Not Always a Rockwell Christmas

Most of us have Christmas expectations. Many of these are erroneously based on previous Christmases even thought time and circumstances have changed. The players have changed, but we have these wistful memories.
However, with each Christmas, we have the opportunity to make new memories or start a new tradition. As long as we view life through the rear view mirror, we will miss the hope and joy of this Christmas.
Christmas is all about giving. If that stretches you, because you are looking at your bank account instead of your heart, start with a smile. Set a ridiculous goal like give 25 while at the grocery store. This means you make eye contact with someone and flash your biggest smile with 25 different people. The potential to change the environment in that store.
Well, what if you went to Wal-Mart this time of the year where you will have their notoriously long lines and you made eye contact and smiled at 25 people just while standing in line remembering how many people don't even have enough money to buy anything to stand in line for. What if you greeted the cashier with a hearty thank you for her part in your Christmas.
Shortly we are going to a nursing home to give gifts and sing, because you spell love T-I-M-E.
Some of these residents have been forgotten. A smile can make them feel remembered.
I may never have another Norman Rockwell Christmas, but I will always have a merry Christmas.

The Clock is Ticking.

I will be 65 in July and one of the birthday presents that I want to give myself is to be a Mary Kay Director. Not only for the freedom in my work schedule, additional income,but because it gives me an opportunity to touch women's lives, often one by one, to tell them that they are fearfully and wonderfully made and one of God's marvelous works.
Twenty-five years of my life I experienced different kinds of abuse. Abuse becomes self-perpetuating. You are a victim, live as a victim and attract more abuse. The one thing you are trying to avoid, you draw to yourself by your demeanor, your self-image and your incredible need to be loved. Grasping at straws, you choose the first love offered to you and it is poison to your spirit. The cycle repeats.
I no longer live in abuse. I began to see myself as Father God saw me and asked Him to help me become that woman.
Nevertheless, I sometimes play "old tapes" of words spoken over me, acts that violated me and lies that deceived me. This is the fastest trek to depression that I know.
Over time I have learned to catch myself before I g down that slippery slope. I do this by encouraging myself. I may sing, get a pedicure or just squirrel away with a good book. We have to get into the habit of holding every thought captive. Every thought.
My life should be a celebration of the victories, not a scrapbook of past failures. Every moment counts.
It is pure joy to be a vessel of His love. Every moment is the right one to love.
God is love. God is the giver of life. Declare your love. You may never know how important it may to someone else. Just do it.

What an Awesome Father We Have!

Please watch this video and then come back to the blog.




Are you thinking "Wow! What an awesome Father!"?
Your Heavenly Father has loved you that way since before you were born. When you couldn't go another step, He carried you. You may not have always felt it, but it isn't about feelings, it is about faith.
Can you come to that place of absolute surrender and allow Him to carry you?
His plans for you are for good and not evil.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Jer. 29:11
His expected end is bigger than you could ever imagine.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I have so much to be grateful for. I had one cardiologist tell me that I would never see 60. I am 64 and happy. Each day is a gift.
I am married to a man who loves me unconditionally.
Recently we had a wedding at our church and at the close, they played, "Dance with me, Lord." All married couples were invited to come dance with the newly married couple. As Ray held me in his arms, I was reminded of our first date and our first dance. What a long way we have traveled.
A friend, Marcia Fisher, took a picture of us dancing. I don't usually like pictures taken of me because I am overweight. (translation:not perfect) However, there was something endearing about this picture- belly and all. So I made some copies to send to family and a 8X10 for our family wall of pictures. When I framed the 8x10 and took it to the wall, I noticed the similarity of that picture to the one that was taken 30 years ago on our wedding day as he held me in his arms. There was that same look of love for one another, that same surrender into the safety of his arms.

This 30 years has not been without sadness, even grief, rebellion and brokenness, but what matters most is we have come full circle with God's help. The key is to keep dancing. No matter what your dreams are, don't give up.
Dance as if no one were watching,
Sing as if no one were listening,
Love as though you've never been hurt,
Live every day as if it were your last.
In the attached video, Paul Wilbur opens in prayer and if you listen carefully you will hear prophetic declarations towards the end...darkness has passed...sickness has passed... Then you see a woman dance across the stage and in my mind's eye, I see a little girl dancing for her daddy and I know that is how I want to dance and live for my Father God - in abandon.

Love Letter from the Father

The Hand of the Father

Ray and I have seen the hand of the Father in designing our travel plans for Ireland. This week he got a letter from his Aunt Anna, 83, who gave him towns and names names of ancestors to seek in the Waterford area. This will be a delightful hide and seek game.
He has given us the ability to exchange dollars into Euros at no fee.
He has given us a guide for Dublin.
The myriad of ways that He has woven this adventure together is awesome.
I am reminded daily of how much our Father god loves us.
We are trusting Him at a level we have never trusted Him before. Leaving our familial support and ways behind, we are going on an adventure with God and have no idea what each day will hold. We decided NOT to make a single reservation for lodging, but rather go where the Father leads us. We want to be a blessing to the people there and are expecting to see God's hand in it.
Can you take six minutes to listen to this Love Letter from the Father?
You see He loves you as much as He does us for He is not a respector of persons.

Awaken the artist witnin yourself and paint

The older I get the more important it is to me to leave something behind. How will I be remembered? In my 30s, I was very selfish. A great deal of that was to protect myself from further abuse. Then I met Ray.
Ray got a real tiger by the tail when he married me. We laugh now and say, he re-wrote The Taming of the Shrew (good old boy style.) He never gave up on me even when loving me was like loving a porcupine or hugging a telephone pole.
Mary Kay has taught me a great deal about giving love. I mostly do the one on one facial so I can spend time with the woman sharing that no matter where she is in this journey called life, she is beautiful, a creation of Father God.
I have had some cry saying that no one has ever told them they were special before. That should not be so.
I am sorting books for a huge garage sale next weekend, and I found one by Lee Ann Womack called Something Worth Leaving Behind. The following is a quote from it:
"You are the artist who paints a masterpiece
In the lives of those around you.
Maybe you are doing it right now.
Maybe you will do it tomorrow.
Or the day after that.
But you WILL make a difference.
You will make a beautiful difference.
With words of encouragement,
Words of hope,
With a smile...
A long hug...
A heart felt "thank you."
There are canvases
All around you.
Some are in desperate need of what only you can offer.
Awaken the artist within you and
PAINT
A masterpiece?
YES..
A living, breathing, masterpiece!
How?
One person at a time.
One stroke at a time
With the color of...
LOVE."

One of my favorite scriptures is Romans 5:5, "... the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

You are deeply loved, pass it on.

The Peace of Snow

I had listened to a CD of healing scriptures all night Saturday and woke up Sunday morning feeling scrubbed clean. I still wasn't feeling physically strong so the guys went on to church without me.
I have an old recliner that in pitiful shape, but I love it because it is short. Most chairs extend beyond the bend of my knee as I am only 5'1". This one is designed for a shorty like me. It swivels and I had my back to the window for good reading light. About eleven, I decided to go take a nap and I swiveled back around. I was astounded. It was snowing. It wasn't flurries either. It was coming down like packing peanuts. I was absolutely mesmerized.
They had predicted snow, but we hear that a couple of times each winter and it usually stops at Atlanta or it comes as flurries that melt as soon as it hits the ground.
I went outside and saw it beginning to build. I was so excited. I fixed myself a hot cup of tea, got back in my recliner and just watched it fall. It fell for a couple of hours.
There is something calming and peaceful about watching snow fall.
Yes, I have lived where it snows. I know the mess and the challenges, but this blissful afternoon of just watching it cover my corner of the earth with its clean blanket of white nourished my soul.
I am reminded of when Jonathan first sang The Rose. It says, "Just remember that in the winter, far beneath the bitter snow lies the seed, that with the suns love in the spring becomes the rose."
My snow wasn't bitter, but there are many things in my life that I hope for that are yet unseen. Still just as surely as Spring will come, they too will come in His time.

We Need Each Other

Sometimes having extra people in your home complicates your life. It should not be so, because we are to be given to hospitality. If that hospitality comes out of the heart of God, it should be an act of love, not a fulfillment of a need. Resentment can come in if it is just filling someone's need.

But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging. 1 Peter 4:7-9

Without grudging simply means without murmuring complaining. The Lord may have sent this person as a gift to you. He may expect you to invite the unlovely and entertain him as if he were the Lord himself.

Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; [and] them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.
Hebrews 13:1-3

We need each other. Living simply may be a gift, but it must include the body. We are all a part of God's body. We need each other to be who He saw before the foundations of the world. You may be just the one to provide that missing piece in someone's life. You may have just the encouraging word they need to hear, the hug they need to feel, the meal they need to taste to see that the Lord is good.

You Are So Beautiful

When the Father looks at you, He sees His beautiful child.
When our heart is broken through abuse, betrayal and abandonment, our mirror is like one from the carnival. What you see does not reflect God's reality.
Your Father loves you. He always has. He always will. There is nothing that you can do to change His mind.
Yes, you can run away. Yes, you can disappoint Him, but not surprise Him. He wants only the best for you.
I am adding a video that I would love for you to listen to. For I believe it is what He would sing to you if you would be still enough to listen.

His Eye is on the Sparrow

Ray and I were married 30 years ago when we were both in our 30s. It was a tumultuous beginning as we each had children, some with special needs. There were those that said our marriage wouldn't last a year. There were even times when we would have agreed.
The worse it got, the more we sought God the best we could. In the first seven years especially, there were financial catastrophes, major illnesses and other stresses, but each time God met us. It was during this time that I really relied on a song by Ethel Waters called His Eye is on the Sparrow. I played it, I sang it and I even opened a little shop called The Little Sparrow. It was time in my life when I knew that I knew that though we were hard pressed, we were in His hands. He met us each time right on time.
I can look back now and see how He protected us even we made wrong choices. Because it was so long ago, I can also see how he has made something beautiful out of all.
Our fondest memories are when we lived in a tiny rundown farm house in the midst of a large dairy farm. When we moved to a larger farmhouse a year or so later it was patched with license tags. What joy was wrought on that farm and we could tell you stories for hours of how God met us, cared for us and fed us.
You are worth so much more than that tiny bird.
His eye really is on you today.