Be expressive….write, color, paint, sing, dance…..but allow your creative flow expression. I have always felt that art in any form is a sort of meditation and it is a wonderful way to find the balance and inner peace we all search for. So get those coloring books out and have fun with it. Remember…you don’t have to stay inside the lines
>> Read MoreBelieve:
True friendship and true love will continue to grow, even over the longest distance.
Always leave loved ones with loving words, you never know if it may be the last time you see them.
We can keep going long after we think we can’t take another step.
We are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel. We own our actions
We should control our attitude or it will control us.
Heroes are people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences
An instant action can cause heartache for life.
We may have the right to be angry, but never the right to be cruel
Maturity has more to do with what type of experiences we have had and what we learn from them and less to do with how many birthdays we’ve celebrated.
It isn’t enough just to forgive others or to be forgiven, we must learn to forgive ourselves.
No matter how bad our heart is broken, the world doesn’t stop for our grief.
Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.
Be careful and not so eager to find out a secret, it could change your life forever.
We can look at the exact same thing and will see something totally different.
People we don’t even know can change our life in a matter of hours.
When we have no more to give, a friend can cry out to us and we will find the strength to help.
Credentials on the wall do not make us a decent human being.
The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything, but just make the most of everything they have.
We don’t have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
No matter how good a friend is, they will hurt us every once in a while and we must forgive them for that.
Are your quilt squares filled with holes?
An e-mail sent to me describes the life of someone who faced our Lord at the last judgment as squares of a quilt laid out in many piles with an angel who sewed the squares to make up a tapestry of her life.
“I noticed how ragged and empty each of my squares was. They were filled with giant holes. Each square was labeled with a part of my life that had been difficult, the challenges and temptations I was faced with in everyday life. I saw hardships that I endured, which were the largest holes of all.” ………”My angel was sewing the ragged pieces of cloth together, threadbare and empty, like binding air”.
When this woman held up her quilt she felt shame, “I hadn’t had all the earthly fortunes. I had love in my life, and laughter. But there had also been trials of illness, and wealth, and false accusations that took from me my world, as I knew it. I had to start over many times. I often struggled with the temptation to quit, only to somehow muster the strength to pick up and begin again. I spent many nights on my knees in prayer, asking for help and guidance in my life. I had often been held up to ridicule, which I endured painfully, each time offering it up to the Father in hopes that I would not melt within my skin beneath the judgmental gaze of those who unfairly judged me.”
As she held her tapastry up before the Lord, light flooded the many holes creating an image of the face of Christ. When Christ stood before her He said: “Every time you gave over your life to Me, it became My life, My hardships and My struggles. Each point of light in your life is when you stepped aside and let Me shine through, until there was more of Me than there was of you”
This beautiful illistration demonstates the way Christ works in our lives, if we step aside and let His Light shine through us.
As we approach the time we remember and celebrate His great sacrifice, giving up His own Life that we may have a new life with Him, let us give our thanks to Him with great love and gratitude.
“It is not what we do, but Who He is, not who we are, but what He did.” The Prince of Peace and Love
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How many times have we felt hanging on is all we can do? For many years I felt I was hanging on to a cliff with one hand, the other one waving for help. Letting go was not an option (I thought at the time) and hanging on for dear life, hoping no one would step on my fingers was all I could do. Alligators were standing below, so I thought, laughing with their big mouths, swinging their huge, powerful tails, waiting…waiting for the fall. Really, this was how I imagined that period of my life of hanging on. Terrors of what would happen if I “let go” were powerful and exerted so much influence on my mind that I could not think clearly and act with reason. Laughing was hard to do and many times I also felt just like the woman in the picture, trapped in a very tight space with no options to move one way the other.
Today when asked how I am doing, I still say, “just hanging on” but don’t really feel the anxiety of those days. Laughter comes more easily and so does thinking. My mind is not so “squeezed” so words come more freely. These words are many times in the form of prayers and trusting in “letting go” is easier to do.
Now I have to wonder when to “hold on” and when to “let go” … hanging on takes as much courage as letting go…
We must hang on to our faith, to our God, to our love for family, friends and country. We have to be prepared to let go of our children when they grow up, so they can grow up. We have to let go of past prejudices and of any harm done to us, deliberately or unintentionally. Well, I made the wrong choices many times and the falls were not too severe nor the hanging on too calamitous. I like to think that the wrong choices helped me make right ones and the experiences caused by those wrong choices were meaningful lessons.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “We all create the person we become by our choices as we go through life. In a real sense, by the time we are adults, we are the sum total of the choices we have made.”
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The day I became a Mother is the day I started to live the life that I dreamed of. It was the calling that my soul had yearned and longed for. My children have grounded me and given me a depth and dimension of life that is at the very cellular level of my being. They are the greatest treasure of my life and the children of my heart: ) Without them I shudder to think of what would have become of me. To My Beautiful and Most Precious Daughters: ) Rebecca
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