ONCE AGAIN JUST WHAT I NEED!

Once a gain God has heard my prayer and he sent a message through my daily devotional "in-basket" that he knew I needed to read and hear at this time. It was in the form of a poem written by Sam Hamilton-Poore  I don't want to write out the whole thing do to copywrite issues but here are the first few lines.

MAY THE SPIRIT of life move you
from apathy to action,
from observing to doing,
from despair to hope. 

To read the rest you can go to the Upper Room Reflections site.It deals with the pain and joy of change. The Devotion is for October 12. 

This is my prayer for today.  I currently have 4 days left to call the state of MD home.  Sunday I will be leaving to start a journey to a new life.  At the moment I find myself fighting apathy brought on by the despair of all going on.  There is so much I need to do and all I want to do is go back to bed and pull the cover over my heads and make it all go away.  For a while know I have been in a state of observing.  Its too painful to allow myself to feel and be moved to action.  I pray that God's spirit will live with me and grant me the strength for the days ahead.  

I am looking forward to next week at this time.  I will be in my new home and I pray I will be a bit more happy, content and relaxed as well as excited to discover all that is in store for me in my future.  

READING ALOT!

Yes, I am, reading a lot these days.  I don't sleep so might as well read and then that puts me to sleep for an hour or two then I wake again and read again and repeat the cycle.  I'm also trying to read books I don't really want to move but do want to read.  Most of them hav e been on my shelf for way to long. I just finished a book that I remember years ago that someone , I think it was Stephanie, told me was really bizarre.  It's Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diane Schoemperlen.  It's a bout a visit by the Virgin Mary to a writer, and yes it was rather bizarre.  Not so much for the story, but more how it was written.  However, as is usual when I read lately I found a quote in it that I don't want to lose.  So here it is.

"....the hardest person in the world to forgive is yourself.  And..the hardest person in the world to have faith in is also yourself.  I am still trying to reconcile who I am now with who I was then.  I know my former self is still there, waving to me through time just like a phantom limb.  I am still trying to figure out how I am both am and am not the person I was then, the person I appear to be now, the person that I think I am; how I both am and am not the person that I will eventually become.  If who I am now is the "real" me, than who was the person I used to be; an impostor, a fugitive in disguise, the out -of-focus shadow of my future self?  If who I am now is the :real" me, than who is the person I will be twenty or thirty years from now?"

Yep?  Just who was I, who am I and who will I become?????

I found this on a friends FaceBook status this morning.  She had read it on one of her friends FB pages.  I needed to keep it somewhere safe to be able to read on a regular basis; at least for the next few months or so.  At least till life settles down for me which it has to do sometime......well it better sometime! So of course for me there is no better place to keep things but here.  So here it is:

"There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad, and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living."

Thank you Melissa for reposting this from your friend.  This morning it seemed to be a message meant for me!

A NEW QUOTE FOUND

I think we all know how much I love finding quotes that I want to remember. The best place I know to put them is here on my BLOG.  I tag them as a quote so when I want to review the quotes that have meant something to me over the months and years of writing I can find them again.  This morning I read a quote that definitely is one I need to remember and review often.

"Let go of what you THINK life should be so you can experience the life you have."

~~Rhonda Britten.

This needs to be my mantra chanted every morning when I wake up!   I spend way to much time dwelling on what I thought my life was or what it should be that I am afraid I am missing out on what it is and seeing the good in it.  I may not be living the life I envisioned for myself, but I have a life I am living.  I need to live it and I need to trust that it is in all its imperfection a good life. 

FROM...THE LETTER

As I've been working to clear out the house of 28 years of accumulated stuff I've been reading a lot of books to try and relax in the evening.  I really enjoy reading and try to make time each morning and evening to do a bit.  It was interesting that in a devotional I read earlier in the week the thought was presented that in every story we read God can be found.  I think the authors premise was that where ever there is protection, love, help, serving, and such it is God that is behind those acts.  The author of the  devotion challenged his readers to look for God's presence in everything we read and everything we experience during a days time.  Not sure if I follow his thinking about God being found in every book I've read, but it an interesting thought.

The book I am reading at the moment is The Letter by Richard Paul Evans.  It is the last book in The Christmas Box collection. I've already read The Christmas Box and The Timepiece. All are easy and quick reads and for light reading they are enjoyable. There were several statements made by one of the characters in the chapter of the book as he tried to help a friend deal with the pain of separation that stuck me this morning.  He said "We all got things under our skin.  Everybody does.  Like a glass sliver. Can't see nothin' there, but it works its way in deeper until it gets to festerin' and hurts so that we are ready just to cut the whole thing out."  Yep I guess I would have to agree with Lawrence.  I think at some time of our lives each and everyone of us has a glass sliver that has to be cut out or the festerin' gets real back and infection sets in.  If not taken car of the infection can kill us.  A shot while later Lawrence responds to David who has just said his wife  fell out of love with him, " David, you talk 'bout love like it a hole.  Somethin' you can fall in and out of."  David responds, "Isn't it?" Lawrence answers,  "That ain't love at all, just squirrel fever.  Just a storm of emotion....Real love ain't that way.  It's more like a tree or plant or somethin'....Grows if you mind it.  But it takes work and sacrifice.  No one stand back of a neglected tree and watch it die and say, 'Guess that tree just ain't suppose to live.'  Only a fool would talk like that.  But people   do it all the time with their love."

Maybe not God found here, but maybe a message I need to hear. 

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY!

Each days Upper Room devotional reading has a Thought For The Day at the end of it.  I think today's thought is very pointed to me.  It is:

Make a list of the signs of hope around you.

Actually this is probably one of the most important things was all could do each day.  Today I will make this list because even before I read it I was for the first time in a long time aware of the beauty of the day today and the hope I have for a future.  Funny that I should have been feeling that way on the day that some are saying will be the beginning of the end of the world.  

So here is my list of signs of hope as of this morning:

1. The birds are singing a beautiful song outside my family room window.
2. There is a wonderfully cool and fresh breeze coming in my family room window.
3. After a dreary gray week of rain the sky is a beautiful blue.
4. My lawn has just be cut an even with the profusion of clover and weeds is a gorgeous fresh green.
5. I actually have a day off from work that has no plans for it at all.
6. My mom is home and well.
7. In my sorting and cleaning I found a friendship ring given by my grandfather to my grandmother and am now wearing it. It's made of copper I think and though there are those that say that copper does not help joint pain this ring is helping the joints on the hand I am wearing it.
8. I actually am looking forward to a day devoted to housework.
9. Next weekend is the wedding of my nephew and I look forward to celebrating love.
10. I have a good Shepherd who is walking with me through this life and all it brings my way and he will see me through the "valley of the shadow".  I am currently re-reading A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 and this was the focus of  today's chapter.

So I will go on into today with these thoughts and I will look for other signs of hope in my day. Why not look for them in yours as well.  

ONE DOORWAY FROM HEAVEN

I just finished a book by this title written by Dean Koontz.  In the book a character asks the question "What will you find behind the door that is one door away from Heaven?"   Every person that was asked this question had an answer, but only one got it right the first time asked.  I'm not sure there is one right answer to this question.  It may be that different people would find different things.  I'm not sure what my answer would be, but I love the answer given by Leilani: "If your heart is closed, then you will find behind that door nothing to light your way. But if your heart is open, you will find behind that door people, who like you, are searching, and you will find the right door together with them.  None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another's salvation, and only by the hope we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into the light."

We need people to walk this journey called life with us.  To walk the journey alone is to live in darkness.  We need to live our life in a manner that gives others hope.  Without hope life becomes, I think, meaningless and very dark indeed.  

ACCEPTANCE

The word for yesterday and today seems to be "acceptance".  It is showing up everywhere in my reading of devotions, magazines and books.  Two quotes that pertain to is are from Paul Tournier.

• Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices.
• At the heart of personality is the need to feel a sense of being lovable without having to qualify for that acceptance.

These two quotes approach acceptance from two different sources. 

The first is a self acceptance of  what life throws at you. It comes from with-in.  I'm glad to have found this because I think that I have struggled with acceptance of circumstances that I don't want or like as being a form of resignation. I was thinking of that a lot yesterday when my devotional reading had the quote "It is as it is".  The devotion was talking about dealing with unexpected and nasty things life throws at us.  When negative thoughts about the unwanted life event come the writer suggested repeating "it is what it is"  and then with God's help moving on, but he also stressed that acceptance and resignation are not one and the same.  He went on to say yesterday is history and it can not be rewritten.  By praying "it is what it is" the author suggests our heart can be opened to tomorrow's hope.  So from Paul Tournier and the devotion I learn acceptance does not equal resignation, but that acceptance can lead to hope.

The second Tournier quote deals with an acceptance that comes to us from outside sources.  The feeling of being lovable without having to do something to qualify for that love.  The I'm OK.  It is true we need to accept, love, and be OK with ourselves; but equally it is important to be accepted by another outside of our self.  That acceptance is I think critical to who we are and who we become. I think Paul Tournier would agree.

From my morning devotional once again....

"The deepest comfort in our mourning is to know that God not only has compassion but actually feels our suffering with us." 

~~Flora Slosson Weullner from her book Forgiveness, the Passionate Journey

I have thought and wondered about this concept often in the last year.  The idea that God might actually feel my suffering with me.  I know and fully accept that he knows my suffering, but the understanding and acceptance that he "feels" my suffering along with me is harder for me.

As I understand it one of the purposes of  God sending his Son, a apart of himself, to earth was so that we would have a means by which we could learn and know the nature of God.  As humans we struggle to know God, if for no other  reason than he is God and we are human.  Jesus came and dwelt among us and he was BOTH God and human. God allowed himself to take on the traits of and experience being human.  I'm not so sure that is any easier for me to understand than the nature of God, but I accept it on faith and I look to Jesus to learn about God.

Jesus, from what I read in my Bible experienced every emotion that I have felt.  He cried; he experienced others wanting him to become something he wasn't; he felt pain; he had the need to pull apart for times alone; he felt impatience; he felt sadness; he felt rejection.  The list can go on, but this morning while meditating on this devotion this last item struck me.  Jesus felt rejection! 

Yes, God knows what I am feeling.  He can and does feel my suffering.  Does this make my suffering any less?  No not really, but I think it does make it a little easier to bear and is does make it a little less scary.  Most importantly it does make me feel a little less alone.

The introductory thought from this mornings devotion, also from the same book and author was...

"Pain and sorrow are never wasted when given into God's hands, and their transformation is far beyond our imaginings."

I look forward to that transformation. I get glimpses of it now and then but we humans have, or at least this human has, a hard time putting things into God's hands and leaving them there.  It seems that not only do I need to continue to work on seeking and understanding of God's nature, but I also need to work on fully and totally trusting him with my life and my future.  I try to do both daily.

WHO AM I?

We all wear masks in our lives.  I think that is just part of being human.  Especially being human in the 20th and 21st centuries.  Everywhere we turn the media, bosses, friends and yes even family are putting expectations on us that force us to put in a mask and be even for a moment or a season what we are not.  Sometimes we take these masks off after the season is past.  Other times they stay in place and we start to believe that this is who we really are.  Rarely I think are we totally comfortable under the mask, but taking it off becomes to risky.

Today is my first day back in MD after a wonderful 2 1/2 week trip.  During that time I experienced for the first time in many many years, 5 days of being in a situation where no one knew me.  I was a total stranger to all.  I tried to be who I was minus any masks.  Alas I discovered even I didn't know who I really was any longer.  Thoughts would come to mind as I watched the sunset or listened to music that I tried to understand if they were mine or that of a hidden person or event from my subconscious telling me "this is how you are supposed to think to be accepted and to be a "good person".  I think it will take considerably longer than 5 days to uncover who I am under the various masks I wear. 

In thinking about all this I uncovered a quote from e.e. cummings that says a lot:

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."  

The book I found this quote in says he was 63 when he wrote it.  So if he was discovering this at that age I guess it is not too late for me to discover it.  Today I begin and exploration using various means into rediscovery of ME.  It may sound selfish, but how can I know where to head in the rest of my life if I don't know who I am.  Probably should have done this years ago, however I was too busy putting on the masks of life to figure it all out.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if I found out I wore no masks at all but really was true to myself and how God made me, but you know I doubt that will be the case. 

One encouraging thought is that wearing masks and trying to please people did not work.  It did not place me in the life position where I wanted to be at this point. 

LIFE'S BIGGEST TRAGEDY

I found this quote in today''s devotional reading.  I think it bears some thought:

"The tragedy in life is not in the fact of death but in what dies inside us while we live."

~~Norman Cousins from Human Options

What have I allowed to die within me and what am I still allowing to die?  Can things be resurrected one we have allowed them to die?  

I am a strong believer that with God's guidance and help I can change.  I need to believe this, and can do so because it has happened in my life in the past.   Believing this, I do believe things that we have allowed to die with in us can be resurrected, but we can only work to resurrect things within ourselves.  We have no power to resurrect things that have died within others.  They must make those choices and changes for themselves.

CHRISTMAS & LOVE

This morning a quote popped up on Facebook that stuck me as being an important thing to remember. So I share it here with you:

  

"A baby is born with a need to be loved . . . and never outgrows it. ~Frank A. Clark

 Love is a universal need.  It does not matter what your race, religion, gender, age or economic status.  We all want to be loved.  Christmas is about love.  "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and  only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life."  John 3:16  The birth of a baby in Bethlehem, the ultimate love gift from God, is celebrated at Christmas.

During this Christmas season my prayer is that love is found by all and that each of us reaches out and shares our love with another.  Love should be the easiest Christmas present to give, but unfortunately sometimes it is the hardest. 

WHERE DO YOU FALL?

Balance in life, where do you fall along the continuum of activity?  At one end there is little activity or involvement in life.  At the other there is so much activity there is no time to breathe.  Being on either extreme is not good for us.  We need balance.  Chances are if you are like me you move somewhere along the continuum on a daily basis.  Hopefully unlike me you have learned how to avoid the two extremes.  I am trying to work on avoiding the extremes. 
For the most part I think I stay away from the inactive end of the spectrum  at this point of my life. This is not necessarily good thing however because it does not mean that I am spending more time in the middle.  In actuality most my friends would tell you I spend way to much time out of the fringe of over commitment. I can give all sorts of justifications for this, but in truth none of them are anything but excuses. 
My morning devotions included a quote from Patsy Clairmont, one of my favorite Women of Faith.

"Doing too much is as dangerous as doing nothing at all.  Both modes present us from savoring our moments.  One causes me to rush right past the best of life without recognizing or basking in it, and the other finds me sitting quietly as life rushes past me."

So where do you fall activity of life continuum?  To the right?  To the left?  Or maybe you are blessed and have already learned the joys and benefits of a life spent roaming around in the middle.  I pray as I move toward 2011 I will do a better job of learning to live and experience life in the middle. 

ANOTHER QUOTE TO THINK ON

It's been a while that I have run across a quote that I  have wanted to record here  so I can refer back to it over time and also to share with those who happen to stop by.  I found one today in my reading.  It is by Corrie ten Boom.  Corrie was an amazing person from an amazing family.  If you would like to learn more about her you can click on her name above.

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. 

~~Corrie ten Boom

Good advice to never forget.

JUST SOME THINGS TO MULL OVER.....AND THINK ON

It certainly seems lately like lots of things to think about are coming up in my devotional readings.  I suspect this is a good thing.  Part of what I do every morning is read a chapter from Lloyd Ogilvie's book Let God Love You.  It is a study of Phillipians.  I think I may actually have mentioned this book in an earlier post.

This mornings reading had several passages that I would like both to offer up for thought to anyone who might actually read them. (Also to record here so I can find them again to think on them myself if I should happen to forget them.) 

• "We can lose any faculty we refuse to use.  The sin against the Holy Spirit is the sin of so often and so consistently refusing God's will that in the end it can not be recognized when it comes even fully displayed."
• "Think of the ways we frustrate God's plan for us.  Consider what the arrogance of trying to live on our own resources does to us and to the people around us. What about our feverish efforts to stuff our lives with so much activity that there is no time left to ask God what he wants us to do?"
• "Obedience to our Lord is the continuous new beginnings of unpredictable new possibilities."

So what do you think?

BARBARA JOHNSON WISDOM

There were several years that I attended the Women of Faith conference in Philadelphia.  It was a wonderful weekend of praise, worship and inspiration.  It was also was a wonderful weekend with girl friends.  I was never fortunate enough to hear Babara Johnson speak.  She was one of the original group of women who started these conference.  By the time I heard of the gatherings she had already had to drop out of active participation due to health issues.  I have however read several of her books. She is a very humorous writer.  Her life has not been an easy one.  There were many disappointments and tragedies in it, but she never gave up her humor or her her faith in a God who loved her beyond measure.  Probably more important than the humor in her writing is her inspiration.

My devotional reading this morning contained a quote from her.  One that I am placing here so I can come back and find it  when I need a reminder.

If you can forgive the person you were,

accept the person you are, and

believe in the person you will become,

you are headed for joy.  So celebrate your life.

I pray with God's love, help and guidance I am headed for joy!

LONG 2 WEEKS

Its been a long two weeks since I've been here. There has been some progress on the collarbone front, but being the impatient person I am not as much as I would like.  I though there was more but pain took over after too many days of stubbornly thinking I could do more things than I probably should have and I am back in my lazy boy chair keeping things supported and still.  Yes boredom has set in and I am ready to get back to my normal busy hectic life.  Alas that will not happen yet.  So I wait.

I awoke this morning not in a happy contented mood.  It is Friday morning.  I should be at Panara's with my beloved "Bagel Group" of friends gabbing about events of the past week and of course eating bagels and drinking too much coffee. Unfortunately due to weather event of yesterday, way too much rain, my much needed shower and clothes change was put off till later this morning.  I am not fit for public appearances at the moment.  Totally my vanity I realize, but after wearing and sleeping in the same cloths for 5 days...well you get the picture.  Then there was the little matter of waking up and realizing that 4 of my girlfriends would be gathering together for a fun filled weekend in Myrtle Beach and I wouldn't be with them....yes I was having a pity party this morning.  Not a good way to start a day I know.  It was my decision not to go because the length of the drive and risk on yet again over doing, but that doesn't make it a whole lot easier to know that there will be lots of fun and laughter that I will be missing out on.  It was a trip that had been anticipated for months.

Now there was good going on this morning as well.  It was raining so hard last night that I chose not to take the garbage out for pick up. I couldn't put a raincoat on by myself and didn't really feel like sleeping in wet clothes that I couldn't change. It stopped raining some time during the night and I did wake up early enough that I was able to get the garbage out this morning.  So that was a good thing.

Then there were my devotional readings for the morning.  Yes, God can be good with his messages for us and sometimes he even can hit us over the head with the proverbial 2 by 4.  The thought for today in one of my readings is:

Attitude is contagious. Is yours worth catching?

Oops....time for an attitude readjustment.  Then I remembered a thought from the DVD I had been previewing yesterday in preparation for a study I will begin leading Monday morning:

Things could be worse!

So today I will get my thoughts back to an attitude of gratitude and if nothing else be grateful for my lazy boy chair, that I seem to be able to crochet without pain, and a boat lead of ladder yarn that I can crochet into beautiful necklaces. Oh and thanks to a wonderful friend I will get a shower, hair washed and clothes changes so this afternoon I can once again go out in pubic.  Life is good and God is even better!

QUILTING QUOTE

"Quilts have an amazing power to soothe the soul and help us through the rough spots in our lives.  Make time to quilt every day and you'll be richly rewarded.  Always remember that quilting is not just a hobby, it's a lifestyle!" 

~~Liz Schwartz editor of Quilter magazine.

So the question becomes "what does one do when she can't do what brought peace and relaxation during the rough spots in her life???"  Crafting has been my release for stress and sadness this year and now that also is denied me.  At least I can still read magazines and have a large stack to go through.  I will try to be content with dreaming about projects I may get to do in the future.  At least this incapacity is only of a temporary nature.

My mantra right now..........this too shall pass.............................but I also share in the biblical lament.....How long Lord?

SIX WORD MEMOIRS

I finally got around to reading my July/August issue of my AARP Mgazine.  In it there wasa one page article on Six Word Memoirs.  These short statements on self and life were quite interesting.  The ones in the magazine were themed around Cheating Death. That topic didn't particularly appeal to me, but just for fun I thought I would  come up with my own Six Word Memoir.

All alone. Making peace. New life!

So what would your Six Word Memoir be?  For more information on the Six Word Memoir project do a google search or click on the words Six Word Memoir.

FROM A FRIEND...

This statement and question was posed on Facebook this morning by a friend I met on our Alaskan cruise.  Not sure what is going on in her life but it is an interesting question to ponder and hopefully find the answer to....

"They say follow your heart, but what happens when your head is right and your heart is wrong?"