YOU

So, I am writing this FOR YOU...I know you need this.

"The way you start is the way you will finish." (regarding this NEW YEAR)

CHALLENGE: Search your entire being and figure out just what is holding you back. Start out this year with positive thinking, a mental overhaul, career liveliness, an attitude of gratitude and your heart wide open. Remember Newton's first law of motion (the law of inertia) and be sure to set your intention.


BLOG NOTE:I thought I would start out my new year with an impacting message which moved me. I was given these words this morning by a very special person with whom I am honored to have the acquaintance of knowing. This individual has such wise idioms, and offers them freely by just being authentic. The ability to softly whisper to some one's soul, giving out blessings one by one to all those who you come in contact with. What a rewarding, and perhaps sometimes difficult gift to bare.

I just love it when individuals authentically give of themselves, with out trying to "be" anything. Those people are able to speak specifically to my soul, I admire this quality greatly and strive for this sort of transparency. At the same time I am overwhelmed with gratitude for those "soul secrets" and I feel inclined to share my newly found "words of wisdom". I hope you enjoyed this little tidbit I found inspiring to the start of this FANTASTIC YEAR!!!!

BEAUTIFUL

Every time you view your reflection, I pray these things for you:

You realize you are a beautiful, intelligent, talented woman with no limits.

We consistently place boundaries on our own destiny unconsciously. My CHALLENGE to you is to set your sights on a goal that doesn't even seem attainable. By doing this for yourself, you will find that eventually you will succeed beyond that vision, simply by reaching.

As you start to develop and actualize the goal, your reflection will suddenly be a reminder of the mountains you've climbed, the dreams you've accomplished and the vision of a journey yet to come. That is when your true beauty will illuminate.

WHEN you accept yourself, suddenly the word BEAUTIFUL barely graces the surface of what you have become.

Move by FAITH

A child - hers a loud noise. She clings tightly to her mother because she knows where her safety presides.

You are an individual who cannot swim, so you put on a life jacket. You now have absolutely no fear about plummeting into the deep dark ocean.

You grab a bottle of water that says purified. Ah so refreshing.

You don't feel very well so you visit your local doctor. The diagnosis is irrelevant, but given the certificate on the wall and the recently prescribed medication you know that your ailment will cease.

Although you may not realize, you are constantly moving by faith. The child has faith that her mother will protect her. The non-swimmer has faith that the life jacket will prevail in the battle against the waves. The sick patient just knows the doctor will know what to do. Faith is how we operate - on a day to day basis. Mostly with out question. We are able to rely on what we find to be true, or proven. We see a certificate on the wall or a note that says purified and it is accepted as fact. So my question is this: Why do we have such a hard time putting our faith in God?

I must say this is a daily struggle for me as well. However I know this message is not just for me. I know that each day I am able to put my faith in material things, unreliable earthly things, and yet I still struggle with the simple idea of placing all my faith in God. I definitely have FAITH. I just know that I need to build it up to another level. A level which I can't even imagine at this point in my life. I need to know without a shadow of a doubt that all things are relative to God and he will carve out my path. I just have to have FAITH. ALL FAITH IN HIM. Nothing else. MY faith must be unrelenting, determined, steadfast and strong. This is the only way to help others in their quest for the same peace which comes with PURE FAITH.

So if this is a struggle for you to I leave you with this prayer:

Dear God,
Please help me to learn the FAITH which will leave me with no questions about leaning entirely on you. For you are my Rock, my life and the true path which I know I can follow. I just need extra strength today to be steady in my PURE FAITH for you.
In your name I pray! Amen!

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

AMAZING DAY

I just had an amazing day - I can't tell you why exactly. Wait, yes I can. It is so interesting. I find that at times I am so oblivious to what goes on around me that I forget to do the little things that mean so much. It isn't because I don't want to (well sometimes it is), or because I can't, but mostly because I am busy with other aspects of life which cause me to miss these little things.

Today I had a day filled with family. It started with going to my grandma's for just regular visiting and watching my mom creatively paint a nest on a sideboard for my grandmother. Then a surprise visit from the neighbor down the street who turned into being just a blessing herself! As we sat laughing, joking and rolling on the floor about virtually anything that came up I suddenly found myself volunteering for a BUNKO game. So crazy, but I did. In the interim, mom and I ran over to my nephews' baseball game.

Now when I say RAN, please take me literally. Note nephews' is plural, I have two nephews and they played their games at precisely the same time, luckily in the same general vicinity. An hour and fifteen minutes of rooting for my favorite two tots (well one of them is hardly a tot any more), on TWO FIELDS. You can bet that I didn't want either of them to feel like I missed anything, so I went back and forth to make sure they knew I was watching and supporting them. Okay perhaps it was a little overkill, but I don't know how to do anything halfway. Oh and bleacher fans, you can stop looking at me now, don't be jealous that I am related to two all-stars. I am fine running back and forth, I live out of breath.


Then it was back to my grandmother's for the trek out to BUNKO. A precious ride with three characters that could have given the golden girls a run for there money. Then you had my mother and I attempting to decipher the conversation in between random bursts of laughter. So, BUNKO arrived. I can't say I did much damage but I was able to throw down the most BUNKOS which landed me a PUMPKIN CANDLE. Back off it is mine! :)

What made this day so great? I have to say that everyone I spent time with was so excited to have me around them, but what they didn't realize was that they were the blessings to me! It was selfish for me to steal there time like that - I received so much joy from today I can't even express it! Thank you mom for convincing me to head to Stafford for a day of FAMILY bonding that turned into a marathon of BLESSINGS!! I appreciate YOU - MY FAMILY, and everyone around me for being such major blessings in my life! I honestly do not know what I WOULD DO WITH OUT YOU!!! :)

PRESUMPTIONS

My lesson this week lies mostly in presumptions. For some reason this word has been on the tip of my tongue. At many times in my own life I have found myself jumping to conclusions, or presuming something to be true when in actuality I have found an extreme difference once the results were in. It is hard, we have been taught to be smart, to learn from our experiences, or to make sure and get to the finish line first. I believe this why we are so quick to make these presumptions. Sometimes they are NECESSARY, my challenge to you, is to be discriminatory in your reproach. Make sure you don't get into a RUT of always making PRESUMPTIONS. You just might miss out.

Just some recent observations in this category: What is your first thought when I say the words in BOLD?

HOMELESS:
I was recently in Midtown Houston - where I was walking into a business appointment. Dressed in my suit and giddily working my way to the office building I found myself being screamed at by someone on the street. A woman, clearly homeless, very angry, directing this towards me - with spit, vile words and awful gestures. I immediately assumed her to be mentally disturbed, and perhaps she was. However, I was enlightened with the knowledge of a credence which just "relocated" these homeless individuals from the main downtown area to midtown - I am still trying to figure out how they are deciphering who is a bum and who isn't (if just by looks, WOW). Her anger was not really directed at me, but probably at the individuals who were so hostile with her just hours or days or months or years earlier. We can only do what we are taught. All I could think about was how can I help this woman? (I know this one is touchy)

STUTTERING:
It happens in instances - one assumes that an individual who has a speech impairment has difficulty communicating. This may your initial knee jerk reaction, but those that seek a deeper understanding may realize that this individual communicates more KNOWLEDGE than most given their simple experience. Think about it, if I had a speech impairment, I have probably been through a lot in my lifetime, I have SO MUCH TO SHARE. In actually, this barrier may only be the devils ploy to keep you from the astonishing truth.

BEAUTIFUL WOMEN:
I have decided beautiful women feel invisible. You are so dazzled by their exterior that you forget to know their heart. It is a natural human need to feel heard and be seen beyond what lies on your exterior. No one should assume a beautiful woman's life is easy simply because she has that on her side. In fact, I believe it creates more challenges when it comes to credibility - you have to work even harder just to prove that you haven't floated on your looks.

WEALTH:
Rich people often feel very alone. It is assumed that they have it all - money solves everything. Unfortunately, money can't by happiness. We have all heard this before, now why can't we just let it sink in...

Just thought I would jot a few thoughts down for the week while they were fresh on my mind. I hope this helps us all to take a second look, or look at something from an other's shoes. They just might not fit as well as you think.

GOD BLESS!

Tired

So I woke up this morning feeling tired. I know what you all are thinking, don't we all wake up tired? Well - not in the literal sense. I woke up emotional and mentally tired. Not from all the work I have been doing lately or all the information that I have been cramming into my brain (which continues to astonish me given the capacity for knowledge). Nope none of these elements were the culprit, I felt TIRED of GIVING so MUCH

I feel ashamed to even admit that I feel this way but it is what it is. I always try to be positive, make jokes, lift others up, look on the bright side - and then I have these random days when I wake up, TIRED. It is not that I want to always be positive, I find this is my fulfilling need in life and usually comes naturally - to be sure and have an essentially joyful impact. Infact it is probably very selfish because I gain so much from giving! I just sometimes hit a WALL when I WAKE up feeling TIRED.

I haven't found a medicinal cure yet which helps me combat these dreary days and I am still searching for clues as to why I have them in the first place. I consistently think about the fact that God never gets TIRED of forgiving me, or TIRED of loving me, or TIRED of blessing me but still I have trouble. I get TIRED of always being the one to make the joke, smile first, or look on the bright side.

Then I realized this morning, sometimes I just want someone to be my smile, my joke or be my positive impact, perhaps this is what I crave. So it just brings me back full circle - I better continue with my positive ways despite my inclination to have "woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning". I know someone else MUST feel TIRED to, and I can only hope to be their SMILE, JOKE or LIGHT for the day.

Today

For some reason I have been having quotes pop up in my head in the last few minutes, perhaps they are relative - or for someone out there:

Take each day moment by moment, step by step, breath by breath and know that with each new moment you are given another opportunity to change.

Have you ever wondered why you are able to find certain flaws in others over and over? Take a look at yourself - you may find some similarities...

Take a chance at life, it constantly takes chances on you.

I am consistently inconsistent.

Let yourself be changed - stop guarding your flaws.

God really wants to help, you just have to stop getting in the way.

If we would stop covering our eyes to reality, we might be able to engage our ears to the truth.

Forgive and forget (I have a really hard time with this).

Sometimes things do not happen to you for your sake, but for those around you. It is your job to be the pillar of strength throughout the trial. I need this from you. Don't let me down. - GOD

You are affecting people and you don't even know it - for goodness sake make it positive.

You never know what some one's day, year or life has been like. Try to be the positive memory, despite the energy you get back.

Okay I am done ranting for now....