life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Hope”

I’m convinced that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it through to completion – Phil 1:6

Confidence… thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt

So many of us believe who we have been created to be just isn’t good enough. I know the feeling, I understand it fully. I have had it most of my life – I still struggle with it in some areas of my living, which is why I am always aware! I want to be the BEST I can be. I want to reach my highest potential for happiness. I want to be who God created me to be and do what I was created to accomplish!

Someone recently told me that they ‘liked my confidence’. That it gave them ‘hope.’ Somehow it kinda hit me weird, I immediately heard the old voices telling me I was ‘talking too much’, ‘I just wanted attention’, that I was ‘vain’ – I felt like maybe I was being ‘too much’ and I felt myself pull back and not speak as much as I wanted to.

So, of course, I have thought it over for the past few weeks and processed the comment, why I felt that way and, I gotta tell you, the more I ’roll around’ in her comment – the more I am really liking it! Ha! I want people to have hope, I want to be the instrument of hope and peace! My confidence comes from the faithfulness, healing and miracles, which I have experienced over a difficult and broken life! It is not about self confidence – it is Christ-confidence!

I know this is much, much bigger than me! I have confidence because I have discovered the truth of the unconditional love of God! I am beloved, you are beloved! Every soul on earth has this vast value and this beloved status!!!!! Wooo hoooo! Now that’s something important to share!!!!!!!

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.     Maryann Williamson – Used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural Speech

http://songsfromthevalley.com/April-10-3.7-Beauty.pdf

 

 

face the truth

Where the Wild Things Are

Go with him
into the deserted places
where mind won’t survive,

deep in your wilds, exposed,
with the beasts,
feral, shifty, wise

in their wordless ways,
their primal hungers,
their devouring instincts,

disappearing easily
into your canyons and outcroppings.
You don’t vanquish them,

you watch,
and learn to survive among them,
and witness the mystery,

how they lie down beside him.
Even they know
these washes and gulches

are a palm.
In this extremity,
you find your place

among your terrors,
your wastelands,
your angels.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

We are beloved!!!!

Can you feel the music?

A lot of the daily messages I get right now are about Lent. I didn’t grow up with Lent and so I find it somewhat exotic. Over the past several years I have observed the practice and have found it so beautiful and beneficial. It is an important event, and it is a time to go deep into some tough issues. The messages I get in my daily inspirational doses are great (for the most part) and present Lent as both difficult, but joyous! Which I believe is true. We must begin to be vulnerable to our brokenness, if we want to feel our deepest joy!

It is interesting to me the contrast of when I hear people talking about Lent in everyday conversation. Like at my job, or in a restaurant. It seems a lot of people feel like Lent is about deprivation and punishment. I over hear them dreading ‘giving up’ chocolate, beer or meat and wondering if it will interfere with their entertainment schedule, or if is just too hard. Most of them seem to be dreading it. When I can, I try to insert myself into their  conversation (I hope they appreciate it at some point! ha) and assure them that is not what Lent is about – we are not called to punishment! We are called to a deeper experience of life. We are called to freedom, love and joy! Life is beautiful  – that is the message!

I try to encourage the people who feel this way to turn it around this year. Don’t be punished by ‘giving up’ use the 40 days to ADD something special. Write a 40 day journal and concentrate on looking for one good thing a day to be thankful and write about!

Lent is about reflection about deepening our lives in every way. Let’s try to get the message out that Jesus never wanted religion – his beautiful life and death was because of love to give us truth and freedom. He wants our love, relationship, communion, fellowship, passion. Yes, it’s all about love.

 

how to live a happy, peaceful life:

wow!
it’s always my choice!

In the willing hands of the believing, the emptiness can sing. He means to fill our emptiness with song. – Ann Voskamp

In Lent, as we fast from rich, sweet foods, we fast from our rich, sweet Alleluia. On Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras, in French) an old tradition is to use up all the fat — the milk, eggs and butter in the house (usually in pancakes). And we use up all the alleluias. A liturgical tradition for this day includes burying the alleluias,carrying a small casket out of the church and interring it, as we would for someone we love. It’s a tender moment.

Use up your alleluias today.  Relish the word.  Walk around singing it, saying it, praying it.  Rejoice in being “shriven” —having confessed and been absolved (hence another name for today, “Shrove Tuesday”) — before you enter into a season when your freedom is still being worked out.  Then tonight, bury yourAlleluias. Kiss them goodbye. Wish them well.  They will go down into the darkness, into the silence, to be drowned out by the moans and the cries. Let them go. They have infinite life in them.  They will arise again on Easter, having seen Hell and transfigured it, and returned, singing.

But today do not worry yourself about the dark journey to come.  This is the day the Lord is creating. Let us rejoice and be glad.  Alleluia!

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

 

dreams & ideas are for doing

Trust that little voice in your head that says

‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if…’

And then do it.

– Duane Michals

If you want it – it’s all there for us!

We just have to choose who we want to be and then keep making choices toward those amazing things!!!! I love that!

Be Sure to Take A Beautiful Path

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

More options for inspiration at http://pinterest.com/al513/the-path-we-take-makes-all-the-difference/

We are the light!

 Transfiguration

The disciples were having no strange vision,
nor the evangelist concocting a tableau
for the delight of Renaissance painters.
It was simply this: for a moment
Jesus’ friends were seeing truly,
seeing him as he was,
seeing a human being as we all truly are,
shining with the whole glory of Creation,
stardust that we are.
They saw through the scruff and dirt
that this rough world leaves on us,
saw past the judgments and appearances,
the masks and costumes and shrouds
that we throw on each other:
they saw the heaven within a person,
the image of God.
If only they hadn’t been so shocked
they would have noticed it in themselves.
Jesus had to tell them later:
You are light for the world.”
God shines in you,
gleams with the splendid light of heaven.
Beyond any smudge this world can put on you,
or any human word or deed can remove,
you are dazzling, radiant with newborn light.
Right now, sitting there reading this,
you breathe God’s light in and out.
Your nerves spark with life.
Your eyes light up the world.
Let this light fill you, the fire of God.
Be mindful of this radiance.
Look for the light in all whom you meet.
T
rust the light. Give thanks for the light
Even in your sleep, the light closes its eye,
but breathes deeply, calmly, faithfully.

Light,
refracted from the rising Son,
increasing throughout the day
as it condenses within each living being,
until, even after nightfall,
all glimmers with wonder.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Used with Permission

Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

 

Post Navigation