September 2nd, 2010
No one would ever have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm.
(Charles Kettering, 1876 – 1958)
Hurricane Earl and its potential for damage is all over the news. The people in The Outer Banks of North Carolina are preparing for Earl to hit landfall at midnight. People on the East Coast as far as Cape Cod are watching to see what path the storm will follow.
The hurricane makes me think of all the storms in our lives that we have weathered and how many more storms we may still have ahead of us. There are physical storms like hurricanes, relationship storms, money storms, job storms. There are the storms caused by illness and injury and aging. There are the storms we face when our bodies won’t work right or our minds overwhelm us.
In most cases there is no way to stop the storm from coming. All we can do is ride it out and pray for the Lord to help us. Remember the story of Jesus’ disciples in a boat on the Sea of Galilee? After several hours a storm came up. Because they were in a small boat in the midst of a great storm the disciples were terrified. It was only after Jesus walked across the water and climbed into the boat with them that the storm ceased.
This story reminds me that, with the Lord’s help, we can weather every storm. I wish it meant that there will be no more storms. It doesn’t. I wish it meant that we wouldn’t be afraid. It doesn’t. It means simply that if God is in the boat with us we can weather any storm.
Divine help in the storms of our lives is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, sacred, sacred gifts, storms
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 29th, 2010
Last Thursday, August 26, was the hundreth anniversary of Mother Teresa’s birth. When I read that fact in the newspaper, I remembered one of my favorite quotes.
Mother Teresa once talked about being like “a little pencil” in God’s hand. She said, “That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used.”
I often think about being a little pencil in God’s hand as I write this blog. Before I decide what I am going to write about, I stop and ask the Lord to guide me. I ask Him to use me to write words that will help someone. I pray that He will use me as a little pencil.
I also pray that I can continue to keep writing. Paul and Timothy wrote a letter to God’s people in Philippi. They said,
“God began doing a good work in you, and I am sure he will continue it until it is finished.”
(Philippians 1:6)
I want to continue this good work for as long as God wants to use me.
The chance to be “a little pencil in God’s hand” is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, sacred, sacred gifts, writing
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 23rd, 2010
Dark clouds race across the sky bringing thunder and lightning and torrential rain. The earth shakes with the force of the storm.
Then, almost in the blink of an eye, it is over. The sun comes out, lighting up the sky so that it seems to glow. This is the time when you may see a rainbow.
To me rainbows are magic. In reality a rainbow is a bending of light when it hits the moisture in the atmosphere. It is a glorious arc of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet bands.
When I see a rainbow, I think of Noah. The rainbow is the symbol of God’s covenant with Noah. It is a sign of God’s promise that He will always be there for us.
When we go through the storms of life, we may feel that we are drowning. We can rely on ourselves alone and be filled with fear or we can rely on the Lord and be filled with a sense of peace, knowing that we will see a rainbow once the storm passes.
The promise of a rainbow is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, rainbows, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 18th, 2010
“Just when he thought the world had ended, the caterpillar became a butterfly.”
When I saw those words on a poster my reaction was simply, “Wow! I never thought of it that way.” The transformation from caterpillar to butterfly is truly miraculous. The caterpillar is slow-moving and stolid. The butterfly is beauty in flight. I have heard a butterfly described as a flower with wings.
Before it becomes a butterfly, a caterpillar goes through a growth stage that is called a chrysalis. In the chrysalis the fuzzy caterpillar changes into a butterfly that has intricate designs on its wings and is brightly-colored.
There are lessons for us in the transformation of the caterpillar into the butterfly. We plod along thinking we know where we are going, but often we are surprised. We may end up as something we never even knew we could become, just like the caterpillar never knew it would become a butterfly.
When it looks like our world is ending and we are in despair, we may be about to have wonderful things happen to us. Like the caterpillar in the chrysalis we have no way of knowing what is coming, but God knows. He knows what wonderful things He has planned for us.
Trusting God when it looks like our world is crashing around us is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: butterfly, God, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 16th, 2010
We see what we look for. If you look for the good in a person, you see it. If you look for the good in a situation, you see it. If you look for the bad in people or situations, you see it.This probably sounds like too simple an explanation of life, but I believe it’s true.
If you are looking for something, you are mentally discarding all the information that doesn’t fit the picture you see in your mind. Looking for the good means you will be much more apt to see the good. If you look for what is right in your life and savor the small joys, the sadness and anger you feel because of your problems will lessen.
Looking for the good won’t make the problems magically disappear. Nothing can do that. When you solve a problem, one or two more will appear. They always do. We can’t create a life that has no problems, but we can control how much the bad affects our lives. If we focus on looking for the good, we can keep the bad from coloring the whole picture of our lives.
The ability to look for the good in each person and situation is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: sacred gifts, seeing
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 15th, 2010
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I love this poem by Robert Frost. Even though it was written in 1920 the words are timeless. We are faced with choices every day. Some are small and of almost no consequence. Others are huge and we know that the choice we make will change our lives forever. Whatever we choose will make “all the difference” in what our future will be.
What makes the issue of choice even harder is that sometimes we don’t even get to make the choice. Somebody else makes it for us. As soon our second daughter was born my husband left for a job interview. He literally brought me home from the hospital and went to the airport.
He decided to take the new job in a new profession and move us 2,000 miles away. The day after Christmas the Christmas tree went to the curb and that night, when the movers finished, we started our drive across country. This was such a difficult time. I was filled with joy to have a beautiful family and drowning in sorrow to have to leave home.
Maybe this experience is the reason why Frost’s poem has always spoken to me. He got to make the choice and whatever the outcome he could feel good about that. Sometimes, though, we don’t make a choice. It is made for us. Either way, the choice is a leap of faith. You won’t know until some time in the future if the choice was right. Even then you are really only guessing because you can’t know how the other choice would have turned out. You can’t see what “all the difference” was.
Did my husband make the right choice? We’ll never know, but I do know that, after the deep unhappiness caused by the move, wonderful things happened to us. Our lives blossomed in ways they may not have if he had made a different choice. I was given the gift of photography. We have amazing friends that we would never have if the choice had been different. We went on trips we never would have taken. We met people we never would have met. Do I wish I hadn’t had to live through the pain? Yes. Would I change our life now for what might have been? Never.
Having choices in our lives is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: choice, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 13th, 2010
I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.
Saint Teresa
Do you remember when some people began removing the word “obey” from their marriage vows? “To love, honor and obey” was replaced by “to love and honor.” Sometimes the promise to love, honor and obey was replaced entirely by vows written by the bride and groom. The promise of obedience no longer was seen as a necessity in the marriage relationship.
In the relationship between man and God, though, the promise of obedience is as necessary today as it has always been. Every day I read the Proverbs 31 Ministries Daily Devotions. Today Lysa TerKeurst wrote about being called to serve God through that ministry. She told how she realized that she didn’t have to worry about the success of the ministry. All she had to do was be obedient to what she believed God wanted her to do. She wrote,“My job all along was to simply be obedient to God. My job was obedience, God’s job was results. That’s true no matter what we’re pursuing – be it a job, a spouse, a calling or a dream.”
How comforting it is to remove the burden of being a success from our shoulders and instead to be concerned only with answering God’s call. We are each called to fill a unique place in God’s plan. We were created to do that. I’m sure you have heard the saying, “Stop beating yourself up.” Stop finding fault with yourself. Stop feeling that you aren’t good enough. I am a champion at feeling that I have failed. From now on I am going to try to remember that we are a success as long as we try hard to do the work that God has given us and ask Him to create the best results.
Obeying God’s call and trusting Him to carry us through is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, obedience, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 10th, 2010
We are all imperfect. Thank God! Perfection would be a terrible burden. At times we have each carried that burden. We have tried to be the perfect wife, perfect daughter, perfect mother, perfect friend, perfect student, perfect athlete, perfect employee, perfect everything for everybody. Imagine how utterly exhausting it would be to try to be all those things. Even writing the list is tiring.
Yet so many times we think that other people are expecting, even demanding, that we be perfect. We certainly expect it of ourselves. I know that I have always said, “Good enough isn’t.” I still believe that “good enough” isn’t good. I have come to belive, though, that “try to do your best” is good. In fact, it is great, as long as you realize that “best” and “perfect” are not the same thing. Our best will always be imperfect. Hallelujah!
Realizing that perfection, except in extremely rare instances, is impossible is liberating. We don’t have to try to live up to an impossible ideal of the perfect me. Instead we can be the real me. Life is hard enough without wearing the yoke of the impossible.
Perfection as life’s goal is impossible. Think of the obstacles we face. All the people we interact with are imperfect. Everyone has problems every day. Some problems are huge, even life-threatening. Most problems are annoying, frustrating and often costly. Emotions surge through us constantly. We live with disappointments. We live with anger. Some days life can best be described as gears grinding against each other rather than passing smoothly.
There is no way we can be perfect living in an imperfect mind and body in an imperfect world. So, enough. Let’s just enjoy being ourselves and make happiness our goal.
Finding happiness in imperfection is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: happiness, perfection, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 9th, 2010
Who is rich? He who rejoices in his portion.
The Talmud
Our society in the recent past became a consumer culture. People were concerned with “keeping up with the Joneses.” They were concerned with having more and getting more. Advertisers played into and increased this desire to own, to have something better. They created a desire to have the best. They certainly made us want things we hadn’t even known existed.
While we are still bombarded constantly with “buy it now” messages, the consumer culture has cooled. This is because we are in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Fortunately, every cloud does have a silver lining.
The silver lining of economic loss is emotional and spiritual gain. We have gained the chance to savor a simpler lifestyle. It is the lifestyle of our grandparents and great-grandparents.
The famous photographer, Edward Steichen, described the “sweet simple things in life” that they knew.
“The boy and girl going hand in hand through a meadow; the mother washing her baby.”
There are so many beautiful things for us to enjoy every day. I think of:
playing ball with our dog
sharing a laugh with my husband
giving our babies, big and little, smoochy kisses
eating dark, decadent, delicious chocolate
visiting with a friend
spending time with my daughters
photographing flowers
As Robert Louis Stevenson said,
, “The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.”
The sweetness of the simple things in our lives is in sharp contrast to the hurried, worried acquiring that can leave only the “desolation of an empty abundance.” (Michael Harrington)
Rejoicing in the simplicity of our lives is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, sacred, sacred gifts, simplicity
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 4th, 2010
Yesterday I received this beautiful prayer in an e-mail from beliefnet.com. Because it spoke directly to my heart I wanted to share it with you.
A Prayer for Patience
God, thank you for this day.
This beautiful, amazing day.
Here again, with You, for You, today.
God, give me patience to endure the hardships of this day.
Help me to see that they, too are great blessings in disguise.
Let me see the pain and difficulty as ways of coming to know You,
Dear Lord God.
God who loves me so, who looks for me,
And cares for me.
All this beautiful day.
I will be with You, God, always – as You are always with me in all ways.
Amen
This prayer is beautifully written. It is right about so many things.
First, today is an amazing day. Every day is amazing because life is an amazing gift.
Second, we always need the gift of patience, me perhaps more than others.
Third, we sometimes need help to see our troubles as blessings in disguise. I am still trying to see how my accident and the recuperation after could be a blessing. I guess I will get to see that only after time has passed.
Finally, God is always with us and that is our comfort on the beautiful days and the painful days.
Being able to talk to God in prayer is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, prayer, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
August 2nd, 2010
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”
Hebrews 10:35-36
Do you ever feel like it is too hard to keep trying? Do you think, “Why bother because I’m not going to succeed?” Are you bone-tired from doing what you believe you are supposed to do and feeling like you are getting nowhere?
I have. I think we all have. The idea of quitting is alluring. It would be easier to be a good wife and mother rather than a wonderful one. It would be easier to make peace with fat rather than continuing to fight it. It would be easier to stop creating and trying to build something new rather than staying where you are – comfortable, satisfied, but not elated.
I had someone tell me once that the voice you hear telling you to stop trying is the voice of the devil. Maybe it is. I do know that the only way to keep trying is with the Lord’s help. I read this quote from an anonymous source: “Your persistence is your measure of faith in yourself.” I think that’s true, but I think it is far more true that your persistence is your measure of faith in the Lord. With His help you can take another step, then another, then another.
Thomas Edison said, “The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” That may be a secret to success. To focus on just once more. To still the voice that says, “You’ve failed,” and the voice that says, “You’ll never succeed.” To listen to the voice that says, “With My help you will succeed.”
Having the courage to persevere is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, perseverance, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
July 29th, 2010
“And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will complete it.”
(Philippians 1:6)
It is so easy to feel discouraged. When you work as hard as you can and don’t get the results you want, it is so easy to feel that you will never succeed. My husband, who is a very wise man, will listen to me lament that I have failed and will say, “You haven’t failed. You just haven’t succeeded yet.” Those are reassuring words. Of course, when he says them, I think, “He’s just saying that because he loves me.” Then, I realize that he’s right. As long as a person is trying they haven’t failed. They only fail if they give up before they reach their goal.
My goal is to build an audience for this blog. The above quote from Philippians helps me to remember that sharing God’s word is a good work and that, with God’s help, I can be successful. I also think of these words from Genesis:
God is with you in all that you do.
(Genesis 21:22)
Whether it is sharing His word in a blog or doing any other good work I believe that God is with us, helping us even when we can’t see His hands. Just like He carries us even at the times that we can’t see His footprints in the sand.
The strength to keep trying when we haven’t seen success yet is a sacred gift. I hope that you will have countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
July 27th, 2010
What did you want to be when you grew up? Fireman, policeman, Indian chief? Ballerina, astronaut, painter? There were so many choices, limited only by our imaginations. Of course, these desires weren’t cast in stone. They usually changed year to year, even week to week or day to day. There probably was one idea that had the most appeal, though, something that we really, really, really wanted to be. I wonder how many of us ever became that person. My guess is not many.
I remember in sixth grade being filled with the exciting thought of growing up to be an archaeologist. Of course, I didn’t and, truth be told, I wouldn’t have liked the heat and dust of the real world of an archaeological dig. That is the joy of childhood. We see the wonder and not the work.
Fortunately, our dreams don’t end in childhood. They don’t end when we grow up and face “the real world.” There is a commercial on television. In it several older people tell what they want to be when they grow up. One says, “I want to be a teacher.” Another says, “I want to fall in love again.” Inside of us there is always the potential to become. We are older and wiser. We understand the realities of making a living and making a life. We see both the work and the wonder, but we are still able to imagine becoming something more.
The able to grow, to change, to become is a sacred gift. May you have many sacred gifts.
Tags: sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
July 25th, 2010
I realized this morning that I have been so focused on trying to heal that, except for praying for other people, all of my prayer focus has been on asking the Lord to restore my health. My physical therapist twice said to me that maybe something good would come of my ordeal. When he said that, I didn’t see how any good could come of this experience that I call my “lick of Hell.” Today I decided to start praying that some good will come from my pain and that the Lord will reveal it to me.
That prayer made me think about the ways that God reveals himself to us. M. Scott Peck, M.D., author of the best-selling book The Road Less Traveled, said, “I’ve had all kinds of experiences with God in terms of revelation through a still, small voice or dreams or coincidences.” I think of that still, small voice as words that the Lord speaks directly into our hearts. I am praying that God will speak into my heart and show me how this difficult experience can be a gift for me to use to help others.
We each see and hear God’s voice in our own way. How has God revealed himself to you? What gifts do you have that He has revealed to you?
The revelation of God to His people is a sacred gift. May you be blessed with countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
July 24th, 2010
O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me.
(Psalm 30:2)
As I work through twelve exercise sessions a day the thought of healing is always on my mind. I work toward healing and I pray for it. Given my nature, I am impatient for it. The thought of waiting months, maybe longer, is discouraging. Unfortunately, work and prayer are all I can do to try to achieve full healing. I don’t know that I ever will, but I am going to try as hard as I can.
As I try to heal I fight another demon, the demon of negative thoughts. These thoughts are of the “Woe is me!” and “What if I never am made right?” variety. Sometimes it is very difficult to not have “diseased thoughts.” Zacharty Bercovitz, (1895 -1984), was an American doctor who wrote, “Some patients I see are actually draining into their bodies the diseased thoughts of their minds.”
I think the battle for healing is fought in the mind as much as in the body and the soul. That’s why I pray not only that all people who are injured or sick will be healed, but that they will each have a sense of peace.
Peacefulness in healing is a sacred gift. May you be blessed with countless sacred gifts.
Tags: child, God, healing, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
July 21st, 2010
“Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.”
Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903)
As we rush through our busy lives it is so easy to be focused on doing. In fact, we have to be focused. Otherwise we wouldn’t accomplish all the things that we need to accomplish. We are a society that stresses accomplishment. Many of us use to-do lists, either written or mental, to keep ourselves on track. The to-do list is so commonplace that once I heard a four-year-old boy say, “My to-do list is four-pages long.” That was a cute statement, but also a sad one. Too often “doing” takes all our time and energy and there is no place in our day for simply “being.”
If we don’t stop and simply “be,” we can’t see the “beautiful things in humble places.” Instead we see “nothing.” Since my accident I have had the rare opportunity to just “be,” because my ability to “do” is very limited. While simply being, I have enjoyed these beautiful things:
two yellow butterflies that frequently fly by my window
a dragonfly on the bush outside our front door
a hummingbird
the rich color of a raspberry pie
the warm envelope of water in the shower
the tall pride of giant sunflowers in a blue vase
the softness of chocolate melting on my tongue
Each of these things had a beauty that I would have briefly noticed, but not savored, if I had been busy doing. If you have time today to simply “be,” I hope you see many beautiful things. Being able to see beyond “nothing” is one of life’s sacred gifts.
Tags: butterfly, chocolate, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
July 18th, 2010
How many doors have you opened in your life? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands?
For some reason I have been thinking about doors. Opening doors. Choosing the right doors. Closing doors. Having doors closed on me. Wishing a door to something I want would magically open in front of me.
When I first started thinking about doors, I thought of physical doors. Those doors can keep us safe or shut us out. They can lead us to work, play, prayer. They can be heavy or so light a child can open them.
Then, I realized that the most important doors are psychological, not physical. They are the doors to our hopes and dreams. When they close, we can feel alone, sad, angry, confused, frustrated. We know what we want, what we need. Then, despite our best efforts, the door is slammed in our face.
That’s when I think of this saying,
“When God closes a door, He opens a window.”
It is hard, though, to accept the closing of a door in our lives. We can spend so long looking at the closed door and trying to open it that we don’t see the light coming through the window. We long for what we can’t have and try to hold on to what is gone. When we do this, we can’t see the good things that are waiting for us.
Instead we should rest on the Lord and pray to understand what He is showing us through the window. Pray for the patience to wait for another door to open. When this door does open, you will understand that the doors behind you had to close so that you could walk through this new door.
A few months ago I saw this quote on a poster.
“Just when the caterpillar thought the end of
the world had come, he became a butterfly.”
I hope that, when doors close for each of us, we find something even more wonderful through the doors that open. Open doors and the patience to wait for them are sacred gifts.
May your blessings be many, your worries few.
I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: butterfly, God, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
July 7th, 2010
We do not see things as they are.
We see things as we are.
(The Talmud)
While we physically see with our eyes, it is our brains that tell us what we are seeing. The act of seeing involves the physical, the mental and the emotional. That is why two people can see the same person or thing or event in totally different ways. I remember going into a restaurant to celebrate our anniversary. Our four-year-old daughter and almost nine-month-old daughter and my parents were with us. As we ate dinner a woman at a nearby table kept turning to glare at us. The children were being quiet and well-behaved, but, obviously, in her eyes, they were being “bad.” I found myself feeling worse as time went by. Every time the woman turned and glared at us I felt my heart sink a little more. As we were leaving the restaurant two women were sitting on a bench by the door. They stopped us and said that they had just had dinner in the restaurant. One of them said, “We couldn’t help noticing your children. They were so beautiful and well-behaved.” Same situation, different eyes.
I read a story several years ago that showed me again that “We see things as we are.” In the story an elderly woman was sitting in a wheelchair in front of an elevator door in a nursing home. Someone was talking about the room that was waiting for her upstairs. She answered, “I love my room.” The other person said, “But you’ve never seen the room.” She responded, “I have already decided that I love it.” She chose, sight-unseen, to love her new “home.” I’m sure it wasn’t a home where she ever wanted to live. The story reminded me of my mother-in-law. When she was in an assisted-living facility she always said, “Everyone is doing the very best that they can.” She chose to see her caregivers through the eyes of loving acceptance. Because she was a gentle, kind, loving person she saw other people in the same way.
Seeing through the eyes of love is a sacred gift. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: child, love, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
July 5th, 2010
“These are the times that try men’s souls.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
On Christmas Day 1776 George Washington read these words from Thomas Paine’s American Crisis to his troops. The men were hungry, cold, dispirited. Many of them had their feet wrapped in rags because they had no shoes. It looked like their fight for independence might very well be lost. Waiting across the Delaware River in Trenton, NJ, was an army of British and Hessian troops. Early on the morning of December 26 the Continental soldiers rowed across the ice-clogged river. It was only 20 degrees. They launched a surprise attack which ended in the first American victory of the war. As Thomas Paine wrote, these soldiers did indeed win “the love and thanks of man and woman.”
The The men and women who have fought and continue to fight to preserve our freedom deserve our thanks and our love and our prayers. The question, “What price freedom?” has been going through my mind. For too many of our soldiers the price is injury and death. As has been quoted through the years, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” This quote is a modern version of words spoken by Edmund Burke, the 18th-century British statesman. Sadly, freedom is always paid for by the men and women who refuse to let evil triumph no matter the personal cost.
May
Tags: freedom, sacred, sacred gifts, surprise
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
July 1st, 2010
Instant. Instant rice. Instant pudding. Instant messaging.
We are the society of NOW. We are able to instantly communicate. There was a time when the telegraph was the fastest way to communicate. Even then it involved three other people – the person to key your message in Morse code, the person to receive the message in Morse code and write it down, the person to deliver a written message to the recipient’s door. It was the fastest way to communicate, but it definitely wasn’t instant.
The telephone greatly improved our ability to communicate. We could hear the other person’s voice and they could hear our words. The next big communication change came with the introduction of the fax machine into the workaday business world in the late 1980’s. We could send words and graphics. The speed of transmitting the written word has grown rapidly since then. We have achieved instant communication via e-mail, texting and social networking sites. The other person can receive our words NOW. We can send photos and graphics, video and audio in literally seconds. What a wonderful change.
I have always felt sorry for the immigrants who came to America that could not read or write. Unless someone came from their hometown after they came here they never knew what happened to their loved ones back home. The family and friends who stayed behind had no way to know what happened to them after they sailed for America. Now we have the ability to know what someone is doing right this minute. One thing has never changed, though. Our ability to communicate with the Lord. We speak to Him through prayer. How do we receive an answer? We wait. We wait until we hear a divine message in our hearts.
“God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.” (Mother Teresa)
We wait until we see His hand in changes that happen in our lives. Our communication with the Lord is “then,”not “now.” We pray and, then, we wait for the answer. Communication with the Lord requires trust and patience, in some instances over long periods of time. Waiting for the Lord’s answer is even harder in our society of instant answers and NOW communication. Having the patience to wait peacefully for the Lord to answer us is a sacred gift.
Tags: communication, patience, sacred, sacred gifts, trust
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
June 26th, 2010
A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.
Proverbs 16:9
I have been thinking about steps constantly. I am using a walker in the house and trying to learn to use a cane. So far walking forty steps is a small victory. Of course, I am impatient to be back to normal. Will I ever be totally recovered? I don’t know. I do know that eventually I will be functioning as I did before the accident. Of course, I am impatient for recovery to happen NOW. Waiting and struggling reduces me to tears, but that too shall pass.
I have to keep reminding myself of these words:
“Life is a series of steps. Things are done gradually. Once in a while there is a giant step, but most of the time we are taking small, seemingly insignificant steps on the stairway of life.”
(Ralph Ransom)
Thinking of life as a series of steps helps me to remember that victory is reaching the top of the stairway and the only way to do that is one step at a time. It also helps to read Helen Steiner Rice’s words:
“No matter how steep the mountain –
the Lord is going to climb it with (me).”
Being able to take even one step is a sacred gift.
May your blessings be many, your worries few. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, patience, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
June 18th, 2010
Waiting is woven into the fabric of our lives. We wait in lines. We wait for phone calls. We wait for job offers. We wait for babies to be born. We wait for healing from heartbreak or illness. We wait for answers to questions that we don’t even know how to ask. We wait for so many things, from the boringly mundane to the sublimely beautiful.
We wait for the answers to the big questions. Where is my life going? Where do I want it to go? Can I possibly get there? How? In the midst of these questions I remember the words of Jeremiah ( 29:11-13):
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
As I remember these words I pray:
“Dear Lord, help me to trust in You while I wait for the fulfillment of your plans for me.
Help me to feel You standing at my side.
Help me to hear Your voice whispering in my ear.
Help me to seek you with all my heart.”
Believing in God’s plan is a sacred gift.
May your blessings be many, your worries few. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, prayer, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
June 13th, 2010
I have sometimes wondered if coincidences are just God’s way of getting our attention. I experienced one this week. On Wednesday my physical therapist came. He is amazingly wonderful because he ministers to both my body and my spirit. I told him I was having the same problems physically and was also feeling down. He told me that I needed to control my “stinking thinking” in order to heal.
Two days later I opened my e-mail. There was a message from Kimberly Floyd (kimf@takebackyourtemple.com) As always her words spoke directly to me. She wrote, “When it comes to taking back your health, the biggest obstacle to overcome is what motivational speaker,Zig Ziglar, calls ’stinking thinking.’ Those negative thoughts make you feel defeated, discouraged, and depressed – all those ‘d’ words!” Obviously, I need to pay close attention to all my thoughts.
In Ephesians 4:23, we are told that we need “to be made new in the attitude of (our) minds.” Of course this is easier said than done. The problem is that positive thinking is conscious while negative thinking (stinking thinking) is unconscious.
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) made the concept of positive thinking famous in his book, The Power of Positive Thinking. Most importantly, he showed us the tool to use to practice positive thinking. He wrote: ”through prayer you … make use of the great factor within yourself, the deep subconscious mind … [which Jesus called] the kingdom of God within you … Positive thinking is just another term for faith.”
The ability to pray positive thinking into your life is a sacred gift.
May your blessings be many,
your worries few.
I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, prayer, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
June 7th, 2010
Since I had my accident, I have watched far more television than I have ever watched before. It fills the time and distracts me from my pain and worries. I shouldn’t be amazed, but I confess I was the other morning when I was watching a movie . It was as though the Lord was speaking directly to me. As he was preparing to leave to serve in World War II, a young minister said to his girlfriend, “God never forgets to answer our prayers. Sometimes we just don’t like the answers.” Those words were words I should say to myself frequently.
The minister went on to say that we should turn our lives over to God and pray, “Not my will, but Thine.” That is not always easy to do. I read a devotional by Katherine Kehler (todays-thought@thoughts-about-god.com) Just like the movie dialogue her Morning Prayer spoke to me. She prayed:
“I realize now that my discouragement can be because of the lack of trusting You.
This day, Lord, I pray that You will enable me to trust You each time a problem arises.
Whenever I get stressed, remind me to turn my eyes on You and Your sufficiency.
My help comes from You, Lord. Amen.”
The ability to trust the Lord when we have a problem is a sacred gift.
May your blessings be many,
your worries few.
I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, prayer, sacred, sacred gifts, trust
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
June 3rd, 2010
“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
(Matthew 6:8)
Sometimes I wonder if God ever thinks He should have gotten an unlisted number. I pray all the time – for myself, for family and friends and people I know about who need His help. I pray to ask for help and I pray to say, “Thank you.” Of course, I still struggle with the times when the answer is very slow in coming and the times when the answer is, “No.” Even in those times I feel a sense of peace as I pray.
Just last week I read two new prayers that I loved. The first prayer comes from one of my daughters. Sara wrote, “Lord, give me the patience to deal with my blessings!” It made me think of all the times in my life when I could have/should have said that prayer. It is certainly a perfect prayer for all young mothers.
The other prayer is one that I came across on the Internet. It said, ”Lord, make my life A window for Your light to shine through and a mirror to reflect Your love to all I meet. Amen.”
Prayer is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us. It is a sacred gift.
May your blessings be many, your worries few.
I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: God, mothers, prayer, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
June 1st, 2010
When we are young, I think we define strength as physical strength. How many pounds you can lift. How many miles you can run. Then, as we grow up, we realize that there is another kind of strength that is far more important. It used to be called “intestinal fortitude,” which meant courage and endurance.
Psalm 121 is a beautiful reminder that our strength comes from God.
I will lift up my eyes to the hills—
From whence comes my help?
My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
The LORD shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore.
Looking to the Lord for your strength is a sacred gift.
May your blessings be many, your worries few.
I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: blessings, God, sacred, sacred gifts, strength
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
May 27th, 2010
“If God shuts one door, he opens another.”
(Irish Proverb)
It probably sounds odd to talk about problems as gifts, but I have been thinking about how sometimes problems turn out to be blessings in disguise. We all have problems – illness, injuries, disappointments, loss. Some of our problems are merely worrisome while others are absolutely devastating.
I know that devastating problems may not have a blessing attached to them, but the sad, hard, worrisome problems may very well come with the gift of a blessing. I have tried to think of times in my life when problems came with a gift. I remembered when my second daughter was born. As soon as we came home from the hospital my husband flew across country to get a new job. Five weeks later, the day after Christmas, we threw the tree out on the curb and left to drive across country. It was especially traumatic because we would be leaving my parents and I would be leaving home for the first time.
When we got there, we moved into a townhouse in a development under construction. We had no neighbors. The builder had cut the phone line three times so we had no phone service and wouldn’t for weeks. Two days after we arrived my husband left to fly across country. He was gone for two weeks at a time. This was before cell phones so I was completely isolated with a four-year-old and a newborn. I remember one snowy morning when I bundled both of them into the car and drove to a phone booth to call a doctor. I waited 45 minutes in the cold phone booth for a return call which never came because the number on the pay phone didn’t actually belong to that pay phone. Thank God nothing bad happened to us when we there alone. If it had, there was no way my four-year-old could have gotten help.
From all this, though, a blessing came. After several months, we moved to another state where we had neighbors. It was still hard, though, because of my husband’s traveling.
Eventually he took a
different job which brought us only 3 1/2 hours from my parents. While he was at this new job, I received a gift. We went to a business dinner and the secretary’s husband, who was a professional photographer, showed me what he was doing. I had never seen a zoom lens and I was astonished that he could take pictures by candlelight. He went on to be my first teacher. He was a kind, gentle man and a wonderful teacher. If we hadn’t gone through the horrible moves, we would never have ended up here. I would never have met him and been given the incredible gift of photography.
Blessings in disguise are a sacred gift.
May your blessings be many, your worries few. I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: blessings, Christmas, God, photography, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
May 24th, 2010
“Butterflies are self-propelled flowers.”
R.H. Heinlein
(author, 1907 –1988)
In a post last week, “The Gift of Yellow,” I talked about how I was starting to see yellow strands in the fabric of my days. These strands represent hope and peace and thankfulness. They are slowly beginning to supplant the black strands of frustration, anger, pain, helplessness and fear that have overwhelmed me since my accident.
The day after I wrote about the yellow strands appearing something almost too lovely to believe happened. We started seeing yellow butterflies outside our kitchen window. This is the first time we have ever seen them there. Today they started flying by our bedroom window, too. What joy to be recuperating in bed and watch them flutter by.
As I watch them I think of these words written by (Jeffrey Glassberg, Butterflies Through Binoculars):
“Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine.”
I think also about the difficult journey the butterfly took to transform itself from a caterpillar into a butterfly. A few months ago I saw a poster that said, “Just when the caterpillar thought the world had ended it became a butterfly.” What a reassuring thought that our trials can transform us into more beautiful people who can bring solace and joy to others.
Butterflies are a sacred gift.
May your blessings be many, your worries few.
I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Tags: butterfly, joy, sacred, sacred gifts
Posted in Inspiration, spirituality
May 21st, 2010
When my physical therapist was showing us how to get my wheelchair down the ramp and, then, how to transfer my body into the car, I was feeling discouraged and impatient. Aaron said to me, ”Maybe all of this is teaching you a lesson you need to learn.” I thought about that. The obvious lesson was that I needed to pray for patience, PATIENCE, PATIENCE!!!!!
Then, I began to think about what other lessons I might be learning. I remembered this quote:
“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way. The way we learn those lessons is not to deny the feelings but to find the meanings underlying them.”
Stanley Lindquist
Professor of Psychology, California State University
As I thought about the lessons I was learning at this low point in my life, I knew that one lesson was to be appreciative of the tiniest blessings, like being able to stand, even just on one leg, and being able to wash your hair and get your own toothbrush. Another lesson was to trust that at every moment of our lives, even the most painful or frightening or discouraging, the Lord is with us.
Life’s lessons are sacred gifts.
May your blessings be many, your worries few.
I wish you countless sacred gifts.
Posted in Inspiration
