1. Orient yourself to the mean, not the extremes: This is a principle first discussed by Aristotle. Too much of a good thing can turn into something bad. Virtue can often be found in the middle ground, between two extremes of a characteristic. For example, take self love. An extreme excess of this principle will result in narcissism (excessive love of oneself) but an extreme deficiency will produce low self esteem. You need to love and respect yourself to show love and respect to others, but you need to also love yourself in moderation so that you do not get carried away. 
   
2. Commit yourself to a virtuous life: If you really want to be a virtuous person, you need to prepare yourself for a lifetime commitment. A virtuous life is not an act you put on for a few days. True virtue is a lifestyle. 
   
3. Practice virtue till it becomes a habit: You can commit yourself to a virtuous life without becoming a perfectly virtuous person overnight. The best way to create virtue in yourself is to practice virtuous behaviours so often that they become new habits. Do not be discouraged by past mistake or mistakes you make along the way. Ultimately, if you practice principles of virtues long enough, they will become habits and characteristics of your overall person. 

1. Respect your parents: Your parents are responsible for bringing you into the world and raising you to become the girl or woman you are presently. To be a virtuous person, you need to give them the respect they deserve by adhering to their rules and principles, by respecting and listening to their ideas because as adults, they have gone ahead of you, they have seen things and they know more than you. If you are a victim of abuse from parents, you need to love and forgive them no matter how difficult it is. 
2. Respect your husband(if applicable): If you are married, you need to love and listen to your husband. Your marriage is a partnership and respect is reciprocal. If you want your husband to respect you, you should respect him first. Fidelity is a major way to respect your husband. You need to be faithful to him and must never cheat on him. 
3. Being a loving mother(if applicable): If you have kids, you must put their needs above your own. Raise them according to a virtuous example and help them to develop into virtuous men and women themselves. You need to nurture them and attend to their needs even when it means self sacrifice on your part. For instance, a virtuous woman or mother will tend to her sick child even if it means catching the flu herself. You also need to discipline your children with care and wisdom so that they know the difference between right and wrong 

1. Have faith: Faith is a feeling, conviction or belief that something is true or real. First, you need to have faith in God, you need to believe Him and trust Him wholeheartedly because He is the embodiment of virtues. Next, you need to exercise the principle of faith by being faithful in your pursuit of virtues. You need to constantly believe and be fully convinced that it's possible to be virtuous. A biblical example of a virtuous woman is Ruth, who choose to follow the God of Israel in spite of the difficulty it brought her. It would have been an easier decision for her to return to her people in Moab and continue worshipping the gods of her childhood but she decided because she was convinced to follow the God of Israel. Ruth committed herself to faith in the God of Israel and was ready to face the consequences. You too should commit yourself to your faith in God and in the goodness of virtues and remain faithful despite all odds. 
2. Keep your body pure: Another way to put this would be "respect your body". Treat your body as a treasure, always remember that it is God's temple and for God to dwell in your body it means you are precious and highly favoured. Do not give your body away to just anyone in the name of love which is actually lust. Keeping your body pure means waiting until marriage before having sex. Sex should be treated as something special that should be cherished and practiced between legally married couples. If a guy really, truly and sincerely loves you, he would be patient enough to wait till your wedding night. Being a virgin, pure and chaste before marriage is what makes marriage beautiful and sacred. If you have lost it (your virginity), don't kill yourself, leave the past behind, you can still be pure and chaste, just refrain from all forms of sexuality. Don't say it's just a hug or kiss or it's just few minutes of romance, trust me those are the tiny sparks of fire that leads to the main deal. If you are still a virgin, congratulations, don't feel strange or weird, you are not alone. Yes, the pressure is high and temptations are everywhere, just have faith in God, believe in yourself, flee from ALL appearances of evil and wait for your wedding night. You'd be glad you did. 
3. Be receptive: Learn to be open to advice and critique from others, instead of being stiff and sticking to your own opinions regardless of whether they are right or wrong. Be willing to weigh the options of others carefully to determine if it is useful or not and act accordingly. 
4. Cultivate reason: Women (ladies, girls and adults) are very emotional beings, and the downside of emotion is that it can often blind or cripple our reasoning. A virtuous lady or woman accepts her emotions and mood swings but she is able to use reason to temper her reactions. You don't talk or act harshly because you are angry or hurt. In the book of Proverbs in the Bible, we are told to govern ourselves by wisdom rather than by folly. 

1. Serve others: Think highly of the needs of others and endeavour to be available to take care of those needs when you can while not ignoring your own needs. You can do this by volunteering your time and energy either formally in the case of organizing programs and conferences or informally by being there for a friend who needs a shoulder to cry on even if it means missing out on something important. 
2. Be generous, hospitable and kind: Being kind is more than pleasant smiles and nice words. To be truly kind you must have a giving heart, you must be willing to give to others. A kind person is one whom others can turn to when they need words of encouragement and actions of love. 
3. Don't leave tasks incomplete: A virtuous person does not falter or fail in their responsibilities. If you are given a task at home, school or work, finish it on time and shun procrastination. You need to be self disciplined, don't work with the aim of getting praise from people. Even when no one is watching, do not procrastinate on a task, do not put less than your best effort into it, still do your best and complete the task promptly. True virtues is not found merely in the actions that others can see, but in the actions you perform when no one is looking. 
   
4. Spend wisely: Handle monetary issues responsibly, do not spend money flippantly. Avoid unnecessary expenditure of money. Frugality or being frugal is a type of virtue. This does not mean that you should be stingy or cheap but it does mean that you should take care of your financial obligations and responsibilities before spending your money on irrelevant things. Set your financial priorities right. In other words, as a student for example, you should not spend money for textbooks and other academic materials on a show or picnic. 
5. Use your time wisely: There is time for EVERYTHING. It's true that you need time to relax and sleep since you can only be your best when you are well rested but that doesn't mean you should become lazy or slothful. Time is a very priceless treasure, it cannot be bought with money. Once it's wasted, it cannot be gotten back. Therefore spend your time as if your life depends on it, actually your life depends on how you spend your time. If you want to fulfill purpose and destiny you must start now. Spend your time on profitable ventures. Time waits for no one.  

"There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" Romans 8:1 (KJV). 

 Today is Sunday, the Sabbath day, the day of the Lord set apart to have deep communion and fellowship with God, a day of rest after 6 long days of work, a day of meditation and reflection. In churches and assemblies today, thousands of hands would be raised to heaven in complete surrender and submission, prayers for strength and grace to live holy lifes would be made, but after church service what next? The devil, the accuser of Christians as the Bible calls him is not asleep, he is not happy when your relationship and communion with God is blossoming. His joy is to see you fall, his plan is to make you weak and discouraged and he does that by always reminding you of your past sins and offenses, even when you have asked forgiveness from God, the devil keeps rubbing your past sins to your face telling you that you are still a sinner, then it becomes difficult for you to pray, your relationship with God is strained, you are disconnected from your source of strength, God. If you allow the devil, he would torment you with those thoughts of condemnation through out the week and the next Sunday you'd start a fresh asking God to forgive sins He has already forgiven. You'd be going around a cycle without any spiritual growth and depth. My dear that's not God's plan for you, His word for you today is, "There is now no condemnation"

As long as you are a child in the kingdom, living the kingdom life, the devil has no right to condemn you because Christ has not condemned you. Whenever those evil thoughts come, speak out and tell the devil to get behind you, tell him that Christ has not condemned you so he has no right to. When you do this the first, second and third time, just like the devil fled after attempting to tempt Christ and failed, he would also flee from you.
As you come into a new week, walk confidently with your head and shoulders high knowing that you are not condemned, your sins are forgiven, you are so special to God that's the reason He sent His only Son Jesus to die for you. God has given you the power to live the kingdom life in holiness and purity. You are not condemned, you might not be where you should be now but you are not where you were yesterday. You are a Divine project, God has begun a good work in you and He is faithful, He cannot abandon you, He would finish His work in you.
Despite the chaos and challenges coming with this new week, don't replace God's time with any thing in your life, take out time to talk to someone just one person this week about the love of Christ and spend some time to pray and have a proper conversation with your Creator.
Have a great week ahead. Shalom.


Song Of The Week: This song is the only song on my Playlist at the moment. I've listened to it over and over and over again through out the past week and I want to share it with you. Don't just enjoy the melody, let the lyrics bless your soul.
Work in progress by Gaise baba  🎶🎼🎧

1. True beauty lies within: True beauty develops out of a good character. A lady with a good character will automatically be a beautiful lady on the outside even though she might have some 'flaws' on her face. 
2. Let your outward beauty reflect your inward beauty: Possessing inner beauty (good character) does not mean that you should not look beautiful on the outside as well. Beauty is harmonious, the inner beauty needs to be in harmony, compliment or agree with the outer beauty. If you are beautiful on the inside, you should take care of your outer body and treat it with respect so that people can see your outward beauty as well. It won't be appropriate to have an awesome character and be unkempt and messy on the outside. No one would even come close enough to notice that you are actually a lovely person with great character. For beauty to be complete, outward beauty must harmonize with inward beauty. This doesn't mean that you need to go to the extreme and add artificial and unnecessary things to your body in the name of trying to be beautiful. As seen in this post, we don't need all those enlargements, extensions and additions to be beautiful. We were carefully and wonderfully made by God, our body is the temple of God, He is supposed to dwell in us and He won't dwell in a polluted temple because He is holy. It doesn't also mean that you should be scared of looking your best. There is a certain amount of self satisfaction one feels when looking in the mirror and liking what one sees. Loving yourself enough to strive for that sensation is a healthy and virtuous amount of outward beauty. 
3. Do not use your outward beauty or features to tempt others: Most ladies find it difficult balancing the fine line between looking their best (classy) while dressing modestly. You do not have to expose the sensitive and delicate parts of your body all in the name of dressing classy. You can actually wear clothes that are very classy and trendy without tempting others into vices in thoughts and actions. A revealing outfit might temporarily attract men, but men of character are won over by ladies of virtues. You may try to justify yourself by saying that men are responsible for their thoughts and actions, yeah right, that's very true but you should also note that they are visual beings and are easily influenced by what they see, that's their major weakness. Being kind and respectful enough to give the men around you one less source of temptation is another mark of being virtuous. 
4. Treat your body well: There is a certain amount of virtue in respecting your body and treating it well. We need to stay healthy by eating well and staying fit by exercising. Respect is a virtue, in this case SELF RESPECT. If you respect your body, you should at least try to care for it well enough to stay healthy and avoid exposing your body to things that are harmful such as drugs or abusive amount of alcohol. 

Source

• Lemon juice: Lemons are citrus fruits with acidic pH, this makes them antiseptic. They can be applied directly by extracting it's juice and rubbing it on the scalp, leave for 5 minutes and wash off with a mild shampoo. The juice can also be mixed with coconut oil before applying to the hair. 
• Apple cider vinegar: It helps to kill the yeast and virus that might be responsible for the itching, it also helps to balance the pH level of the scalp which may help to reduce itching and dryness. Rinse your hair and scalp with water, mix equal amounts of apple cider vinegar and water, apply this mixture directly onto your scalp with the help of cotton balls, leave for few minutes and wash with shampoo and water. Do this once or twice a week.
• Aloe vera gel: It contains moisturizing properties which may relieve excessive dryness and itching. Apply aloe vera gel on scalp using fingers, allow it to sit for 10 to 15 minutes then wash hair with a mild shampoo.