Live

Today there are many people around the world looking off into the distance at the year to come. 
Some have only ever known slavery and despair, and still a flicker of hope remains deep within, a hunger for freedom drives them to live.
Others wake hungry, have always been hungry and still fight their way through their 24 hour day for the tiniest of scraps to feed themselves and their family.
There are those who scavenge to satisfy thirst and barter their life's blood for water that brings with it diseases and parasites and still they labor.
Some have woken in a drunken stupor this morning, another day stretching ahead, another day to fight the demon trying to destroy them, another 24 hours to wage a war they have no hope of winning on their own.
Loss and death has sucked the very oxygen out of the air around others, and they can't seem to breathe.
Precious lives have been stolen and interred in the ground all over the world this year.
Minds have sunk deeper into the mist of addiction, conditions, dementia.
Depression has wrapped it's chains around millions, immobilizing and dragging them deeper into the mire.

There are thousands who won't see the New Year dawn.

My day has begun, the last of 2011. I have a coffee in hand and a heart full and spilling over.
I can't remember the last time I experienced such a sense of resolve on the last day of the year.

I am not a resolution girl.

I picked up Blake Mycoskie's book: Start Something That Matters yesterday from the library.
Great timing.

I am going to see the movie The Way ( Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez) today at the cheap theater with my guys.

There is a quote in the movie trailer that just reached out and grabbed me by the throat:

" You don't choose a life, you live it."

Seriously stopped me in my tracks.
Sometimes  it feels like all there are ..are choices, and more choices.

I realized again...that life is never on hold.
If all I see is choices I have lost the sheer joy of living.

I am NOT trusting...simply trusting that God in all his powerful wisdom is able to lead and guide and miracle of miracles...preserve me. I lose my wonder and the ability to live my life with the abandonment of a child.

Pain has been a constant presence for going on 2 years now.
What a teacher pain is....if you let it.
It can also be an evil enemy of massive proportions...if you let it.

This year I began to accept the truth that wisdom is found only on the far side of pain.

I started my post today with a walk around the world onto the landscapes stretching out before some of the other precious souls on the planet.

Take some time today to reflect on the year behind you and some time to anticipate your life ahead, then take some minutes and stand before the One who gave you the very breath in your nostrils and lift up those who need a miracle and have no voice to even cry out, and no knowledge of the one who purposed them.

Pray for those who curse the day of their birth and are at risk, seemingly held fast in the grip of the stealer and devourer.

We live on the same planet spinning into another year. We walk together by design.

Live...because that is the gift He has given you.
Live from the center of His perspective, today and all the days ahead, for the sheer joy of it!

We don't have a year...we have today...

Live.

This Second and the One After That

Ok.
I confess.
I took our Christmas Tree down on Boxing Day.
It was out the back door by 9:11 am MST and I was thoroughly enjoying my coffee and Bailey's on the couch by 9:12.

So shoot me.

The week between Christmas and New Years is one of my favorite times of the year.

I get to reflect and anticipate simultaneously.

It is a wonderful thing, these seven days at the end of December.

My bedroom is a disaster around me as I type: in the process of being organized and moved around.

Change is good.

A new calendar (home made by moi) hangs on the wall behind my desk: proclaiming January 2012.

OMGosh !!!

Eighty-sixing this past year is going to be a joy.
Deep sixing the mistakes, days of despair, nights drenched in fear and loathing will be a pleasure.

2011 will never be forgotten. The paths traveled, decisions made and lessons learned are indelibly imprinted deep within my psyche. (I can't remember signing up for some of those classes)

The year ahead waits with bated breath to begin. The path is unmarked. The silence soothes my soul.

The canvas is stretched, white and waiting.
The color palate rich and vast.

Life becomes more infinitely precious with each passing year.

Minutes and seconds are gold... my life is measured within them.

Begin.
Again.
Start.
Anew.

NOW

In the next second or minute a life changes irrevocably. A corner is turned, a door shut..or opened.
One step after the other, one choice leading to another...that is what creates the story of a life.

Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. Months.Years.

As this week passes, and the year with it, celebrate your starts as much as your successes.
Leave your failures in the dust and carry with you only the priceless lessons learned.

The next second is yours to live....and the next after that.
The year will follow....as it always does.

Blessings from my heart to yours....

Giving What You Need the Most

Did you ever think, right in the middle of your greatest need,that you can still give?
Have you ever considered that life is not about getting what you want?
Might you discover that going blind is just what you need to really see?

It's when you feel the most empty that your capacity to give becomes infinite.

When your ego finally collapses, starved from the inside out, then and only then will your true hunger be satisfied and your true satisfaction be multiplied and spill over.

When you look at the world in front of you as a vessel to be filled not consumed.
When transparency is valued more than knowledge and meekness is celebrated simply because what's left at the end of ourselves is HIS power alone.
When you understand that  real life comes after dying, never before.

Then will we understand that the only lasting gift is the LOVE God gave.....returned.

We have one life to give, one existence to surrender, to pour out and empty so we can understand true filling.
When we surrender all our human definitions and rest in our unknowing..trusting like a child..redefined.

This then is what he means when he says..HE makes all things new.

The laying down of a life is done is seconds and minutes thoughout a whole life span.
Life is a long drawn out dying. The joy is set before us and is encapsulated in trust.

In God we trust.

I want to know NOTHING: but Christ and Him crucified.
I am understanding that I can bring nothing to my Father but the sacrifice of his son...beautiful...and sufficient.

NOTHING else. I have nothing else to offer him.
No greatness, no gifting.
This life will not be buried, it will be lifted up, carried before me with his blood covering me.
It is HIS sacrifice that explains me and makes me acceptable.

We are asking for love and identity from the wrong people.
Everybody is wrong people.
We are demanding the thing we can never acquire or hold onto.
We feed from those we see and relate to instead of turning to the ONE who offers all and requires all in return.

It is much easier to turn to our family, our loved ones, our friends and say:
Love me. Hear me.Understand me.Validate me. Save me.

When we reach into the treasure chamber of God for what we need we can then begin to offer to the broken people around us ( and we are ALL broken) the very thing we lack. 

This is where we are supposed to dwell. This is the only place we can truly thrive

Only what is of God will remain.
The love of the world, the love centered in our relationships, dripping with expectations, will never make it through.

Thanks be to God...who ALWAYS causes us to triumph..through Christ alone. (2Cor 2:14)

He withholds no good thing.

Freely you have received...freely give. ( Matthew 10:8)

You can afford to be generous.... even in your own state of desperate need.

Love. Unconditional

You will usually find me here on any given day pouring my heart out and sharing my life lessons.

Today I bring you an offering from a book I recently read.

The words of the author are powerful and transforming if you let them sink deep within your soul.

The message is universal, straight from the heart of God.

After you read this excerpt I recommend that you read Colossians 1:15-20 .

Let the truth of WHO Jesus is and how deeply he loved us all,  make this Christmas truly a time of worship, adoration and love.

 The Book of 7 Truths: A Tale of Hope and Restoration by Calvin Miller

" This child needed me, and I had to confess that while her need of me would do her very little good, her need of God was all that really mattered. Then I understood what drove my father to love these people whose religions or prejudices would never permit them to say that they loved Christ. Now, at last, I knew the incredible nature of the unconditional love of God. Now I understood why Jesus could look out from the cross and bless his killers. It didn't matter whether they loved Jesus. He loved them, and his love would save them if they trusted it. That's how the saving unconditional love of God is. It is there.It will not go away simply because the needy reject it or rage against it. I had come in one grand moment to understand my father. I believed in love for the sake of love. I believed in love not because it was an alternative to hate. Love has no alternatives. Love is all there is. So I loved that little girl-- that dying little girl. It didn't matter that she did not agree with me philosophically. I wanted to save her because saving her was the thing that love did for all who could not save themselves.
In the deep brown eyes of that dying child I learned the greatest truth of God. It is not a truth the world can do without. Love is the only truth of God that matters. Love is the occupation of God, his sole employment. God is holding the whole human race in his arms, as I held that little girl in mine. There is no use asking if the human race matters. To see anyone dying is to know that dying is wrong. If love can stop the dying or even postpone it, then our sole occupation is to love. To choose to love is to take up the occupation of God. To love like God is to take prejudices and hatreds and hold them in your hands and confess that they are of no consequence. Only love counts. Every other emotion is too small to matter.
Love lives. Now and forever....love. You cannot serve people nor save them without loving them..."

I am still learning daily how great the Father's love is for me...and if it is for me, it is for ALL.

This is the Christmas Season....only love counts.

Consider yourselves loved,

Memories of Love: Gingerbread Down Home

Most of you know by now that I am an East Coast Girl.
I grew up for the most part down home in Lochaber, Nova Scotia.

Some of my earliest memories are of visiting my Great Grandmother, fondly called Gang-Gang, on her farm on the west side of Lochiel Lake.

She is the one who taught me to bake biscuits in the old panty, cutting the round with an old soup can.
In the summer we waved rhubarb fans and dipped the ends in bowls of sugar after many trips down the hill drawing fresh water from the Spring.

Hours were spent jumping from the rafters of the old barn into sweet smelling hay.
We blew circles in the frost on the windows in the autumn and watched the deer graze on the crab apples that had fallen beneath the trees after picking.

As I recall those days and years...gratitude fills my soul and overflows in tears.

And then there is the Gingerbread.

I pass on this recipe with as much love as is humanly possible.

This is NOT a fat free recipe. There is NO way to make it sugar free. 
( who would want to ?????)

This is down home. This is my Gang-Gang.
I hope that as you make this gingerbread, you give a thought and a care to a special lady who I look forward to seeing in heaven some day.
Mother to my maternal grandfather, sister to beloved aunts and uncles...Gang-Gang to the rest of us who were privileged to know her and share time with her while she walked this earth.

These are my memories.This is my tribute.

Gang-Gang's Gingerbread

Pre-heat oven to 350
Line an 8x8 pan with waxed paper/ parchment paper ( or brown paper bag for old times sake)
1/2 c molasses
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c hot water
mix and add 1 large egg
Dry:
1 1/2 c flour
1tsp ginger, cinamon, baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
pinch nutmeg

Stir dry into wet ( do NOT beat)
Mix in 7 tablespoons cooking oil 
Pour into pan
Bake: 35-40 min till edges start to pull from sides and top bounces back when you touch with finger tip.

 Serve with hot lemon sauce or whip cream and a large dose of LOVE!

I am linking up with my dear friend Shawntele for her Sweets n Treat Recipe Swap.Stop by and check it out over the whole month of December. I'll be adding some more memories and recipes as the weeks go by.





Merry Christmas All!
Share the Love and leave a blessing wherever you go...

Right Here, Right Now

Much of our time is spent looking back over our shoulders at where we've been.

Our perspective of where we are at is taken from that frame of reference.

Significantly, a large amount of the time we have left over from looking back is spent looking forward to where we want to go.

Anticipating, planning and executing  those plans takes up a lot of time.

The challenge of BEING is before me today: no backward glances or peering round the corner ahead.

Today I am going to rest in presence....

Right here, right now.

Will you join me?

"For in him we live and move 

and have our being."

~Acts 17:28A