in some way and move on, move on forward to the special dynamics of a faithful father that has many specific designs for your life. Give your true path to that one who loves you more than anything or anyone can. Let him illuminate your steps, your path to fulfill your true destiny. Sister walk your path and may we have the privilege to watch you radiate the world with your gifts? God bless you my friend for going and doing what you and only you were gifted for. You are loved.

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Motivational Speaker & Life Coach

Inspirational Speaking

I enjoy working with this company, The leads come in everyday so it makes it simple to reply expand your business. Through Thumbtack I am able to meet some amazing people and make even more connections.

Every little outlet helps to spread the word about you and your business. If you are a Speaker, Coach or Trainer you definitely should check them out.

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Who I am personally:  Anyone who knows me personally or professionally knows I am a Christian. I have been since I was five and found myself in a church yearning for more in my life and for that Love thing. The one thing I really want to do today is help people come to know Christ as their Savior just as I did so many years ago. If you know know how, or you just want to hear about it I am placing the information on this blog. I speak to many groups Christian and not, places I can not speak about God but I do speak about a book I live by.  So without further ado I present to you a guide to eternal life.