Got any rivers you think are uncrossable?
Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through?
God specializes in things thought impossible.
And He can do what no other can do.
– Unknown
Looking at them, Jesus said,
“With people it is impossible, but not with God;
for all things are possible with God.”
Mark 10:27
Maritta Terrell
Thoughts are also posted at:
http://thoughtsaday.blogspot.com/
Everything you take for granted is a blessing. Everything you fear is a friend in disguise. Everything you want is a part of you. Everything you hate you hate about yourself. Everything you own does not define you. Everything you feel is the only Truth there is to know.
Everything you wish for is already on its way to you. Everything you think creates your life. Everything you seek for you will find. Everything you resist will stick around. Everything you let go of stays if it’s supposed to. Everything you need is right where you are.
Every time you bless another your bless yourself. Every time you blame another you lose your power. Every time you think you can, you can. Every time you fall you must get up and try again. Every time you cry you’re one tear closer to joy. Every time you ask for forgiveness, all you have to do is forgive yourself.
Everyone you see is your reflection. Everyone you know mirrors you. Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone wants to live in joy. Everyone seeks a higher purpose. Everyone breathes the same breath. Everyone needs love to survive. Everyone has a purpose to fulfill.
Everyone’s the same as everyone else. We just get caught up in labels, names, skin color and religion. Everyone’s the same as everyone else. No one wants to feel the pain. Everyone’s the same as everyone else. Everyone is dying for love to remain.
– Jackson Kiddard
Via The Daily Love
www.thedailylove.com
Here are ten things to do even if others judge you for it:
1.Take car
e of yourself. – Your relationship with yourself is the closest and most important relationship you will ever have. If you don’t take good care of yourself, then you can’t take good care of others either; which is why taking care of yourself is the best selfish thing you can do. Read The Mastery of Love.
2.Do what you know is right, for YOU. – Don’t be scared to walk alone, and don’t be scared to like it. Don’t let anyone’s ignorance, drama, or negativity stop you from being the best you can be. Keep doing what you know in your heart is right, for you. Because when you are totally at peace within yourself, nothing can shake you.
3.Follow your own unique path. – Every new day is a chance to change your life. Work on making life all that you want it to be. Work hard for what you believe, and keep your dreams big and your worries small. You never need to carry more than you can hold; just take it one day at a time. And while you’re out there making decisions instead of excuses, learning new things, and getting closer and closer to your goals, know that there are others out there, like me, who admire your efforts and are striving for greatness too.
4.Lock yourself away from the world and work on your goals. – Dream big dreams, but realize that short term, realistic goals are the key to success. Success is directly connected with daily action. The way we spend our time defines who we are. Successful people keep moving, by doing small things every day that bring them a couple steps closer to their dream. They make mistakes along the way, but they don’t quit – they learn and press on. Read Getting Things Done.
5.Adjust your goals and dreams as life changes. – A great deal of pain in life comes from having a specific dream that 
you’ve fallen in love with, and when it doesn’t work out exactly as planned, you become angry that you now have to pursue a different path. If you want to tame your inner demons and make the most of life, you must not become rigidly attached to just one specific dream, and remain open to there being an even better, equally as happy path ahead. Life is unpredictable, but it provides plenty of opportunities to make dreams come true. Just don’t forget that sometimes taking a positive step forward requires you to slightly adjust your dreams, or plan new ones – it’s OK to change your mind or have more than one dream.
6.Forgive those who have wronged you. – Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong and wise. Forgiveness allows you to focus on the future without combating the past. To understand the potential of everything going forward is to forgive everything already behind you. Without forgiveness, wounds can never be healed, and moving on can never be accomplished. What happened in the past is just one chapter. Don’t close the book, just turn the page.
7.Show everyone your love and kindness. – If you are reserving your love only for those who you have decided are worthy of it – all strangers excluded – it may come as a surprise to learn that this is not love at all, it is called judgment. Judgment is selective, love is all embracing. Just as the sunlight and the wind do not discriminate, true love does not make any such distinctions either. Love and kindness is a way of living. Where there is love, there is no judgment. Where there is judgment, there is no love. Read The 5 Love Languages.
8.Stand up for others, even if it’s the unpopular thing to do. – Sometimes you will say something really small and simple, but it will fit right into an empty space in someone’s heart. Dare to reach into the darkness, to pull someone else into the light. Remember, strong people stand up for themselves, but stronger people stand up for others too, and lend a hand when they’re able.
9.Fight through your failures. – When you are feeling down or dealing with failure, don’t be ashamed. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You are going through a difficult time, and you are still pushing forward. That’s something to be proud of – that you are fighting through it and slowly rising above it. Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
10.Keep your head held high and keep on smiling. – Every day of your life is a page of your history. The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them. Don’t cry over the past, cry to get over the past. Don’t smile to hide the pain, smile to heal the pain. Don’t think of all the sadness in the world, think of all the beauty that still remains around you.
http://www.marcandangel.com/2012/08/01/10-things-to-do-even-if-they-judge-you/#more-493
New International Version (NIV)
25 “The
refore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Change the changeable,
accept the unchangeable,
and remove yourself from the unacceptable.
Denis Waitley
Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world,
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
Then you will be able to know the will of God-
-what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect.
Romans 12:2
Maritta Terrell
http://thoughtsaday.blogspot.com/
When nothing is sure, anything is possible. – Margaret Drabble
I don’t want you to get all A’s in life. I want you to get life. I want you to get God. A.W. Tozer said that you can have as much of God as you want.
It’s wild to think about that: How much of God do you really want? How happy do you really want to be? Why would you avoid Him and all your joy — when you could hunger for Him and have as much happiness as you want?
Ann Voskamp/July 10, 12
http://www.aholyexperience.com
——————————————————————————————
The sun rose this morning
with more light than you know what to do with.
More beautiful green living things
reach out to you
than you’ll ever have time to consider.
More birds sing to you than you’ll ever listen to.
Immeasurable grace
is poured out upon you,
splashing,
most of it rivering down your legs
and into the floorboards.
More of what you need to carry on
is secreted into your heart than you believe.
There is hope enough folded into this world.
Of forgiveness and tender delight
you are given more
than you can ever use or comprehend.
Of the darkest mystery,
dense with love
like the billioning stars,
you are given so much more,
even in your bleakest droughts,
your dustiest griefs and desolations,
than you can know.
And of you yourself,
given with confidence to this effulgent universe,
there is so much more than you can see,
so much more.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Dealing with Disappointment
A Bridge to Acceptance
by Madisyn Taylor
The gift of disappointment is to bring us into reality so we don’t get stuck in the realm of how things might have been.
Whenever we do something in life with an expectation of how we’d like it to turn out, we risk experiencing disappointment. When things don’t go the way we had envisioned, we may feel a range of emotions from slightly let down to depressed or even angry. We might direct our feelings inward toward ourselves, or outward toward other people or the universe in general. Whether we feel disappointed by ourselves, a friend, or life in general, disappointment is always a tough feeling to experience. Still, it is a natural part of life, and there are many ways of dealing with it when we find ourselves in its presence.
As with any feeling, disappointment has come to us for a reason, and we don’t need to fear acknowledging it or feeling it. The more we are able to accept how we are feeling and process it, the sooner we will move into new emotional territory. As we sit down to allow ourselves to feel our disappointment, we might want to write about the experience of being disappointed—the situation that preceded it, what we were hoping would happen, and what did happen. The gift of disappointment is its ability to bring us into alignment with reality so that we don’t get stuck for too long in the realm of how things might have been.
As we consider other disappointments in our life and how we have moved past them, we may even see that in some cases what happened was actually better in the long run than what we had wanted to happen. Disappointment often leaves us feeling deflated with its message that things don’t always turn out the way we want. The beauty of disappointment, though, is that it provides us a bridge to its other side where the acceptance of reality, wisdom, and the energy to begin again can be found.
“Love your neighbour as yourself” the Gospel says (Matthew 22:38). But who is my neighbor? We often respond to that question by saying: “My neighbours are all the people I am living with on this earth, especially the sick, the hungry, the dying, and all who are in need.” But this is not what Jesus says. When Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan (see Luke 10:29-37) to answer the question “Who is my neighbour?” he ends the by asking: “Which, … do you think, proved himself a neighbor to the man who fell into the bandits’ hands?” The neighbour, Jesus makes clear, is not the poor man laying on the side of the street, stripped, beaten, and half dead, but the Samaritan who crossed the road, “bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them, … lifted him onto his own mount and took him to an inn and looked after him.” My neighbour is the one who crosses the road for me!
– Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org/
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Last week Ann Voskamp, and her son Caleb, were in Haiti for Compassion http://www.compassion.ca/child_list.asp read her blog posts about this experience http://www.aholyexperience.com/ – if you are not moved to action, you must be dead!
Check out the newest issue of my newsletter at www.songsfromthevalley.com – it is a very personal one. At the preent moment, I am in the middle of a big faith walk, so please pray for me today as God calls me to your mind.
I read Martin Luther King, Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail yesterday and one sentence especially jumped out at me – ‘Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.’
What are we going to do with our time here? It is always our choice!
Benches are special things aren’t they?
They themselves sit and rest, in the sun, in the shade, in the rain, in the snow, at three in the morning…
there to welcome whoever might pass by.
And for what purpose?
To give a soul a moment to rest, to look out, to think, to plan something, or to get over something.
And in their most special times, most special for these benches, are when two people meet and share themselves. Communicate and think more completely than they could or would if they were still walking.
Then after minutes or hours the people rise.
They are different forever because of those minutes, or hours.
Different in very minor ways most times I’m sure.
And at other times, profoundly changed.
They look back and the bench seems physically unchanged, but we know otherwise.
A person was there, moments after measurable warmth remains,
albeit slowly spreading out to be no longer measurable.
The world is different.
Relationships,
interconnections,
changes in perspective.
A reaffrimation of love in the broadest sense.
That maybe god did not make man in his image. That maybe man arrogantly makes god in his image.
God did not make only man,
and I don’t think everything else was made for only for man’s purpose.
Maybe what we find so beautiful and comforting is that nature,
the cosmos,
god,
free will,
the opportunities to do good or ignore other’s needs,
the choices to try and give more than we take,
or take all we can,
the always present capability to pursue happiness…
are all here as are we,
with a purpose we will always look for,
and never completely find,
and all of it as part of a whole incomprehensible to us.
Such joy possible just knowing we are so fortunate to be part of it.
God has no limits, none whatsoever.
On a bench,
realizing we are part of it all,
and always will be,
and sharing
that there is no necessity to understand it all.
– Sunny
life: acoustic & amplified 