Angel Rays

While working with my client, there have been times when she has pointed out the sun rays and said "look angel rays" I wasn't too sure what she was talking about until she told me. In her mind, the rays of the sun are how angels come to earth. They travel through the sun's beams. It is an interesting thought to have. We all know angels walk this earth even if we cannot see them, but we know they are there. Have we ever thought of how they get from Heaven to earth, but then sun beams are one explanation. It is this kind of innocent thinking that I think allows people to understand and accept the presence of not only angels, but also God a lot more than people who like to analyze things more. When you are innocent as a child, you are quick to believe in anything no matter if you can see it or not; why does that have to change when we get older?

I mean was there a time when you laid on the grass and spent hours looking at the clouds coming up with shapes they looked like? Have you done that since being a child? Why not go outside on a nice sunny day and trying it. Seeing God in the things around you has somewhat of the same concept. We should look at things and say "hey look God is there." or "God is here." We should have childlike innocence to think of sun beams as a way for angels to come to earth. Or that a cloud looks like a bunny rabbit. We can look at something and say "God's hand made that" and not think twice about it the way we did when we were younger.

Relaxing

Yesterday was my 27th birthday and honestly I didnot feel like I turned 27. I feel so much more younger than that. I spent my day laying out beside our pool and read a book. I finally finished a book within one day, and can move on to the other books that I have sitting on my desk. I enjoyed my day of complete rest and relaxation. It is what i needed, a day in the glory of God. I admit that I didn't spend my day praying or reading the Bible, but I was in the presence of God all day. I felt it all around.

Sometimes I think we are too wrapped up in our daily lives that we don't stop to rest and relax properly and enjoy a nice sunny day the way God intended it to be enjoyed. When we do try to stop and smell the roses thoughts of work, things we need to do, bills and other things pile into our heads and we get distracted. We never just stop and not do anything for a long period of time...especially for an entire day. When we allow our daily worries to interrupt our rest and relaxation, I don't think we realy rest and it begins to wain on us; to take a toll on us. We need to take time to stop and do nothing think of nothing and sit and read a good book, write a story, walk the dog or whatever else we can think of to just relax and not do anything.

I think a lot of the time when we finally stop and relax and not let anything get in the way, we really feel God's presence the most. We feel his arms around us, hear his voice on the wind. Resting and actually relaxing allows us to be more suseptible to God.

The Alchemist

I just finished reading this really good book "The Alchemist" by Paolo Coelho. A dear friend Terry suggested it to me, so I thought why not and started reading it. It talks about wisdom. Somewhat in a spiritual sense but at the same time not really. I know real descriptive right. Anyway like I said i just finished it. There are so many things I could say about it but not enough time and space haha. Anyway at one point the main character goes to an oasis on his journey to find his Personal Legend, to find out what his purpose in life is. Kind of like how we are on a journey to find out what God's will for our lives are. At the end of my copy of the book there are different questions about the novel and about yourself which I am kinda talking about with Terry at the moment.

One of the questions is really interesting and has me really thinking...have there been times in your life when you felt resistant to living out your personal legend? has there been times in your life when you felt resistant to living out God's will? I think at some point in all of our lives we all have been resistant to living out God's will or our Personal Legends as Coelho states. I look back on the things in my life and wonder it all had to be a part of Gods will or leading up to his will or else why would it have happened? Why would I have been diagnosed with cancer? Why did I have to spend 6 months through chemotherapy, lost my hair, lost a part of myself; yet when I was finally told I was cancer free I was a new person. So that I could fulfill my Personal Legend better? Did I go through hardship just so that I could serve God's will for my life easier/better?

I think there are times throughout our lives when we are resistant to God's will for our lives. Do we resist to the point that there are times when we do not fulfill our "personal legend"? Why would we resist GOd's will? Why would we want to resist what is supposed to happen in our lives? or to achieve our goals? A lot of the times we allow fear to enter our hearts, we think we made it to one point and cant get farther, and other excuses. With God anything is possible and we can achieve anything. I think we can achieve everything God has planned, but we need to be willing to allow it to happen. We can't resist things anymore.

Easier said than done, I know.

Learning

I am in the process of reading a book called "The Alchemist" by Paolo Coelho. It is focused on wisdom and listening to the "language of the world" which could mean a multitude of things, but Coelho uses religion as parts of his examples: Allah, God, and listening to the God. He says things about looking at the future, fear and learning. What I am going talk about learning. He says "Everything you need to know you learn through the journey." We can read all the books we can get our hands on, we can pray all we want, we can attend seminar after senimar, but the best way to learn anything in life is to learn from our own journey through life. We learn from our mistakes as well as our success.

Many times we ask God for guidance and to help us understand things in life. Many people don't think he answers those prayers in different ways mostly through the things that happen in our lives. We learn God's answers and wisdom through our mistakes and success in different aspects of life. We learn God's little lessons by simply living life the way he expected us to which includes making mistakes through our growing process. We need to pay attention to what God could be trying to tell us through pretty much everything that is happening in our lives. For example: I am learning patience and compassion through my job.

God teaches us things on a daily basis and I don't think we can learn those things from books, seminars, television or wherever else people get their learning. We learn from our journey, we learn from our walk with God, our daily battles whether we win or lose, we still learn something from the journey....learning from the path to hope.

God's Beauty

Last night there was supposed to be a meteor shower, but the moon was too bright and I am too close to city lights to have been able to see it. I tried for about an hour to see the wonder of nature, the wonder God created. While I didn't get to see the meteor shower, a dear friend send me some pictures he took from overseas. The picture above is just one of them. In that picture I see the wonder that is God. Everyone wants to put God in this box and not see the work that he does. Or when something happens it is refered to as an act of nature not an act of God. I believe Billy told me the picture above is from a volcano erupting.

God has wonderous powers and is active all around. Too many people think God is dead and isn't active anymore. But he is more than alive an well. I think a lot of the time we are too busy with our own lives to think about the bigger things in life. We want to focus on all the small things that we think are important to see the world in the grander scheme of things...seeing things from the viewpoint of God. I love seeing things like the pictures my friend sent me. It helps keep me grounded and focus on what is truely important in life. God is alive and working up a storm, we just need to actually open our eyes and pay attention to what is around us.

God's Blessings

Last night there was a free concert at a local park. Aaron Shust is an amazing musician who has a talent I wish I had. The Bible talks about using your talents to spread the word. Using what God gave you for God so to speak. I use my talent for writing to write blogs, articles, even a book (even if there are times when it feels like I am not succeeding) to help further the kingdom of God.

As I sat listening to the words of Aaron, I thought about my walk with God and there are things I wish I could change. There are things in my life that needs to be changed, I am not perfect nor would I ever claim to be. I know there are things that I can do to better my walk with God, I mean we all have things that could be changed in our lives and things we could do more of. I could pray more and read my Bible more. Sometimes it is hard to notice all of God's blessings when we are thinking about the things in our lives that could be changed. I think too often we focus on the bad things about our relationship with God, and what I mean if I think we focus too much on what needs to change other than what our strengths are with our walk with God.

I sit here saying I know there are things that need to change in my walk with God, but what about the things that don't need to change? What about the things that make people see God in my life? Surely I am not doing everything wrong and have some things in life that are making a difference. I think the compassion I have is one thing that makes a difference in my walk with God, that I try to see things through his eyes. God blesses us through so many different things and in many different ways. He blessed the Mon-Valley area with a wonderful free concert by Aaron Shust and Beyond The Ashes. They spoke to many people, many teens, within 2 hours or so. Take a look around and instead of thinking what needs to change with your walk with God, look at the blessings he has given you.

Living Each Day

I have this magnet on my dry erase board that has a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. I am not sure where the quote is from but it says a lot to me. I seen it at Barnes and Noble and decided I needed to have it where I could see it every day. Emerson says:

finish each day and be done with it. you have done what you could. some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. tomorrow is a new day, you shall being it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

I am not sure what that says to you all, but it says a lot to me. Emerson is saying to not let the little mistakes each day get the best of you. That once you finish the day let everything that happened that day be done and start tomorrow as a new day. My cousin Stephanie just graduated high school and I think she lives this quote even if she doesnt know it. She takes things in life as they come and if something bad happens one day, she deals with it then, but come tomorrow she forgets about it. She doesn't let the trials life throws at her get her down and goes on with life. I wish I could be more like her.

Too often we let lifes trials and get us down. We always let things bog us down and effect the way we live our lives and how we react to different things. Tomorrow is a new day; there will be more things happening throughout the day that will be hard to deal with, but we should turn to God for strength when it seems too hard, then when the day is over give it all to God and start the next day anew. That may make things easier to deal with if we let the small things go, maybe the big things won't seem so big after all....just a thought.

Villages

I wasn't sure what to title this one. I am sure you have heard the saying "it takes a village to raise a child." When I think of villages in Biblical times I can see everyone taking care of the children. I can see mothers shepherding children around teaching them stories handed down, or teaching them cooking techniques while other mothers clean house or something. I just find it easy to imagine many people putting in the effort to make sure the children of the village survive and grow up healthy. Many times we do that within our own communities especially in our churches. When I think of my church there are a few young children, and we all keep an eye out for them. When one cries and the parents aren't around there is someone there to soothe the child or stop them from doing something that could be harmful. Importantly we all help teach the children the importance of God and relying on him.

One day during camp I sat with some of the kids and was talking with them. Some were telling me about what they thought about God and one little girl was telling me that she can feel God with her. To me that was something most adults can't even say. At camp I was amazed at how the senior campers acted around the younger kids. They were all there to keep an eye on them and keep them out of trouble. When asked who would help keep an eye on the kids at the lake many of the senior campers said they would; they jumped at the chance. Others sat and talked to the campers listening to them as they rambled on and on. I think many times when we want to see the innocence of God we need to look at young children.

I got off track sort of. It takes more than just parents to raise children. I think it helps to have more people watching out for kids. I know growing up my mom had friends who helped her keep an eye on us as well as disciplining us. I think many times that's how it should be and how God intended it to be. I think he intended for a whole village to help raise children and help guide them in the ways of being a good Christian. Children require a lot of care and guidance and working together as a "village" helps raise them in the right direction. Even now as a 26 year old woman, I enjoy having my church family, who might as well be called my family. I consider many women to be like my mother, many men to be like my father and the youth like my brothers and sisters because we all are. We all are a family who have the same father: Christ. He gave us life and sure the young children like Maddie in the the first picture or Justice in the one of me aren't mine, but I still consider them my kids because I help keep an eye on them. I try to help give them guidance the way a family member would.

The Bible puts a lot of emphasis on children and their innocence, then culture puts a lot of emphasis on the children being the future. So if they are the future shouldn't everyone pitch in to help raise them and teach them what it means to be a good Christian?

Dealing With Things

While working with my client I have learned that we all deal with the trauma in life differently. Sometimes we hold on to things for years and the pain that happened at one point in our lives continues to hurt us in the future. We often let our pains fester and try to push them aside and not deal with them. I have learned while working with my client that I have simply pushed my pains aside and not dealt with them properly. While it is hard to deal with them when something happens, it is even harder to deal with the pain and heartache years down the line.

God puts trials and tribulations in our lives for a reason. Sometimes we learn from them other times we are able to use that hurt to help someone else. It is hard to deal with the pain, heartache and other feelings associated with different trials on our own, which is why we have a merciful God. He is always there when we need him. I think too often we feel like Jeremiah did. In Jeremiah 15:18 he says "Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you surely be to me like an unreliable stream as waters that fail?" We allow our pains be perpetual sometimes, other times while we deal with it it still seems to come up and overcome our efforts. That is when we need to rely on God the most. We need to turn to him and as Him for help and strength. God is there to lift us up when our trials and tribulations have us down; He is there when things seem to be too much.

Too often things get to be too much for us and we need the help of therapists and psychologists. I admit I am seeing one to help me through my heartache and there is nothing wrong with it. While he is helping through it, he cannot give me the spiritual help that I need and can only get from someone like my pastor. Sometimes we need to do things that changes aspects of our lives to help us deal with things in life. Prayer is important and I know I need more of it in my life. God is there to help us, help me, deal with the heartache that I have been holding on to. Now I am ready to let it go, I want to get rid of the pain that I feel daily and replace it with joy that only God can give.

Are you ready to let it go and give it to God?