Showing posts with label God. Show all posts

The challenge ends!

My challenge has continued but I am finding that it is particularly difficult to manage my time so I am officially ending my challenge after 15 days, but I plan to remember the lessons of I have learned and I planned to show Grace and mercy throughout my day and throughout my life. I feel this challenge has given me softness and compassion I didn’t know I needed, I am more appreciative of people and my life. I thank God for this challenge and I thank God for all he does for me and for everyone. This journey has only started, my eyes are opened and my Grace walk will continue. The last challenges went well I got my mom on a waiting list and hopefully see will she her doctor soon and I'm planning on apologize to my Uncle to keep family peace. I feel I have this quite comfort inside of me, and I pray that God continually shows me ways to be more graceful. This started as a whim and end with a wow!


God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

As it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

If I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

And supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next.



Amen.

22 Days Left The Challenge Goes On!


Sorry it has been a while since my last update on the Grace challenge. I am finding this more challenging then I thought but challenging ourselves is how we enhanced ourselves and I am feeling increasing joy from this challenge and I do believe I am becoming a nicer person and I progressively more benevolent; so all in all this challenge is proving to do good in my life and hopefully in others as well. Back to my challenges, my day of appreciation went favourably l, I found the more grateful I was the more people did for me and they happier they seemed. I asked my husband is a nonchalant way if saying the word “I would appreciate if you did...” or “thank-you I am grateful for what you did” made a difference in how he felt and he stated that everybody likes to feel they are appreciated and it does encourage you to do better quality of work. I also found the best part about saying thank-you I appreciate what you did is people seem to beam from the inside when you said those words, I do believe I am going to try and incorporate expressing my appreciation in the future it is such a simple way to begin to make the world a better place and even baby steps make a difference. So for two more challenges for Wednesday and Thursday I am going to so an enemy kindness a gift of mercy and give someone the gift of time. “God has given me this day to use it as I will. I can waste it - or use it for good, but what I do today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.!” [Heartsill Wilson]


Prayer for Mercy



Help me Jesus, that what I ask of You - I will give to others - Mercy, both in deed and word

Help me, O Lord, that my eyes may be merciful, so that I may never suspect or judge others, but always look for what is beautiful and good in my neighbour



Help me, that my ears may be merciful, so that I may give heed to others' needs and not be indifferent to their pain



Help me, O Lord, that my tongue may be merciful, so that I should never speak wrongly of others, but have a word of comfort and forgiveness for all



Help me, O Lord, that my hands may be merciful and filled with good deeds so that I may do only good to others and try to take upon myself the more difficult and toilsome tasks



Help me, that my feet may be merciful, so that I may hurry to assist others, overcoming my own fatigue and weariness with Your love and mercy.



Amen

28 Days Left and Lesson to be learned

Challenge number two done, 28 days to go!!! For this challenge I thought I would be friend a man I see walking every day, always alone and always at the same time. I thought this would be rather effortless because I know when he is out walking and he always looks friendly, but to my shock he wasn’t there today and in a mystified I said to God “now what”? But God always has a plan and after that unfortunate incident I went to my Mom’s and as I was driving there I passed by a little white and blue house. Since I can remember the same lady has lived there “the Cat Lady” is what we as children so fondly called her and we all believed she was the town witch!! And if any of you have ever lived in a small town you know that every town has a town witch, and she was ours. Now as an adult I don’t believe in witches anymore but still she is out of the ordinary. So as I passed by that house I got a feeling that she was the person I was to befriend, the nobody, and I said to God “really?” I have never even been close to her front for the fear of being turned into a rat or frog or something, but God replied “Yes” So my rational side of me knew that this lady was just a quiet outsider, not a witch just a regular human, so I took a deep breath and put my foot on her property. As I knocked on the door I felt almost certain that when she opened the door she would turn me into a frog or maybe steal my bones right from out of my skin leaving me a helpless pile of skin, I could hear my heart racing in my ears, but I knocked and waited and when she opened the door, she didn’t steal my bones she was just a regular lady. So I said to her my named and I told her that I have lived in this town my whole life and it occurred to me that we have never met and I gave her a small heart shaped dish full of cinnamon hearts. She looked at me with bright blue eyes, that were gentle and thoughtful and through her wrinkles and bushy hair you could see that this is kind person. She smiled and told me “My name is Glenda...nice to meet you.” And in my head I laughed thinking like the good witch. I walked away from that house no longer afraid, and I hoped that today would remain a wonderful day and full of blessings for this lady that the world has forgotten!! This challenge was a delightful challenge that brought me back in time and it let me see how harsh children can be and how as adults at times we hold on to our childhood notions and those notions may hold us back from making wonderful connections!! So this leads to Challenge number three: Make contact with a person that you have lost contact with and that you may blame for this relationship dissolving.


Lord Jesus, you are the source of all love and goodness. You have created us to love and be loved and you have given us our family, friends and loved ones to experience this love. I come to you now humbly asking for healing as I suffer now because of a broken relationship. Grant me, Lord, the grace of true forgiveness, to let go of all my bitterness, anger and buried resentments and choose to forgive even if it hurts. I ask that you grant me the grace of humility to ask forgiveness, too, for my own mistakes and for patience and perseverance to keep on in this journey towards reconciliation despite the challenges and trials along the way. Lord, you know all things, you can do all things and you love me as you also love (name of person). Touch our heart with your power that can heal all damaged relationships and bring reconciliation realizing the importance of being at peace with ourselves and others. Let all blaming ease and let each person see things from your point of view and through your eyes of love. Let your love break down all dividing walls and barriers, restore this damaged relationship and lead us to seek and follow your will and divine plan for our lives. Let joy rest in our hearts once again.

The Proposal

Today in church we were learning about grace, and the message made me think what is grace? and that if we are made by Christ to be like Christ then we all have it in us to show Grace and mercy regularly; but how many of us do? The Biblical definition of Grace is the unearned gift the Father gives his children, and likewise the Webster dictionary defines Graces as a capacity to tolerate, accommodate, or forgive people, and the infinite love, mercy, favour, and goodwill shown to humankind by God. Also other words for Grace are: mercy which is kindness or forgiveness shown especially to somebody a person has power over, benevolence is the duty to do good by others, blessing which is help believed to come from God, and charity which is the impartial love of other people and the voluntary provision of money, materials, or help to people in need. Therefore Grace’s is the duty to do good, show tolerance, forgive, show impartial love and help others in need even if it is unearned. We have been saved by God’s Grace as pointed out in Titus 3:5 "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us."And Eph.2 8, 9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” God has given us this unmerited gift of life and continually shows us Grace by giving us blessings when we repeatedly are undeserving of them. Thomas Watson said "How many steps may a man take in the way to the kingdom of God, and yet miss it?" This is true how often we have lost our way, but God by grace shows us the way back. We have Christ in us and we were made in his image, then shouldn’t we try to live like Christ? And if God shows us Grace and Mercy day after day then isn’t our obligation to show our Grace and Mercy to all people? And if everyone made an effort to show Mercy and Grace habitually then wouldn’t our world be a better place? In the Bible there are scripture saying we should live with grace, for instance: Luke 6: 35-36 “I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never – I promise – regret it. Live out this God created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you are kind.” And Romans 12: 14-21 “Bless your enemies; [...] get along with each other; don’t be stuck up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. Don’t hit back; discover the great beauty in everyone [...] if you see your enemy hungry, go buy the person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing well.” God is telling us to live well and do well; my final question is if we were to show Grace and mercy daily would this have an impact on our life? And this is the question that leads me to my challenge for myself and my readers: I am proposing a 30 day Challenge where we will make an effort to find one person a day and show them our mercy and grace. I will document the challenges, reaction and in the end the difference in my life. This is not for the faint of heart and it could be life changing. One day one person and we WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!! February 8 will mark day 1 of the Grace Challenge and challenge number one is: To find a person in need that most people would say about them “they made their bed” and bring them a one dish meal!! A final prayer to help "Dear Lord, bless us and lift us up. Thank you for your wonderful mercy and grace! There is no other like you. Increase those qualities in us. Help us to show mercy and grace to others. Forgive us for the times when we have not. Praise you for your awesome character and your consistent love. Increase our faith and our love for you and others. In Jesus' name, Amen."

Your Not Listening!

“A little girl came home from school with a drawing she’d made in class. She danced into the kitchen, where her mother was preparing dinner.


“Mom, guess what?’ she squealed, waving the drawing.

“Her mother never looked up.

“What?’ she said tending to the pots.

“‘Guess what?’ the child repeated, waving the drawing.

“’What?’ the mother said, tending to the plates.

“‘Mom you are not listening.’

“‘Sweetie, yes I am.’

“‘Mom, ‘the child said, ‘you’re not listening with your eyes.’ “

This passage is taken from the novel have a little faith by Mitch Albom, while I was reading this I realized this child’s words are so simple but so true. How many times in your life have you been so preoccupied with whatever your doing whether it was taking care of your children or rushing to get to work or simply shopping that you have missed a whole world around you, because you weren’t listening with your eyes. Only giving one sense like hearing to a person results in missing out on important information like the happiness on our child’s face when they reveal a masterpiece to you made be their own hands, or the pain in the strangers face when they respond to your generic question of “How are you?” Answer “Fine.” But in fact they are in desperate need of compassion. Maybe you missed the exhaustion in your husband’s face after a long day at work when you are nagging him about all the things he hasn’t done. I wonder how many times in life we have praised ourselves on being such devote listeners but in fact we were only listening with our ears and not our eyes. There is a whole world of people out there some close to us and some strangers but aren’t all these people worthy of your full attention when they are talking to you. God did not give us multiple senses that we can use simultaneously if he did not want us using them. When listen incompletely we don’t get the whole story and God places certain individuals in our lives for a reason, we are bound by conscience to do good by these people. We need to open our eyes and observe the world. take in the colors, catch sight of the happiness, notice the grief and destruction. We may not be able to repair everything around us but we can pay attention and show understanding or give encouragement or merely share in the joy of a job well done. Are we too busy to give others around us our consideration? And if we are that busy then we need to slow our lives down. Life is not a race to get everything done but in fact a slow meaningful journey that affects everything and everyone around us. And do you want that affect to be ignorance or thoughtfulness? Time is a wheel in constant motion always going forward never going back. Do want time to pass you by and never see anything around you? Is dishes and laundry more important than the smile on your child’s face? I believe if people stopped and took a breath and saw what was around them the world would be better place. We may hear everything is fine but by looking we would see that things are not good and at times just giving people comforting words when we see they are suffering helps to brighten their day. And sometimes by sharing in a child enthusiasm encourages them to continue their passions. We need to thank the worn out cashier for being so attentive. Tell the janitor that you appreciate what he does. Give you husband a hug and thank him for providing. Be amazed and the scribbles on a pieces of paper. By using our ears and our eyes enables us to be better people and do better by others. How many times has miscommunication happened because what we heard does not give us the entire picture? Starting today put down the dish cloth and open your eyes because you are missing out on a little thing called life!

Tears and Prayers

A typical weekend was planned this weekend some family time combined with couple time. A little grocery shopping, a little relaxing that was the plan. But plans don’t always work out and my weekend was a little bit of stress mixed with crisis and topped with snow. Here’s the story...the weekend started with a colossal snow storm on Friday that prevented the grocery shopping and our biweekly visit to the Wok Box. Then on Saturday Big Sis woke up sick she felt warm and as luck would have it my thermometer broke so I couldn’t tell her exact temperature. Also, her breathing was also laboured and she laid on the couch all day watching movies, and if you know this two year old this is highly unlike her. So a snow day and a sick day, not to bad but this day took a turn for the worse and drove straight into tears, prayers and sleepless nights. It started with Big Sis wanted to see Bumpa so we drove over there and had a little visit I noticed her breathing had got worse it was more laboured and slightly wheezy but I thought she had croup so I thought I would keep an eye on her, and then as we were driving home I heard a gasp and look in the back seat and Big Sis was completely blue, gasping for breath and trying to claw her way out of her car seat it a panic. I quickly unbuckled her and pulled her into my arms her skin felt like it was burning my lips. I rushed her into a steamy bathroom and gave her Advil and thankfully she did improve a little but I still brought her to the ER. As we were driving to the hospital Big Sis’s Hyper ventilating and wheezing were a strange comfort, but when she became quite that is when I started to get uneasy and I would feel her pulse and recite CPR techniques in my head cursing myself that I didn’t pay more attention in class, then I would pray to God and I told him determinedly “you are not taking her today”! We made it to the hospital which was a blessing because the road were white out conditions and the Doctor gave her medicine and diagnose her with Bronicolitis and sent us home. That night she would wake up gasping and crying asking me to help and I would lie holding her counting her breaths and then the sun came up, the wind died down and I hoped the storm was over. And it appeared I was right on Sunday morning she was feeling better, still wheezing but in general she had improved, but then in the afternoon her temperature soared and her lips and fingers were blue and through laboured, wheezing breath she said “mommy help” so I took my lethargic baby back to the hospital and again I said to God “Not today either!” In the end the Doctor gave her antibiotics and more puffers and today she seems better, I do believe the worse is over. She has been bossy and she ate a little and she has been playing... sweet relief. It is amazing at how you can love someone so much and your world freezes when they need you, without thought you rush to their side and nothing matters but their comfort.

An Extraordinary Idea

William Shakespeare wrote: “And this above all unto thine own self be true and it shall follow as the day the night - thou can'st not then be false to any man.” He certainly hit the nail on the head with that one, what wonderful advice. So simple yet poetic, basically be true to you. But no us humans can’t be that way we try day after day to mold ourselves into what society wants us to be. You see it all around you: the teenage girl who much rather be playing in the mud, but does she do this no she conforms to what she believes a girl should be doing; she works hard to fit in and this patterns continues throughout her life, you will see it again when she’s dating, or try to pick a college and again when she is a mother and she is constantly plagued with guilt because she feels she is inferior to all the other mothers and so what does she do. She works relentlessly trying to be what she thinks the world around her wants her to be ignoring who she is and what she wants and believes. You don’t see this kind of insanity with animals a dog is a dog he sleeps because he is tried, he eats when he is hungry, plays when he is playful; he is happy being his cute doggy self he doesn’t look at the dog next door and think ‘I better start acting like a better dog’. But in the human world throughout our life we work very hard on being “normal” and doing what we believe other people think we should be doing. I wonder what it would be like to act extraordinarily uncommon would it be a breath of fresh air, I think it would be freeing. I am unsure as to why we all want to be alike, God created us as individuals we are his finest creation and really did he intend on having a band of identical instruments strumming the same tune, I certainly hope not how incredibly boring. We are all unique instruments playing our own tune in the musical called life. But so often we do not like our music and the neighbors sounds so much better so we stay up at night working and pondering try to ‘Keep up with the Jones’ so to speak. We put pressure on our kids, husband and everyone around us to be “normal” because we don’t want to be embarrassed by our husbands acting goofy or our kids being different or our slow mother talking to complete strangers about her breakfast. So instead of letting our husbands act absurdly foolish and laughing with him, or letting your kids wear mix matched shoes or enjoying the slow pace of your mom we criticize and force the people around us to act appropriate and in the end we are not happy and well adjusted all we have achieved is stress and resentful feeling. So instead of trying to fit in we should embrace the eccentricities around us, we should let our hair down put on a feather boa or floppy hat and stop try to be ordinary because acting like a normal person is exhausting let’s try to be true to ourselves and play our unique instrument loudly exclaiming to world that I am wonderfully extraordinary!!!

You can't have a Rainbow without Rain


One could define life as a series of unfortunate and fortunate events spread out over a period of years. Webster’s dictionary defines life as: “the course of existence of an individual; the actions and events that occur in living.” Fundamentally life is consist of good times and bad times and it depends on who you talk to one could argue life has more bad than good or some would say life has more good than bad. But everyone would agree that life shouldn’t have any destitution. People want to sail through life with only pleasurable times behind and ahead of them. You would never meet a person who wished for a substandard life. So the question to ask is: why do we have hardships? Can’t life be a bowl of cherries? The Bible states in Ecclesiastes 3:1-9: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace.
In summary this passage states that in life there is a time for happiness and a time for sorrow. But what is the purpose of suffering? Life would be much sweeter if there were no difficult times, but on the other hand if there were no bad times we would have nothing to compare the good times to and ¬-would we recognize life`s blessings if we never experienced life`s hardships? It is possible to believe that if the outcome of all life’s events were superlative we would become ungrateful and have feelings of entitlement. A passage Ecclesiastes 7:14 highlights this by saying “on a good day, enjoy yourself; on a bad day, examine your conscience. God arranges for both kinds of days so that we won’t take anything for granted.” Essentially in God’s plan we are to have good days and bad days and the hard times enable us to distinguish and be grateful for the everyday miracles we have been given. Life cannot be perfect so don’t spend your life dwelling on the events that have caused you misfortune and suffering instead eat, drink and be merry, enjoy yourself. You only live once and the beginning and the end are all the same it is the middle that counts it is where the story is, so while you are here live life to its fullest and let your tale be tale of optimism even in the face of adversary. Let it rain you were thirsty anyways and remember you cannot have a rainbow without rain.



When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.



Helen Keller
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