Once upon a time, I had a friend who called me her sister. She gave me the name of Nakila. Lot’s of stuff happened between us, she stopped talking to me, and try as I might I couldn’t get her to change her mind. So I finally, I laid it to rest. I gave up. I put the past in it’s place firmly behind me and moved on. Honestly, I was glad to have it behind me.

Today I walked out to the mailbox and saw laying inside something chillingly familiar. A folded bit of parchment, aged and singed on the edges, sealed with silver wax. No address, no markings on the outside. The breeze blew it down the road a bit, and when I finally caught it, I saw the symbol in the wax was a little half moon with a dot beside it. A symbol we created that represented her.

Inside, it just said “Nakila.” in that handwriting I knew so well, and had an email address.
I tried for ages to get her to talk to me, to no avail. Now she comes by my house and puts a note in my mailbox while I am home.

I honestly don’t know how to feel. It didn’t make me happy or sad or excited or scared. It just made me tired. I don’t want to reopen a wound that’s finally been healed over. But long ago I made a promise to her. I told her that to matter how long it took, no matter what happened, if she ever decided I was worth her time again, I would always be here.

I honestly don’t want to keep that promise. But I will. I’m going to give it a day or so and then send her a message. But right now, I just have too much on my plate.

Maybe she’s found this blog. Maybe she’s reading this now. I don’t know. All I know is that my main goal right now in life is to fall more in love with Jesus, learn to be a better servant, and be around Godly people who can’t help me do that. I hope that her desires are similar.

~TQG

There is, supposedly, only one me. If you grab my arm I would say “let go of me, that’s my arm“. If you ask what’s inside my head, I say my mind. So if there is only one me, then my mind, body, and soul must all be one too. Thus, whatever or whoever I identify myself with, the ME inside this body, must be this body. My thumb then holds as much character and energy as the inside of my head or the centre of my chest does. If I were to cut off my thumb, would it be just a slab of cells? Or would all that is me, tangible and intangible, remain within?

Why have we been raised with this unconscious separation of what we are and who we are? This is why I have always believed my body is just a vessel, but up until now I have never questioned it…

It’s hard to explain how I feel about who I am. My previous post describes a separation, where this post describes a unity. Please don’t be confused, whoever I am (one soul or a thousand) will still remain within this body, but this post merely questions of the connection of my mind and soul(s) with my physical being. My previous thoughts remain the same, however I don’t feel as disconnected from this bulk of two eyed, four limbed  matter.

Dance With Heart

I’m so busy trying to get to the finish line – perfectly – (forgive the mixed metaphor) that I have so overlooked just why I move in the first place. It’s all about the heART. Always. No other reson. Grateful for the reminder.

Here’s to another day of creativity…

it would be to

It is the single most important lesson I have learned in this life.

Let go …

of anger …

pain …

judgments of others …

the need to be right …

the need to control …

the need to feel superior …

the need to be loved …

clinging …

expectations of any kind …

stress …

anxiety …

worry ….

doubt …

blame …

sadness …

fear …

guilt …

For it is in letting go, that a beautiful thing emerges …

That beautiful thing is …

YOU.

Let go

and

be you.

Your true essence is love.

Be YOU.

Be LOVE.

The rest will take care of itself.

Kristen Zielenbach is dedicated to sharing lessons of the simplicity of life. To hear more, follow her on Twitter …

www.twitter.com/stresslessmedi

-Rachel Held Evans

This quote has driven my past week. It’s been a whirlwind. I will spare you all the gruesome details of my latest existential crisis.* But it boils down to this: I’m beginning to live engaged.

For me, my tendency to “check out” comes from a place of feeling unworthy. That’s a topic complex enough for another blog entry at another time but for some reason I internalized that because I was a seriously messed-up female who just wanted to twist Scripture for her own needs, I had no right to question and challenge what people around me were saying. They were infinitely smarter, had done more research, and their refutations of my arguments always left me in tears. Who was I? I was nobody. My feelings and thoughts were always so simple and underdeveloped that they had to be wrong or tainted in some concrete way. So I leaned on everyone around me. I trusted everyone else to have the right answers because I was incapable of them on my own. People disagreed (often,) but I ceded to who I personally liked more or felt more “good vibes” from.

The quote above is from an old blog post of Rachel’s called “The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart” where she describes her dissatisfaction with the evangelical tendency to nonchalantly gloss over Scripture passages that are emotionally difficult. Genocide, war, rape- all these thing in the Bible that Christians don’t bat an eye over because “it’s for God’s glory.” Her blog is meant to complement an article called “The Deeper Scandal of the Evangelical Mind- We Are Not Allowed to Use It” by Peter Enns (which is a response to a book by Mark Noll.) Enn’s article explains the evangelical tendency to gloss over difficult questions of reason and understanding because the action implies a person is doubting God or Scripture, which is the antithesis of faith. So you see, along the thought processes of insecure evangelicalism, the head and the heart must be stiffened and limited or else we might succumb to false theologies or sympathies.

I didn’t realize I did this until I read these posts. And they gave me a deep sense of what’s wrong with me spiritually.

How Christianity shifted from a place of philosophic and emotional wonder to a place of total repression of self for the sake of right answers is beyond me. All I know is that this is not sustaining. It creates a discord in the soul, a stoic nod toward sanctioned events (i.e., the Flood, which wiped out 99% of the population) while seeing your own conflicts as infinitely more valid (i.e., losing a loved one.) I’m not trying to make light of the latter. I’m just saying we have to acknowledge that God is emotional, and has always been, and our emotional responses and deep pain for things like this are somehow reflective of his pain for humanity as a whole. The fact that the Flood bothers me a little bit? That’s okay. That’s normal. That’s where God’s trying to reach me.

Living engaged comes from a place of worthiness (thank you Brene Brown.) This week I’ve been attempting to live and conduct my life as if I believe I have value (because I still don’t know what to ground that notion on.) But the overflow of the perspective of value and worthiness is that suddenly the workings of my head and my heart have value too. They have things to say. It does me no good to deny what is personal and important to me for the sake of appearing or sounding more holy. The church culture I grew up in told me to live a generally optimistic, asexual, self-deprecating (but positive,) submissive, and knowledge-driven Christian life. There was little time for my concerns to be voiced before they were shot down with bullets of Scripture. I could discern down to the nuance which thoughts of mine expressed doubt, and I beat those down to a bloody pulp. Doubt had no room. “Submit to God. You’re not submitting to him enough. You’re not trusting him enough.” And thus, my head and my heart suffered in abuse.

Can we be honest for a second?

Romance is important to me. Love is important to me. Sex, even, is important to me.

Until recent days I would deny these things with the interpretation that they’re too emotional and not okay. I would take on an optimistic approach that was intrinsically laying all the blame on me when these thoughts came up. “Romance can’t be important to you- God needs to be important to you. If you want to get married, you don’t trust God enough with your future ” Often these thoughts were plagued with insecurities such as, “you’re not worthy of that type of love. You don’t deserve passion.” But most of the time they were just reminders of how I was always failing him, how I was some cosmic cavity in God’s universe, ruining everything all the time.

Over the past year or so I’ve tried to tell myself over and over again that I don’t care if I get married or not, and that’s just not true. I do. I want things that are sanctioned and unsanctioned, holy and unholy. I’m human, I’m normal. Eros is dark and mysterious to me while agape is cute and fluffy, and I most days I want eros more than agape. Am I compromising proper understanding to admit that? I’m just trying to be honest. I have all these questions and dissatisfactions that I want answered or redeemed somehow, that I was always too scared to ask for fear of being wrong in asking them.

If God can’t reach me in these very real desires and doubts and questions, then he’s not God. Or he’s a really insecure God who just wants to brainwash me (I hope that’s not true.) But I’m doing a disservice to the authenticity of my convictions when I try to weasel around the precise things that cause me the most pain and struggle. Obviously this is terrifying… but I’ve felt so much more peace knowing I can use my mind instead of treating it as some evil thing with a penchant for mischief.

Oh, and the heart too. Apparently the softening of that muscle is also in order.

-mary

*My crises seem to come in successive episodes, like TV shows. “Tune in next week for a play-by-play of feeling like a tiny amoeba in the universe.”

“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.” ― Paulo Coelho

Have a great Melaleuca day,
Colleen
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I’ve been listening to music similar to this all night. I really miss you. Been thinking about you all day. I really want to just bring you home. I can break down and call you. Tell you to come over before you go home. That would be unfair and unviable. You are exhausted- I know this already. I want to shake your shoulders, look you in your eyes and tell you I want YOU and only you. Which also we are still not in the position to be with each other right now. But we can be more than nothing. We can still sneak around. Have adventures! Remember Connecticut? Kissing in the middle of Target just because we could. No one knew us there. That was very spontaneous and sexy. We can have time together. Just not publically right now. Just a little fun. It is totally ridiculous the little amount of time we spend together. Considering we’ve been doing “this” for a year and a half already. Why are we so distant!? When I’m a little drunk, I want you more. That was last night. I cannot stop thinking about you. The feeling is super strong right now. I need you now. You ALWAYS cross my mind. I wonder if I cross yours? If we are still in sync, then YES! That one little text from you today, lighted my world on fire!

Prompt #2: List 6 random facts about yourself.

1. In 3rd grade, I got hit in the head by a foul ball at a Cleveland Indian’s game.  I have no idea who was hitting at the time, but I forever blamed the Baltimore Orioles.  A fan behind me, who was the age of my grandfather, stole the ball while I was escorted  carried in the arms of my mother and then a security guard to the medical office.  After the shortest medical evaluation in the history of mankind, I insisted on leaving the ballpark  due to sheer embarrassment.  Plus, what if I had a concussion??!!  Who really knows.. the medics sure didn’t

2. I never learned how to snap my fingers correctly.  I literally snap them backwards.  Seriously.  To test, snap your fingers.. you see how your thumb moves from your middle finger to your pointer… I move mine from the middle to the pinky…  Nerd alert.

3. My first cassette tape was Ace of Base.  I thought I was hot shii.  To this day, if “I saw a sign” comes on the radio, I crank it up!

4. I freak out if I can’t breathe through my nose.  This is the main reason I am terrified of roller coasters; those 9 seconds of free fall?  I can’t breathe! And then it repeats!  It’s the worst.  I will kick you if you hold my nose closed… also if you tickle me.  No biggie.

5. My family’s house caught on fire when I was six and we lost most of our belongings..  I’ve been a minimalist / non-materialistic person ever since.  I now appreciate a person’s company, a vacation and spending quality time with loved ones more than anything else.

6.  I exhibit most of the female Leo qualities: passionate, creative, witty and playful.  I have a big heart, but I don’t always know how to use it.  I wish I could solve world hunger, soothe everyone’s pain and make people realize all  the good in the world.  Yet, I find myself often playing the realistic card because it makes me feel safe.

*What’s something random about you?

In this vein, I believe that the most powerful weapon in our arsenal is not directed force of arms, but force of will, force of personality, force of expression and force of knowledge. Against these ideas no army in the world can stand opposed, and against us who embody these qualities in our everyday lives, no amount of propaganda or social convention will overcome our will towards the betterment of all humankind.

It is not enough to sink back into the old medium of easy hatred and casual disregard for the interlocking nature of our species and the natural world of which we are an inexorable part. It is easy, far too easy, to let ourselves forget where we come from and what heights we have the potential to reach, but in this modern world of technology — where clouds of information so vast they defy imagination exist; where computers so powerful they can break down the fabric of the universe stand side by side with some of the greatest unified artistic creations in history, we have the possibility of finally reaching that point of nirvana that has thus-far evaded us as a whole.

By this I mean to say that we can begin to function, not as pieces of biological whimsy to some individual’s Will to Power, but as a force of unsurpassed Will to Betterment; we are so much more than we allow ourselves to believe on a daily basis, and we are capable of things that we can barely imagine, if only we set aside the imaginary lines that divide us and unify under a single ideal – that humankind can overcome all pitfalls and egotistical isolations and evolve to a peak of free existence the likes of which not even our greatest historical philosophers could have divined.

To this end I would like to make the point that attacking those lesser forms of expression, those ideas that you do not agree with, only gives them power. When you attribute importance an object of any type (mental, spiritual, or physical), you grant that object power. By direction hate and anger at any subject you grant that subject perpetual life – the more you hate the more the object of your hate is intensified so that only by extreme levels of hate can the object be overcome (which causes the cycle to repeat again, as new hate breeds and accelerates within all you have strived so hard to build). The only lasting method of defeating an enemy, be it a person or an ideology, is to deconstruct that enemy with the most powerful set of weapons you will ever possess – your ability to choose what is important to you.

I make the humble suggestion that in order to bring down the goliath of outdated principles, bigotry and misdirected anger that pervades through the fabric of modern humanity – we simply cease to pay it any mind. By no longer placing value of any sort (positive or negative) upon those ideas which bring sadness and misery — or are agents of hatred, violence, oppression and greed – we will defeat those forces arrayed against us in the only manner that perhaps stands the chance of providing us with some sense of lasting peace. Instead of meeting darkness with more darkness, fire with fire, we will simply remove the fuel from under the feet of the archaic gods that prey upon our lives. In truth, that is what the tyrants of the past and present fear the most – the ability of the great mass of humanity to come together in peace and friendship; for once we join together in understanding as a single entity, freed of the need to play the games upon which they rely, we will become truly unstoppable.

Unleash yourselves of all preconceptions as best you can and focus on those things that actually matter, and together we can build ourselves a reality that is empty of all those things we no longer ascribe importance to – hate finally dies.

However, I do know one thing: contraception is not the actual problem. Contraception was a solution to a problem that blossomed in the 60’s: a sex culture.

A sex culture, in my book, is defined as a culture that glorifies and overvalues sex in relationships, to the point of devaluing it as a holy and beautiful part of a marriage. It’s a culture that thinks it’s “not official” if you’re not sleeping together. A culture that encourages everyone to have sex with whoever they want. A culture that encourages pleasure above holiness and will eventually lead to a rape culture (which deserves a post of its own.)

Contraception, obviously, was a very crude and unhealthy solution to the problems raised by a sex culture (mainly: pregnancies). The pill is horribly unhealthy for women, causes terrible mood swings, and increases the risks for certain types of cancers. Not to mention it doesn’t address the spiritual risksof contraception. It only addresses the risk of pregnancy. Not to mention the sexism involved with the pill: the woman is responsible. The man just gets to have sex.

But the thing about contraception that many Christians overlook is the fact that it isn’t something that we can just “get rid of.” I hear people all the time talking about the evils of contraception and how it needs to be stopped. In my town, we had people protesting an establishment that gives out free birth control.

Here’s the thing: If we take away birth control, people will continue to have sex. They will learn to use NFP so that they can keep using sex. Or they’ll just use abortion as their main form of birth control. Some already do.

Taking away contraception will not change our sex culture. Making that change will involve changing hearts and really showing people that our promiscuous culture is hurting them, tearing them down, and devaluing their sexuality. And that change will take a long time. And it will be much harder than just taking away the contraception.

But changing hearts and helping people become who God made them to be, in the long run, will be so worth it.

Anyways, back to the real purpose of this post: to share a fun craft I made using salt dough! *In no way, shape, or form do I take credit for making up this craft!* A few versions of this recipe have been around for years and can be seen on several web pages, however I did tweak the recipe a bit to make the dough a better consistency.  This recipe is extremely cheap and easy to make and can be used to make plenty of fun things! I will show my personal experience making key chains, however I bet this would make cute ornaments too!

My personal reason/use for this craft: My boyfriend and I will be apart for the next few months, so he decided that it would be nice to have something close to us at all times to remind us of one another (he’s adorbable, I know). So we decided to make key chains out of this dough with our fingerprints in them

Below is our finished product, please keep reading to learn how to make it!

What you need:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
Lukewarm water (to add as needed)
Jump rings (for key ring – can be found at craft store)
Spray paint (to paint the finished product)

Now let’s get started…

• Combine 2 cups of flour with 1 cup of salt in a medium bowl.

• Add approx. 3 tablespoons of water to the mixture and stir. Continue adding water in small increments until the dough takes on a consistency similar to that of ‘Play-Doh.’

• The concoction may be difficult to mix. I recommend kneading it with your hands, if you don’t mind getting messy!

• Once you feel your dough is ready to work with (for us, this was about 1/2 cup water later…), transfer your pile of dough to your work surface of choice. We found it easiest to work on lightly-floured wax paper. Sprinkling a light coating of flour on the paper will make your dough less sticky.

• At this time, your dough should be kneaded and ready to work with! If you feel it is still too sticky, lightly sprinkle the dough itself with flour as well.

• From here, how you choose to work with your dough is really your choice, but we found it easy to work with small pieces. We decided to rip off pieces and roll them into small balls, similar to baking cookies.

• For our key chains, we decided to flatten the dough first. I would recommend doing so with a rolling pin, but (being a broke college student), I lack a rolling pin, and used my hands, which worked just fine!

• After flattening the dough, cut the shape you desire to make! For me, this was a heart, and we used a butter knife to make the cuts, shaping the edges with our hands.

• Transfer your creations to a baking sheet, where you will put the finishing touches on before baking.

• To make a key chain or ornament, press a jump ring into the corner (or top) of your piece. Be sure to place the ring in the location that you want the shape to hang from! Baking the ring in will ensure that it sets.

• At this time, we also pressed our thumbprints into the hearts (his on one side, mine on the other).

• After your shapes look exactly how you want them to, bake at 200 for 1.5 – 2 hours.

• After the baked dough comes out of the oven and cools, paint! We found spray paint to be the easiest and most efficient method of painting these items. We ended up putting 2 coats of paint on each side.

Above you can see our finished products! We made hearts of varying sizes and ended up choosing the shapes that we thought turned out the best. Our only issue with the project was that our thumbprints didn’t turn out as well as we’d hoped (we would’ve liked to see a more detailed fingerprint).

If any of you try this at home and have better luck with the fingerprints, please share! I would love to hear how this worked out for you! Also, if you make other exciting creations using this recipe, please share as well! I love to hear from you guys!

View the Original article

This heightened awareness can contribute to a healing crisis, a period of emotional turmoil and fear as these lower energies are healed. The activating information we are now receiving must be integrated into our being through intention, meditation, and devotional spiritual practice. By connecting to the loving guides and angels surrounding us, we choose to light our path with the lucid light of truth. Anything that no longer serves you and your highest evolution can now be lovingly cleansed and healed through meditation, visualisation, yoga, and detox of the mental, emotional, and physical bodies. Ask for support and guidance from your angels, for they cannot violate your free will. They will support your healing process by helping you release negativity and deep-rooted fear. If you invite them in, they will help you. Open your heart to receiving healing love from the angels, and call on them to guide your path. 

Someone else

Please don’t have someone who’s

Waiting on you

Please don’t for get how close

We got

Please don’t think that I

Will ever leave you

Please reserve your heart

And think of me

Please come back and tell me

I love you

(written 6th January 2013)

What more can I say?

I can’t believe that he’s gone.

I am in shock.

I feel sick.

First we talked with other people,

But then they left

And it was just us.

We talked about God.

And about Christianity

And our faith (or lack thereof?)

And we encouraged each other

And wonder-ed at what we believe in

That took us like three hours.

Then the conversation turned to us.

We apologised

For when I took control

For when he didn’t seek God

And we released forgiveness and freedom

Over each other

I can’t begin to express or understand or process

What I have been a part of

What my heart is feeling

All I know is that he is

gone

And I have no idea when I will see him again

There is nothing that I can rely on

Except God

And a man’s word.

But I don’t want to dwell on these

Depressing feelings.

Because I have a hope

I have a future

And:

“Consider it a pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work in you so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” – James 1:2-4

Father I need you. Fill the huge void in my heart. I cannot do this alone. Please fill me with joy and peace and hope and love. Amen

(written 16th December 2012)

& sarah

sinclair

& lewis

small hometown grew up

where gasoline

wasn’t pumped on a sunday,

church folk attempted

to hymn

while a pastor man got annoyed

by a passing fly

choir sang to an untuned

piano,

fanned their faces with a

church newsletters

while sweat rolled down their

backs,

robes absorbed beads like

a paper towel

wiping up water off a

cast iron sink;

wood rolling pin laying out

butter and flour,

sugar waiting impatiently

for shortbread

smells roll out of a kitchen

window

breeze sneaks by to slap a

mother’s tired face

gareth & sarah’s homes separated

by a peeling fence,

pickets guard bent roses,

her mother presents her with

one shortbread cookie

they have a secret signal,

meet at a hole in the wood,

pickets quite

unaware,

she breaks warmth in half,

shares with a friend;

high school finished, two

separate trains,

love letters fall like old

leaves onto frost,

neither marry,

years later in a city scape

where people move,

lives and shadows stand

still

much like bent, unwatered

roses,

gareth sits on a chain that drapes

cement, entrance

to a park,

feels the chain move, looks,

sarah besides

a man selling roses has a

sale,

she, unwraps from wax paper

a recent purchase,

breaks warmth in half,

see each other as through a

hole in the wood,

tender kiss, a breeze stirred,

crystal blue in a sky

in the midst of a city

his arm encircles

her,

nothing longer to separate.

Copyright © 05/24/2013 Ðark Ṝoasted Ƣoetry®

Well this will inevitably be a pretty quick post given that I’m sitting at a McCafe taking advantage of the free wifi. I’m at the international terminal of Sydney airport waiting for my flight to Singapore, which is my stopover to Dubai. Why Dubai? Well why not?? Seriously though, I have a reason. My husband is there at the moment so I took some time off work and some annual leave and booked a flight. Come to think of it, the Chevron Eyeshade pattern would have been a heap lot more appropriate for this week’s Free Pattern Friday but I should have thought of that. Update on that pattern, I did actually make one (yes, for this trip) with a bit of alteration to suit me. I have also decided that one of these days I will do a review on it for you readers. (Spoiler: it’s good). So I’m all packed for my week in Dubai and of course I have some knitting with me–not beads!–a pretty diagonal-knit garter stitch rainbow scarf

Anyway, cause I’m a bit of a sook, and cause this pattern is funky and versatile, and cause I’ve been wanting to share this with you anyway, the free pattern for today is Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochiland knit hearts pattern

^_^

Let the cute begin, here: http://mochimochiland.com/2007/02/free-pattern-hearts/

If you like love themes with a bit of cute and quirk in (almost*) equal measure, take a look at Hrachevec’s Luvgun pattern. It’s basically an anthropomorphic gun that shoots out little love hearts (aaawwwwwwww). You can purchase it here:

http://mochimochiland.com/shop/luvgun-pattern/

*“Almost” I say because you can call Anna Hrachovec’s mochis all sorts of thing: weird, adorable, cute, quirky, squishy, lovely, sweet, giggle-worthy blah, blah blah—but the main things that overrides them si the cuteness of her patterns. Yes I am a fan, why do you ask?

As a bonus cause I’m in a good mood cause I’m my first step to seeing my husband again cause it’s out first torturous time being apart and cause my trip’s going smoothly so far even though it’s my first time travelling alone, I’m going to put in a nice feature from one of my favourite blogs, Knitting Daily, on travelling with knitting: http://www.knittingdaily.com/blogs/daily/archive/2011/05/30/knitting-on-the-go-6-tips-for-travel-knitting.aspx

Anyway, going to be catching my flight soon so until next time, have an awesome weekend!

“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by preserving produce a crop.” (Luke 8:15 NIV)

This is the time of year when I begin to anticipate the warm days of summer. When we lived in Tennessee, my father and my uncle used a portion of our large yard for their garden. During the months leading up to the actual planting, they talked about seeds, soil, equipment, weather, and schedules.

Our children were small then and loved to watch “Pop-pop” and “Uncle George” working in the garden. Sometimes, the children were allowed to help. First, they helped clear the fallen tree limbs, stray rocks, or anything else that would hinder the tiller. Next, they watched as
Pop-pop mowed the yard and gardening area. Finally, it was time for Uncle George to till the soil.

Pop-pop and Uncle George never had an audience when they put down the
fertilizer. The kids always found a reason to stay indoors.

Finally, it would be time to sow the seeds or plant the seedlings. The kids understood that it would take a while for the plants to become ready for harvest, but that didn’t keep them from checking the garden every day. Rain or shine, they made the trek down to the garden.
They anticipated and watched for their favorite vegetable.

Pop-pop and Uncle George did all the hard work, but my children thought that they were also helping by being diligent in their watch.

As spring turned into summer and then fall, the crops would come in.  It was more of a game for the kids to harvest their favorites. I never had to try to get them to eat their vegetables. They believed that they had worked hard for the produce, and they wanted to enjoy their “labor.”

Sometimes I reflect back on those simple days of summer and find inspiration as I think about my children’s anticipation. It helps me renew my desire to keep my faith and trust in God stirred up on a daily basis.

I have to remind myself to look to God to help me accomplish everything that He is calling me to do. If I don’t give up and if I keep pressing forward, I will be able to perform my daily tasks and attain an even larger goal.

Regardless of the physical challenges or limitations that we face, we have to remember that we can set goals. We can have dreams. We can stretch ourselves. We can impact the lives of others.

It may take us longer. We may have to get creative in order to get things done. We may need frequent rest breaks. However, if we persevere, we will be able to see the fruits from our hard work.

It takes planning, just like my dad and uncle planned. All we have to do is look at the larger task, break it down into manageable increments and take each day as it comes. Of course, the schedule must be flexible, allowing time for the unexpected. We can’t beat ourselves up when we have set backs and delays because of our health. We must find a way to keep a good attitude and keep our focus on God.

He knows of every road block we’ll encounter, and He will give us the strength, wisdom, patience, and courage to persist.

Prayer: Father, thank You for seed-time and harvest, for the gardens in our lives. Help us to endure, to press forward, while keeping our focus on You. Don’t let fear keep us from trying to reach our dreams. Give us the wisdom to take each day as it comes.

No solid walls, roof
yet boundaries drawn, with space
love grows, connects, flows.

Namaste,

L and Muse

We had a talk, and I let things out, told him how I felt about the situation that happened two years ago, he told me his perspective and we solved things. I was vulnerable with him, although I did not cry, which isn’t a surprise because I don’t when I’m supposed to– I just cry for dumb things like if my sister eats the last cookie. But I told him everything that was on my heart, and I let him know that my feelings for him were still present, and have been. While he told me that he still has feelings for me as well, but he doesn’t think it is a good idea to try anything because of our past, which is understandable.

It’s been almost a week since we had that conversation and I feel good because in a sense, I am now free. This whole time, I was not able to fully get over him because, my feelings were still with him. The feelings that I should’ve given to another guy (I don’t know which guy though because no one likes me), I couldn’t because I was still connected to boy X. But now I am free. Boys, you can start lining up at my door now, I will be able to like you whole heartedly!