Category Archives: Faith

Speak the Truth…

09 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Character, Choices, Courage, Empathy, Encouragement, Ethics, Faith, Freedom, Inspiration, Kindness, Life, Love, Maturity, Strength, Trials, Truth

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Sometimes we sugar coat things, thinking we’re sparing others upsets or upheavals. But, if we choose to deny anyone the truth by withholding from them the reality of a situation, we don’t really do them any service at all! Speak the truth, give the facts as you see them, relay honest appraisals whenever possible. Trust and deliver the difficult truths with kindness, compassion, and an earnest heart determined to help others.

Our challenge shouldn’t be how we can hide facts and the truth, for now, to protect someone we love from possibly being hurt, but rather our consideration should be how we can best deliver or present to others what they may need to know to make the most optimal choices for them, to face their dilemmas head-on as they are presented in life, while standing up to what they must! Some of the purposeful omitting or concealing we do may seem to soften a blow to others, but truthfully, it might also be that we don’t want to be responsible for having to give bad news or to burden another when they’re under significant duress! It might also be that in white-lying, omitting, or actually distorting reality, we are making assumptions about others which suggest that we believe them weak or incapable of facing reality. And that projection upon them might be a serious disservice to them!

The truth is truly what each of us deserves to know, process, and ruminate, even when that truth seems like a bitter pill to swallow or a hard left to our already-battered head! Some of the storms we face in this life actually provide great lessons and the impetus for significant and positive change, but if we’re always hiding in a shelter of our own making or in one provided too readily by others, we run the risk of missing those important life lessons! Not all storms can and should be evaded. They serve as necessary opportunities for individual growth and personal development! We have to give that chance to ourselves by facing each obstacle and trial in life head-on, but also others deserve that same opportunity! Honesty, reality, and truth are the power of knowing what to do, where to go, and how to proceed. The light of truth reflected in life is always preferable to the darkness of uncertainty and ill-preparedness. 

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Hope Is the Beating Heart . .

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Choices, Contentment, Faith, God, Hope, Joy, Peace, Purpose

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Something sorely lacking from our society today is hope. Hope, the promise of something more than this life, something better tomorrow than today, is the fulfillment of God’s Word as truth. Hope is the beating heart which refuses to quit when every single impulse screams otherwise! Hope is looking through, beyond, and with your heart filled with promise because there is actually more than this, more than this one moment of pain, discomfort, failure, loss, and brokenness. Hope leads us each new day with faith into all the unknowns, beyond all our negativity, past our own emotions, and through all that seems to weaken our will. Hope. Hope in something more than this! Never cease in hoping, regardless those “realists” who insist that being hopeful is a weak man’s game played with no prize or victory in the end! There is always a reason to hope, and in spite of those intellectuals who insist otherwise, hope compels us to live with more joy, peace of mind, and contentment within. Hope is a reward in and of itself! A hopeful attitude keeps us afloat when others around us are drowning in uncertainty, despair, worry, or other temporary states of being! Hope within keeps us from letting our current emotions color our life for all time!

 

Sure, someone reading this may speak to the triteness of these expressions and adages regarding hope. They may have their own personal experiences to prove me wrong! They may have tried consistently to be hopeful, yet things never reversed or turned out otherwise! Perhaps they just let the world and their temporary circumstances define their lives in total. Letting others in this world, or even the present state of the world as you perceive it, dictate your emotions is like giving the keys to your home and car to another for safe keeping! Your emotions are in your control, they’re not contingent upon the actions, words, beliefs, or even emotions of others. Sure we may empathize or sympathize with others, we may share in many emotions such as joy. But we are the only ones who decide whether or not we are joyful, peaceful, content and hopeful about our lives now and in whatever time we face ahead! Hope is our choice to believe that this life is purposeful, meaningful, and even with momentary hardships, failures, or despair, that this life is worth living!  

A lot of what our lives become is in our will and hands to decide! Our emotions surely are, even if circumstances, events, and the state of the world overall are not. We could just go with the flow, allowing our lives to become purely reactionary in response, rather than purposefully choosing to be hopeful in spite of whatever happens to us or around us! Hope is God’s promises for our lives realized in our faithful perseverance through everything, knowing that we are ultimately here for His purposes! Things are not promised to us, our lives will not always be pain-free, happy-go-lucky, or even seen constantly through rose-colored lenses! Life happens, our duty is to learn, develop, change, grow, choose, and to move forward with hope. That is our chosen role. Hope for our own lives is not something we should leave to others who have their own lives to live. Hope is not a far-fetched concept only the lucky can master! Hope is merely a choice we make every single day to not just exist in our current state of being, but rather to look forward, through, beyond, and into the future with joyful expectancy as well as contented faith in God’s plans for us! Hope promises us that this is not all there is. Hope assures us that today’s events and our present emotions are not the sole markers of our lives overall. Hope affirms to us that life is uncertain, but the choice is always ours to be content, to stay peaceful, to stay joyful within, to feel what emotions we must for a time but then to heal and move forward. We owe it to ourselves to keep hope ever-present within, as it provides the comfort, compass, and blanket of rest over everything we experience and feel! 

Not Really Broken . .

31 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Choices, Contentment, Discipline, Faith, God, Happiness, Joy

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Sometimes, things are not really broken, we just convince ourselves that they are! In the last few weeks, for example, I bought two solar spotlights for use in my landscape.  First of all, I was thrilled with the relatively inexpensive price I had to pay to try these fixtures. Other costly lights I have, which required wiring and significant installation, have stopped functioning, so solar lighting seemed the idyllic answer to a frustrating lighting issue! I bought two of the lights at my big box home improvement store and within a couple days had placed them where I thought they would receive sufficient sunlight to stay charged and to illuminate what I wanted to. Well, the first night I saw no light emanating from either fixture, so I assumed that they hadn’t had sufficient time to charge yet. So, the second night, I again looked out to see only darkness. I was starting to assume the fixtures were just cheap, possibly without functioning batteries or defective in some other way. I would probably be taking them back to the store the next day! Then it occurred to me to examine the fixtures more thoroughly, which then provided the answer! The lights were not broken, they simply had on/off switches which I hadn’t yet discovered or switched into the right position! My presumption of brokenness was in fact incorrect. I now have two lights which work just as they were intended and were really a great buy!  

Many things presumed to be broken these days aren’t in fact actually broken at all! A lot of things are fine just the way they are and have always been. I would suggest that many people just don’t understand why those things are the way they are. Like my lights, some people just haven’t discovered all the facts about how certain things work or lack an understanding of the reasons for things being as they are. So, to them, those particular things or situations are broken and need fixing. But, not everything we perceive as broken is actually broken and not everything needs fixing. Sometimes, things are as they are because others want them that way, traditionally they work just fine that way, or because we just don’t understand them well enough yet. So, the real issue often is our perception, our lack of understanding or our lack of acceptance, and not anything really being damaged, flawed, or broken!  

Recently, I had a conversation with a dear friend over a casual, long lunch about my faith and how my belief in the Lord intersected with my life when it comes to specific areas. To her, it seemed as though my faith was intrusive and overreaching in that regard, prohibiting me to some extent. To me, the Lord is the center of every single aspect of my life, there isn’t a choice as to which area(s) I give Him dominion. I’m here for His purposes and His will, not my own, and that realization saves me from a lot of grief! Putting God in the center brings me peace of mind, contentment, and has truly eased insecurities, neediness, as well as lessening any dissatisfaction I have had with my own life’s choices and myself. I’m happier! My life is more joyful because I have given God this top priority and everything else here on Earth falls into place accordingly in a lower priority hierarchy. She manages her life in a much different way than I do, perhaps giving God a more limited role. She’s not broken either, nor does she need me to fix anything, we just do things differently!  

In a broader scope, a lot of people in our world are busily attempting to actively and purposefully change things which work quite well for a majority of people, because they don’t believe the same, accept such things as normal, or understand the traditions already established which have worked for so many. Rather than letting others live as they choose, being desirous to learn more, or opening themselves up to new ways or beliefs, they insecurely balk at what they don’t know about, choose for themselves, or in which they don’t agree! I have come to see this stage of life here on Earth as a detour on the way to the ultimate destination. I have come to see this place and this human life as part of my learning experience on my way to an ideal destination, so I try to keep my peace, stay content, and remain joyful regardless the constant tidal influences from others who are always trying to shape us and this life into their vision of what and how it all should be! I keep my eyes focused on the Lord, and all the rest becomes less impactful and easier to withstand! I know I’m not broken because I know who I am in Christ, regardless how others view me or esteem my life choices. All I care about is Him, what He thinks of who I am and what I do! If there’s nothing broken, there’s no need for a fix!  

The Weight of All That Love . .

08 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in Blessings, Christianity, Easter, Faith, God, Redemption, Resurrection, Sacrifice

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I just saw a really timely movie for this season of Easter. It’s called, “A Case For Christ”, based on a book written by the former atheist, Lee Strobel. I won’t give the plot of the movie away, although the book has been available over many years now and is probably familiar to many of you. It’s basically an accounting of what the title suggests, an investigative reporter’s discovery and evidentiary investigation into the truth about Jesus Christ. Based on leads, evidence and by following the story wherever it takes him, Mr. Strobel endeavors to discover a way to disprove and discredit what is revealed in the New Testament Gospels once and for all! But suffice it to say, it doesn’t go as planned! As a believer, this story of Strobel’s probing investigation is a great reminder of God’s omniscience and the amazing gift of love He gave the world through the birth, life, and crucifixion of Jesus.  

When I was younger and attending church routinely by habit, I understood and processed the events of the life and death of Jesus upon that cross to a limited extent. But it has only been through a process of spiritual growth and a great desire to draw nearer in relationship to Jesus by choice, that I have come to truly appreciate the overwhelming sacrifice that He made! It was something which was often softened and sanitized for the sake of us believers. We knew He went to the cross, but we couldn’t truly grasp what He actually physically endured until recent years when the reality of it all was more truthfully and graphically depicted on movie screens through films such as “The Passion of The Christ” and in this one, by way of explanation. To understand the physical impact of scourging and crucifixion upon human flesh is to realize the tremendous and undeniable sacrifice Christ chose to make for us all! When we really allow ourselves to contemplate that horrific physical suffering which was necessary as a blood atonement for the redemption of sin for all time from all beings, it is truly beyond our scope of thought. Pause and contemplate that unimaginable sacrifice, it will probably make your soft heart ache for the sake of such love!  

And that physical suffering is a great part of the proof which finally converted a reticent and stubborn atheist in Strobel. He had surely grown up hearing a sanitized version of the crucifixion as a child before he chose to avidly deny God’s existence in adulthood. But in its actual detail, beyond horrific to imagine, the physical reality of the crucifixion is the telltale evidence of not only the absolute truth of Jesus’ resurrection but also of God’s infinite love. It is only a Divine being which could possibly overcome death endured upon the cross! For those who still choose to deny it, it is not compelling enough to sway their hearts hardened by disbelief and denial, but for hearts willing to ponder such an unselfish act of love, it is undeniable and indisputable! For believers, who need no additional evidence of the proof of His existence, their faith is enough because God’s love is all they ever needed as proof! Once you know His love within, there is no need to be further convinced of His existence. You know because you know! That love lives within you, changing your heart and life forever! It doesn’t make you perfect, or better than others, it just makes you different from who you were before!

Easter is the day we remember that infinite, defining and amazing gift of God’s love! The day when Christ willingly subjected Himself to ridicule, betrayal, torture, false accusations and ultimately, death upon the cross, is the most meaningful day for believers! It’s proof that God so loved the world, that He was willing to spare us all the relentless condemnation of our sinful nature, of an eternity, spent apart from Him. By sacrificing His one and only beloved Son for our sake, as the Gospels and history recount, God remedied for all time the constant need for us to endeavor to atone for our sin through blood sacrifices. We ourselves could never be good enough to bridge that sinful chasm which separates us from God, we’re always sinful by nature. So Jesus bore the brunt of all our sin for all time, the truly innocent and pure lamb, the blood sacrifice slaughtered for the sake of all of us so that we would no longer be separated from our Father! Jesus is the bridge over the chasm! And my heart aches from the weight of all that love, when I contemplate such a sacrifice for my sake and what it means for my eternity!  

What Is Normal?

25 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Change, Choices, Contentment, Faith, Hope, Peace, Strength

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What is normal? It’s the temporary state of being we enjoy until change happens, which it inevitably does! Normal is a current condition, a perception we have as to how things are. But “normal” is just fleeting, it isn’t sustainable, as normal will give way to a new normal very soon! It always does! So it’s best to not be too emotionally cemented to those seemingly normal facets of our lives in which we are most fond or in which we feel most comfortable.   

A good “for instance” of this is playing out right now in my life. I have lived a very long time doing certain things every morning in my preparations for the new day. My morning routine included washing, slathering, applying, and sealing. Now I have had to add a step of utmost importance, due to my new normal. I have had a few large skin cancers removed in the last year, so now I must routinely apply sunscreen and take notice of how exposed my body is, as well as for how long, underneath our vibrant, intense sun. Besides covering my scars, I want to protect the rest of my body from any more sun damage. It’s not hard, but it does require building up a new habit in my morning routines. The reason for the new steps is so important, I’m willing to make the new habit stick! Normal is not normal anymore, as there is a new normal for me. My new normal is to be much more aware of the effects of the sun, finally, after all these years! HA Better late than never I suppose. Now my new normal involves being stalwartly sun-aware and sun-protective. I will probably even become more of an advocate for sun protection for the sake of others too. I don’t want others to experience what I have had to in regards to their skin, so if I can help my loved ones and friends by reminding them about skin protection, I will! Normal only lasts until there is a reason for a new normal.

 

Perhaps we are to blame for giving too much emotional weight to our normal state of being so that when it changes or morphs, we don’t flow as easily into the new normal! I have a dear friend who is experiencing a change with her beautiful professionally trained singing voice after a mild bout of pneumonia a month or so ago. She is now unable to sing easily after having had all the symptoms of pneumonia, including a racking, rib-snapping cough. Her voice is hopefully only temporarily disturbed, but she resolutely and faithfully lives with this new normal right now. What choice does she have? This is the reality of things, and she has no answer other than to pray and have faith for resolution.  Perhaps the healing necessary to restore the quality and tone of her voice will happen in time. But there is a chance that it will not. She must accept either possibility and go on from there. That is the key to change and making things the new normal, even temporarily. We must go with the flow, as the adage suggests!

Our inability to accept unavoidable change is what makes us miserable. We hold onto our “normal” states as though they are promised! Life is ever-changing and that often means a shocking, sudden change is possible! So the sooner we accept change, the less struggle we make for our own lives. Going with the current of change with faith, hope and trust enable us to face normal one day, and the new normal the next. Surely it isn’t easy, it requires great strength to face a life-altering moment with such bravery and such courage! The other option is to make our daily lives miserable from then on by focusing on something we cannot do anything about. We then strip all the joy, peace and contentment from our own lives. Acceptance is the key to change, and change makes anything seem normal in time.   

The best way to view normal is something presently floating along with you on a current, your destination is unknown, the constancy of the current is not guaranteed, but that is the way it is right now, indefinitely. Later on, or on some other day, there might be a completely new normal.  The current state of something familiar to us might have changed. It’s only when we give our present normal reality and state of being some cement shoes or root it too deeply into our souls that we have trouble when the inevitable change occurs! Trust, have faith, and hope in spite of it all!  

New Day, New Week, New Season . .

20 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Contentment, Faith, Gratitude, Joy, Peace, Uncategorized

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A new day, a new week, a new season, this day represents a new start for so many reasons!  Actually, every day is a new start.  We needn’t believe only certain days are important or more meaningful. Every single day we breathe and have life is important, meaningful, and truly exciting for the potential it represents! It’s just our perspective and our attitude which enables that mindset!  Every morning, upon awakening, it is our choice to view the day ahead with dread, in our despair, with our worries, or by choice, with the eyes of gratitude!  

If we begin each new day with the sense of how very special a gift it is, for the renewal and possibility it represents, we cannot help but be more grateful, more appreciative and also more excited to see how it plays out!  Too many of us begin our present day with the remnants of utter dread or despair from something hanging over from our yesterdays or with the fearful threat of all the unknown of our tomorrows.  Looking backward or forward all the time causes us to neglect the here and now.  That habit also causes us to dwell almost continuously in guilt, shame, regret, fear, and worry rather than trusting calm and peace.  And now is really all we have, even if we want to cling to our regrets or wrap ourselves up in our fearful worries! 

Our propensity to dwell in the past, to hang onto days we can no longer change, or to constantly evoke our inner fears about what is yet to come, is often the source of a lot of our life’s pain! The past is over and done! We can go forward, but we cannot change what occurred back then. And we cannot know exactly what will happen tomorrow or years from now, so why do we give so much of our today thinking we do? We cheat today of its fullness and its promise because we aren’t present! We lock ourselves up in emotional prisons of our own making, focusing only on things we feel about our past or things we dread about our future. We must learn the faith-filled habit of trusting God for all of our days, especially for our today. His grace is enough for today, and tomorrow, His grace will be new and provide for us then.  God’s grace is the key which opens our self-made prison cells. If we turn to Him for our keeping, letting our yesterdays have less weight upon our souls and giving every tomorrow a rest until we actually encounter it, we can turn our emotions towards all that brings us peace and calm within!  

I know, some of you are doubtful! You’ve carried those weights and burdens so long, they are now your badges of honor! You should take comfort in that which you’ve overcome, and surely you should feel what you must as things occur, but you shouldn’t let your emotions from one moment in your life hold you hostage for the rest of your life! And the fears you have about what may be in the future cannot and should not take one moment of your joy and peace from today! 

Today is the new day, a new week has begun, and a new season lies ahead! But today is the day! As each day begins, remember to center yourself in the purposeful awareness of how special, important, meaningful and promising that day is! God gives us each day as a gift, even if we’ve never seen it that way!  Let us endeavor to celebrate each new day as it is, for what it is, and to show our gratitude by making today a priority over all other days past and future!  Spend some time right now wherever you are focusing on today.  And anytime you choose to focus on your gratitude, you add infinite value to your life!  Gratitude always evokes emotions within us which are more positive, uplifting, calming and joyful! Today’s the day, get at it!  

Overcoming, Not Status Quo and Easy Breezy . .

20 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by in Attitude, Choices, Confidence, Courage, Discipline, Faith, God, Growing, Lessons, Life, Maturity, Opportunity, Positivity, Self-Esteem, Self-Respect, Strength, Success

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We aren’t here to live a life free of problems, but rather to motivate, to inspire and to elevate ourselves and others around us through them. We’re meant to rise to the occasion, to learn, to grow and to mature within to be able to take on more problems as well as to develop our abilities to handle greater challenges ahead. How do we do that if we and those we nurture are encouraged to hide from our problems, or worse, kept purposefully from them?? Problems seem to be now viewed as problematic, the very ways in which we challenge our status quo in life now have taken on such a stigma, we often want to escape instead!download

 

 

Facing our problems is the only way we know how strong and tough we can be as the “overcomers” we are meant to be! Hiding, denying, ignoring, backing away, settling for less, or creating safe spaces only cripples us within. We must accept challenges as part of the continuous growing cycle we are always in, we must experience lessons and tests as the ongoing way in which we mature and develop ourselves in life’s perpetual classroom. If we were to live life sans problems, challenges or tests, we would never learn about our own inner strength, our fortitude or most of our abilities. Status quo and easy-breezy doesn’t really teach us about ourselves, nor does it develop within us the appreciation, acknowledgement or awareness of our metal, our own persevering spirit or our maturity as time passes. Overcoming gives us that. When we overcome and mature through things, we develop more self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth. Of course, all of that is God’s gift to us, through His gift of love within us to begin with. We are meant to be overcomers because God made us to so. In this world, we face daily challenges and must learn to rise to those challenges to become more. There are infinite opportunities each new day for us to become something more and someone greater than who we are today!   Positive-quotes-about-problems-solution-quotes

 

Even if we ourselves created some of the taxing problems we are now enduring through accidental or purposeful choices, we must accept the responsibility we now face for extricating ourselves from the constraints those problems represent. Problems always offer us a chance to be overcomers! And that is always a more inspiring and uplifting response rather than denial or flight. God is with us as we endeavour and pursue the ways to move forward, through and beyond our current issues and problems. But we will not learn how to make our way if we choose to always make our way safer, easier, and problem-free. Accepting problems as the necessary learning experiences they represent is always the best way to keep our peace in this world. Doing otherwise makes our journey more miserable and our role as problem-solver less rewarding.  

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Strength in Weakness . .

16 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by in Choices, Contentment, Faith, God, Inspiration, Lessons, Peace, Positivity, Strength

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Sometimes our prayers for healing or removing the burden which vexes us isn’t answered the way we would like because often the Lord uses what we endure and the burdens we carry to teach us more about ourselves and surely about Him than we would know without having that burden or enduring our woes. It’s not His will to make us miserable, but rather it is, in my opinion, His desire to have us draw closer to Him, to watch us overcome because of His help, and to rise higher than an affliction or a vexing situation.

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I’ve witnessed this in my own mother’s life for years. She has had to endure crippling arthritis in her hands especially, but also in most of her joints and throughout her body. But when I say crippling, I mean that in our estimation. Even though her hands, wrists and other joints are visibly altered, she hasn’t let it cripple her, nor has she let the bumps, inflamed joints, or alignment imperfections change a thing about her life! She worked as a nurse until she was 79, which was last year. She has been active, even until the present time. She has never let the pain I’m sure she has endured, given the mangled state of her fingers especially, stop her, nor has she languished in it with self-pity. I’m not saying this to declare her a saint, but rather to share her example in confirming this message. She has learned to not only live with her impairments and her ailment, but she has learned to live with it all with a good attitude and a peaceful acceptance! God didn’t heal her perhaps because He was able to show others through her that often what we mere humans believe about our limits is just false! And by not healing her, He was able to convince my mom that her life was still valuable and worthy of her peace of mind, her joy of spirit, her faith in Him and her contentment through it all. There are many people with much worse arthritis, who are much more crippled physically by it and other diseases, and those who have other really bad disorders or ailments through which to contend. This is by no means meant to disregard or disparage their pain, their situations, or the very real difficulties and challenges presented by their afflictions. I relate this as a means of suggesting that a lot of what we deem insurmountable is truly a source of strength, courage and an overcomer’s tenacity if we turn our perspective. 

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Paul, formerly Saul, who wrote several books of the New Testament, was also given such a measure – for which he too accepted the absence of healing as a means of showing God’s great glory and strength! From 2 Corinthians 12: 7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  Take it from Paul, perhaps what you’ve been all-too-accepting as a weakness is really a source of great strength if you just choose to make it such!

A More Expansive Sense of Gratitude . .

02 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by in Blessings, Celebration, Choices, Contentment, Faith, God, Gratitude, Hope, Positivity

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Each day, I try to think of ways and things in which I am so grateful, blessings I acknowledge usually at the start or end of my day. But the other day, I was so overwhelmed within with the sensation of how rich my life has been overall! It was a definitive sense unlike any I  remember having had before! It seemed as though the Spirit within me was lifting me to a place of gratitude the likes of which I hadn’t known prior! It was a flood of sensation, with a highlight reel of my life passing through my mind simultaneously with the reflections I was having. In my heart and mind, I could take and comprise all that I had once enumerated singularly into something greater, bigger and more expansive. I could take my gratitude and place it upon my life in its entirety. I believe God was reminding me through the Spirit’s leading to stand strong in hope, faith and to remain contented, as He had provided so much for me throughout my life. My life in total reflects more than I often even remembered and my life’s value is more esteemable than those daily lists might reflect! Instead of having my daily list of things in which to be grateful to use as a means of silencing the fears, doubts, worries and consuming, disturbing emotions which stir within me during these unsettling days here on planet Earth, God was giving me (through the Spirit within me) a fuller, bigger and more expansive sense of gratitude to stand firm and strong anew each day! b2a67dd8106445a84c8262b5fa886f6d

 

I’ve always been loved, cared for, fed, clothed, housed, educated, and have had many opportunities to travel, explore and adventure in this life. I was born in the USA, which in itself, is a blessing for our commitment to human rights and freedom, as well as the richness of our nation. I’ve had so much joy and overcome so many things which surely could have been much worse, but for the grace of God. I have great parents (one surviving), siblings and grandparents (though all have passed). My family was always nurturing and full of love. I have lifelong friends who are like family. I have eyes, ears and a heart which sees the beauty of life around me each new day. I was given the gift of not shying from hard, physical work, which had taught me a lot about myself and my own abilities. And I have a desire to learn in spite of any fears, doubts, and worries which might stop me from trying. I persevere. And none of this is my doing! It has all been because of God’s grace, mercy and for His purposes. My role as a created being is to live according to His plans and purposes, a role I have learned to accept and in which I am content.  26e6c08e7627e39158a554ffd02bfa87

 

If you ask God to reveal His wonder in you, in others, in the world, He will! If you wonder about your own life, pray for Him to fill you with all the reminders and recollections of how He has cared for you and loved you through others and throughout your life! I’m so grateful for the richness of my life and all my blessings through His grace! Have I had it all? No. Do I have everything I would have wanted? No. But I have so much, have had so much, and am so full of gratitude, I don’t have a need to count or enumerate those things I might be missing! Let me always remain in this state, through the grace of the Lord, by the Spirit within me.  Signature02

Easter’s Gift . .

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by in Celebration, Choices, Christianity, Faith, Life, Wisdom

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Such a beautiful morning! This Sunday, many in the world are celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus, as He rose from the dead after suffering a most horrific death through crucifixion upon the cross on Calvary. We know that promises God made to His people for redemption and salvation throughout all time were fulfilled through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus! And so we shout Hallelujah, we sing songs of praise and worship, we join with family and friends in church services and special activities. For me, it is the best time of year, as I am so overwhelmingly filled with the sense of love, promise, hope and faith in God’s gift of salvation! I could never earn or merit such a gift of love, but it is mine just because I know and accept that Jesus died on that cross for me! Jesus defeated death and so shall we who believe! imagesUOGYBFHO

And so this wonderful morning, I am especially saddened to hear about another terrorist attack in Pakistan today, killing over 100 and injuring over 300, mostly women and children who had gathered at a park. This tragedy speaks to the undeniable evil which is consuming so many hearts and minds in this fallen world. It seems to be mutating and spreading, taking so many who perpetuate it into an eternity where nothing is promised but death and constant torment. After all, eternity and life are promised only through the ultimate gift of love, that which was given freely to the world through the sacrifice Jesus made for all of us. His death was the blood sacrifice required to eradicate the burden of sin which is an inevitable part of our human state of being ever since Adam and Eve fell victim to its lure in the Garden of Eden. For all time, for all of us, the overwhelming burden of our sin has been born by that horrible beating, suffering, and ultimately death in an unimaginably painful manner on the cross. God promised such a gift, as our loving Father, because He hopes we all will be with Him for eternity. He never wants to lose a soul, but it will be by sin’s hold on hearts and minds that many will miss eternity with their Father! I cannot imagine such a hell as that, being parted forever from God!  resurrection

I read today of an Easter Egg hunt in Connecticut which turned into a stampede, by which adults were so driven to have free stuff, that they actually overran children in their pursuit of stuff! Again, I was reminded that Easter does not mean the same thing for everyone as it does for believers. When we lose sight of the real meaning of the day, the real reason for this day – the celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus – we cannot carry into the day anything but human, selfish, ego-driven and sinful natures! This type of behavior is shocking, as is the terrorism laying waste to our world surely, but it isn’t really hard to understand! It’s the result of people having moved further from God and more comfortable with their sinful nature. It’s the natural consequence of sin taking a stronger hold over hearts and minds which are not desirous of being obedient to God or as full of God’s fruit of the spirit. Those nine fruits are so evident in Jesus during his time walking this earth that we should be inspired to fill our spirits with them as much as we’re able! Jesus provided us the ideal example of God in human form! The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, mentioned in Galatians 5, 22 -23. These fruits evoke the very nature of people endeavoring to be more Christ-like and more Godly. It’s obvious to notice the opposite effects at work in our population . . especially in the two shocking behavioral stories which I read about today and shared here with you! It’s a choice we all make, to know the Lord or to live believing that this is all there is! If this were truly all there is, God help us!   Signature02