Category: Uplifting

” I thank God every time I think of you” Philippians 4:3

As I read that I thought no truer verse for me especially as of late. I have people in my life that this scripture holds true for, some I live far from while others I will not get to see ever again, at least not on this earth and that list seems to be getting longer, as I am sure you have a list that grows with loved ones. So, it’s to the ones I still think of but am not able to see on this side of heaven that are leaving me with memories in their place I reflect on today.

Memories of a person that holds a spot in your heart, puts a smile on your face or a full belly laugh, and yes, a tear in your eye with a lump in your throat that can catch you off guard. What a blessing to remember someone in such a way. Even if it hurts because you can’t see and interact with them. It can be such an overwhelming feeling to have a memory of a person that has graced, your life with such a presence it has forever changed you and left you with memories that cannot be forgotten.

Yes, a disease or injury to the brain can alter a person’s ability to remember but even in the most severe cases I have heard and seen a brief memory that come back to a person if only for a short minute or seconds it is there or sometimes the memory is only in a smell, something seen or sound that is heard but can’t place why. they feel different or like something.

A memory is such a gift. Not to be taken for granted but it is given to remind us of the people that have blessed our life, let those tears fall, smiles spread across our faces or laugh arise because a person may not be with you but the memory of them is, what a comfort and because of that memory they do live on.

I have heard the “Easter” story more times than I can count, and it still moves me but on this past Sunday as the scripture reading of Matthew 26 was being read I listened with the same reverence and feelings as it talks of the plot to kill Jesus, Jesus anointed at Bethany, Judas agreeing to betray, the last supper and the garden of Gethsemane and that’s where I heard it, after the soul crushing prayers of Jesus and the fact that the few men he brought into the garden couldn’t stay awake long enough to help their teacher/leader/master, friend/companion of about 3 years during his pain. Infact Jesus had to wake them up two times then on the third he finally said Matthew 26:44-46 ” Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But look the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Up, let’s be going, Look, my betrayer is here!”

The “look my betrayer is here” is what got me in a different way, Jesus said my betrayer. He didn’t call Judas every name in the book instead he simple stated what Judas choose to do not who he was. Jesus said his betrayer not “the” betrayer. What a difference a word makes, it is showing that Jesus was betrayed the action not Judas is a betrayer, even out sided of church the name of Judas is known as the betrayer, but what Jesus called Judas was his friend! (a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection)

Matthew 26:47-50

⁴⁷ And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

⁴⁸ Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

⁴⁹ And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.

⁵⁰ And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they and laid hands-on Jesus and took him.

Later on, we are told that Judas hangs himself, even after Jesus called him friend. Jesus would have forgiven Judas, but Judas couldn’t forgive himself.

Ooh isn’t that all of us though. We hang ourselves over the guilt of the mistakes we make. When all we have to do is accept the offer of forgiveness and begin living a life free from shame and guilt.

We all have that offer but not all take it, don’t you think it’s about time to live?

If you do want to live and live abundantly forgiven of your sins all you need to do is pray.

Jesus, I come to you right now as a sinner in need of you. I admit I can’t live this life without you and am need of you. I believe you are God’s son who died for me and rose from the grave to give me new life. Come into my heart right now and make me clean, I turn from my sins, I accept your gift of salvation. Lead me in my new life. Thank you for loving me. Amen

And, for those who have asked Jesus to come into our hearts then my question is why do we still live as if we aren’t loved and forgiven? I am including myself with this, we let our mistakes keep us hanging, instead of living the life God intended for us. Isn’t life too short for this? Let’s start living!

This past December right before Christmas I woke up to the sounds of sirens and what sounded like a house close by being overtaken by fire, as I opened my eyes, I could see the red from the fire trucks lights flashing on my wall. I looked out confirming what I already knew and that was the neighbor’s house across the street in gulfed by flames and the family standing a few houses down on the sidewalk of a very cold dark early December morning watching their house burn. As the light of a new day began to shine the firefighters had most of the house put out but there was no going back to what once was, the house and all they had was gone.

The season of winter moved into spring then into summer and still no sign of rebuilding even on some days when the wind blew you could still smell the lingering odor of fire then slowly work began. Tearing down what was left and the slow but exciting rebuilding of the new. From walls to the trusses then onto the roof the house is being rebuilt better than it was before. This stuck with me, as I watch the progress and see the owners come by to look at what is being done, I have to ask myself is the horra of a fire worth the nice new home? I have to admit I would rather keep my not so new construction of a home.

And then I think of how reluctant I am to change, to accept and let go. Is it worth it? The family had a choice to either stay in a burning inferno or leave it to stand in the cold and isn’t life just like that? Sometimes we have devastation just to have to move onto difficulty, but the difficulty is better than what was and in time you are able to start to rebuild and have something better than what was before.

I know that no one would ever want to go through devastation that happens in life but what choice do we really have? We can stay in the inferno or go out into the cold that will in time be what will lead to a new and better life. Change is hard but so is staying the same. We aren’t going to have a life without hurt and maybe that is what trips us up when we have devastation. It is attachment and expectation of perfection in a fallen world that can sometimes lead us to stay in a burning inferno instead of braving the cold. Remembering we are only passing through this short life helps me. Yes, we will have hardships, hurt and pain but we will also have beauty too and through it all we have a heavenly father with us!

I was scrolling through Facebook, yes, I do that a lot but as I was scrolling, I stopped and looked at a post of a very high and fast roller-coaster wow did it look incredibly fun! As I looked at the post, I realized something that brought a tear to my eyes. I thought when was the last time I went on one? I used to love those rides!

I know it was a while ago, my kids were teens. It was our last real vacation together. I look back now realizing it was our last time together before growing and moving on. I think if I would have know that was our last one I would have relished it more. Maybe less complaining of my feet hurting or the heat and a little more enjoyment of the fact I had my teens happy to just be with me. We did enjoy the roller-coasters until the very end when we had to file out of the park with the last few remaining people as they closed for the day. With laughter filling the air as we walked to the car talking of our favorite things that happened or even at the long lines we waited in. We all had fun but didn’t realize it for what it was. For me it was the last time to ride on a roller-coaster and for my kids it was the last of their carefree childhood

But

That’s just it we all have our last times, we all have the last hug or hand holding, the last time to tuck a little one in. The last time we see or kiss a loved one. The last day of work, or favorite pass time or maybe the last time we get to enjoy eating a favorite dish. It is never marked with fireworks or a goodbye party, instead it is always done in such a quiet way you didn’t know it was the last time until looking back.

Maybe because our last times are always in such a quiet way, we should make the most of each small little thing we do every day because you never know if it is your last time. The passage in Psalms says it best.

Psalm 90:10&12 (NIV translation)

10)  Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures.
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

12)  Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Named after the crab from the ocean because it has many stems. It holds up well to foot traffic, can grow in cracks of concrete and is drought tolerant. Just to name a few of the reasons this is such a hardy plant/weed. There are a few different kinds but they all infiltrate and permeate your entire yard.

I remember when I worked in the office for my in-law’s lawn business, we would have so many customers calling for help to get rid of crabgrass after they had tried everything to get rid of it. Most were willing to pay any price just to get rid of it.

I always wondered what the problem was and when I asked my ex-father in-law he would just laugh and act like he couldn’t believe I didn’t see the problem. So, I went along and scheduled many jobs for the people who wanted to get rid of it. You can’t just pull on one patch and think you are good; no, you have to go through your entire yard and pull all of it or it just comes back. The jobs were big and even required a backhoe and fresh fill dirt. After they dug up the whole yard going deep to make sure they got all the roots they would put fresh dirt in then would plant the desired grass, plant or sod making a definite transformation for the better, but the homeowner wasn’t off the hock they had to be on top of it to make sure their yard stayed nice and crabgrass free.

I know I should probably write a book about life lessons from the garden because there are great examples in your yard/garden. I am often amazed at how nature is right in front of us to give those lessons, if we noted them.

Just like the homeowner that bought a house with someone else’s crabgrass problem, we can be born into someone else’s hurts and their pain then it becomes ours. We inherit the pain. Just like my children had grown up for most of their life in a violent house with an alcoholic father they now have the hurt given to them because their dad had pain he didn’t know how to deal with. All he felt was pain so what else could he have given?

Or the pain that is given to a child who is molested, a person that is raped or beaten. I could go on with the pain that is given out to innocent people.

They say the people who hurt people hurt the most themselves is so true. It is because of that crabgrass pain that can be the most difficult to deal with. It is someone else’s pain that became ours. I know that without help that pain won’t really go away, we need to call for help, get some heavy equipment so to speak so we can do a total removal because if we don’t it only looks like it’s gone but it’s still there just waiting for the new season so it can germinate and grow stronger if we don’t do the hard very labor-intensive task of uprooting it all.

I am thankful for people who are there to help us deal with our pain. I think God works through these wonderful souls. He is there just waiting to help take care of our crabgrass.

He is only a prayer away and will do the heavy backhoe work replacing the old with the new making a transformation for the better a new and wonderful crabgrass free life.

Psalm 34:18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

I haven’t had a good vacation in a long time. In fact, the only time I have been traveling any distance this year is for my Oncologist or to say goodbye to loved ones, but I have been blessed with short mini day trips so there is that and I feel so fortunate to have those day trips. I just would love for a chance to go and see new places without having to check into a doctor or see some of my favorite spots would be so much fun for me. Not only the destination but the getting there is just as wonderful.

Perhaps it’s my wanting to go on a trip that got me thinking.

Let’s say I have won a trip to the lovely country of Italy; I have never gone and wow I would love to go! So, now that I won this trip I need to pack because a cab will be here soon to pick me up. I pack everything I can think of. When the cab comes, I bring all my baggage with me. The driver looks at me like I am crazy bring bag after bag but since I have never gone to Italy, I decide to pack heavy for those just in case scenario come up.

I get to the airport to check in ALL of my bags. I hand them over one at a time, the person behind the counter tells me I have to pay a large amount if I intend to bring it all with me. I feel upset thinking of course I want all of it but the cost of it is getting in the way of my free trip. I go through my bags one at a time. I take out items that don’t make sense to bring to an Italian getaway, but I want them, I had them for every other trip why not now? Who knows you might need a big balky sweater?  The person is waiting for me to decide if it’s worth bring all my extra baggage.

Now it’s easy to see that no you don’t need balky sweaters for a summer in Italy, but we do that in life, don’t we? I have really been working through how much of my baggage of my past am I willing to pay for so I can take it with me to a new wonderful place of today. Am I willing to leave baggage that is of no use so I can move forward? Yes, I am and what’s so great is I don’t have to go through all of my bags alone. I have someone to help me. I have the one who can see what’s a head and what in my past I need to leave because it has no use for me today but weigh me down. God is always with me to help me go through these bags so I can be free to enjoy my todays. Isaiah 43:18
“Do not call to mind the former things or ponder things of the past. Philippians 3:13-14 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus

In the middle of almost each season I get in a funk with what to wear. I look in my closet wishing a clothing elf would come in the night to bring new clothes. I end up pushing back the clothes with no idea what to put on. Taking a little longer to get dressed.  In the winter I get sick of layers and in summer I get tired of the lack of them. Even in spring I look forward to shorts or my summer dresses but in the Autumn, I never have that problem. I get to wear snuggly clothing without having to add layers to them, each out fit in this great season I look forward to wearing. Perhaps

As you can guess I am in that funk now, today I was so sick of my summer clothes. I don’t have many and even when I had a larger closet I still got sick of them.  I know this happens when I am ready to move on to the next season. I don’t give the same amount of care as when the season first starts. Maybe its just the heat but I also haven’t had the same spring in my step as I did when summer began and I was sporting my “new’ summer dress.

I was thinking we (myself included) have this same problem when it comes to how we treat others. We can start off with being kind and loving even looking forward to being nice, then grow tired. It does take work and just like how I get sick of my clothes but I still need to get dressed anyway. We all have some form of interaction with eachother so why not just be kind? Since we all live on this great planet maybe giving more care on how we treat others would be a great start.  I love how Gandhi said it “If you want to change the world, start with yourself.”

I will start with me by dressing for autumn each day because I see such a change on the mornings when I decide to wear kindness, it never goes out of fashion and I have a spring back in my step even with the heat.

As we get dressed each day and we decided what to wear for our bodies we also can decide to clothe our selves with “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and a huge one for me patience.

Colossians 3:12-14

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

We all breath but not all of us breath. Wait, what? Yes, it’s true we all get the basis down but not all of us breath in a way that we should. I think we could learn a lot from newborns. From that moment we are born everyone in the room waits for that first breath that leads to that wonderful sound of the first cry. As newborns we use our nostrils and full belly breath but as we grow, we start to use our mouths and chest breath, then wonder why we have a lot of problems.

When I first started to practice yoga, long before I learned to teach it all I heard from my teacher was no mouth breathing in his class. Yes, there’s times when you do use your mouth in yoga but maybe that can be for a different blog. At first it was hard for me to move with my breath and only use my nose but over time I came to love the feel of movement with my breath, the expansion of my ribs as air filled all of my lungs into the full belly breath.

Now, as a yoga teacher I have the pleasure of helping others see the value of the breath. I find it so amazing that this what seems so simple and helps every part of our body function at its best from neurological, reducing anxiety or stress to digestion, blood pressure and even aiding in reduction of some decease, is forgotten or overlooked until we are having problems. I only named a few things our breath helps with, but the list goes on and what I find amazing is that the very beginning of man in

Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

I love how the new international version says it, God formed a man, like no one to special just a man formed from dust, but it took the very breath of God to become the man a living being, a person with a purpose. The is used when talking about something of particular, a is used when talking about something in a general, notice the differance?

When we start to forget to breath our bodies feel it and show signs of problems and if we don’t stop and realize it then our bodies will let us know in a big way. Getting so busy with life that we forget the very thing that enables us to live. The very breath of God that gave us life, he wants to be that full breath that gives life to every part of our bodies as we move through life and learn to breath with him in our movements. He was there when we took our first breath and he will be there when we take our last but it’s the middle of it all that he is waiting and wanting to be there for, if we only allow him to be. He won’t push, no that is true love. Infact he will let us breath our shallow mouth breathing not living the full life he breathed into us to be.

O, we can do something about it and it’s so simple too. All we need to do is like when I started learning yoga, listen to the teacher, invite him in letting his air fill our lungs and learn how to breath with him in our movements.

I loved playing hide and seek with my children when they were little. My son was the champ. He had a huge imagination, could fit in any place and this usually energetic louder than most children would become still and a mute. My daughter would get so mad that she couldn’t find him. She would call and call looking everyplace she could think of and still could not find him.

I must confess that I loved the fact that he would hide so well. I would take that time to have a much-needed break or yes even eat a cookie with out the fear of being found out.

After a very nice break I would join in the fun and look for my son . Most of the time I could find him with ease but on a few occasions I would need to call his name with a promise we would close our eyes if he would just come out. He then so stealthy would appear, sometimes I never did find out where he was.

How many times do we feel like we are playing hide and seek with God.

We walk around calling and calling out looking for him and getting mad and even sad because we can not find him. We keep up the search but still nothing. We know he must be there but in times of our valleys it is as God is someplace off hiding that can never be found. We feel alone and wonder why.

If only during this time we STOP our exhausting search, call out and be still. God will show himself. He will never leave us but we are the ones that walk around in search getting more upset and forgetting that He is with us all along.

The Bible is full of this frantic search from old to new testament so many examples of  people in their valleys and then God shows himself and comforts.

We just celebrated Easter and I am reminded of Thomas who gets a bum rap for not believing Jesus was alive. Thomas was overcome with grief and had to hear all others talk of seeing Jesus now that would have left me feeling left out, mad and perhaps wondering where Jesus was and why if he was alive he didn’t just come out and show himself.

In John 20:26 We see Thomas not searching but was still and in a room when Jesus came to him. Jesus knew what Thomas needed and showed up in a big way and gave it to him. I also found that in verse 28 it is the first time recorded that Jesus is addressed as “My Lord and my God” this was said by Thomas he realized what we all sometimes forget.

Next time you are feeling alone and thinking you need to keep searching just stop, breath and know God is there just ask him to show himself but the trick is to wait until he does.

“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:”

Isaiah 55:6

 

 

I have always been in awe of children and how they think. As my own children grew, I was in constant wonderment. I now get to see in my grandsons grow and again I am in awe of their little minds. I think back to a time when my oldest old grandson was four and smile at how he was always so independent.

He always has loved to take charge and give a helping hand, no job has ever been too big, or too small. In his mind he has always been able to do anything a grown up can do and in fact because of this attitude he flourishes when he has challenges.

It was this kind of thinking that brings me to blog about him today and think back to a young independent four-year-old.

My daughter was taking a quick shower because as any mom with little ones knows when they are sleeping you are lucky to have a few minutes to yourself. She is about done when she hears the sound of a vacuum coming from down stairs throwing on her robe and running down the stairs she sees her four-year old vacuuming the tile floor in the kitchen and so much yellow sticky liquid she was surprised she did not fall or that he didn’t get electrocuted.

He smiles up at her as she enters. He turns it off standing so proud begins to tell her that he got up, wanted apple juice and decided to pour it for himself but the juice was to full he spilled it on the floor but not to worry because he cleaned it up. To him he had taken care of it. It wasn’t until he went to walk and got sticky did he realize it. My daughter finished cleaning it up, took apart the vacuum so it would dry out  and was thankful he didn’t short out the vacuum or get shocked.

So many times we are like Milo, we think no problem is to big for us to handle it on our own or we don’t need to bother God with it because we can do it ourselves. Instead of taken care of it we are left with a sticky dripping mess and a miracle that we didn’t harm our self. If only when things come up if we just stop and ask for help.

As funny and precious as this is and I do laugh at it. I can take away with this thought of so much heart ache and extra work could have been avoided in my life if only I would have stopped and asked for help.  I can be stubborn and have a take on anything attitude perhaps Milo has a touch of me after all.

I am learning that so much of the heart ache and problems could have been avoided if I would have stopped and prayed and how God sees us wishes we would have waited or asked for help but the best part is He doesn’t condemn but helps us move forward taking care of the mess as only He can.

Psalm 46:1

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Hebrews 4:15-16

“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”