life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Smile”
Living Hopefully
What are your deepest, holiest hopes? Hopes for your life? For your family? Your community? Your world? The universe? Imagine those hopes fulfilled. Give your heart to your hopes. This is faith.
Don’t think that your hopes are too audacious. God’s hopes for the world are even more audacious than you can imagine. Mary thought it audacious that God should choose her to carry God’s hope for the world, but it was true. The same is true of us.
It might seem that your life is too messed up, the world too much in the grip of evil, for there to be much hope. But our hope doesn’t come from wishful thinking, or from the world or its condition. It comes from God. Hope rises from the love that is at the heart of all things. It comes from trust that the love that created the world can transform the world. Of course there is evil in the world, and failure in our own lives, but we don’t live under its spell. We choose to live by the light of God’s promise, not the world’s threats and disappointments. Exercise the muscles of hope, not despair, for despair holds the door open for evil, while hope holds the door open for God.
Attend to your hope. Listen to it. Bring it to mind. Envision the fulfillment of your hope. Let it be real. Live as if your trust it. Imagine it coming to pass. Live as if it is coming to pass even now. Live as if Christ is actually coming.
God moves this world not by force but by the Spirit. By participating in God’s hope for the world, like Mary did, we help it to come to fruition — no matter how many generations it takes. This Advent season, give voice to your hope, and live by its light. Be awake. Live hopefully.
________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
I am…and so are you!
God is love. The One at the heart of all being is love—a desire for blessing, well-being and oneness, a delight in our being woven together. We are children of such love: love creates us, and in our very being we bear love into the world. The purpose of life is to be transparent to this love, to live in the present moment in full awareness of the love of God that is our life and being. We do not fret about how we will be judged or what will become of us, because we know that we belong to this love. The more clearly we see the God of love, the more purely we shine with that very love. God’s compassion, self-giving and delight becomes our whole life. The struggle in life is to shed the things that impede the perfect love that is inherent in us, to become the pure love that is our nature. A saint is not necessarily someone who is extraordinarily “good,” or made holy in some unique way, but someone who is translucent with love. It is not a stretch to become such a person; you were born so. You only have to reclaim it. May it be your prayer always to return to the present moment, to return to the Loving One, to return to the love that is you.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Used With Permission
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Good or Bad The Past is Over…Nothing is Worth More Than THIS Day!
I took a chance
Could have loved you today
But you’re trapped in a moment
Frozen in yesterday
Time standing still from
That moment on
Living in glory days
The worst kind of hell
Everything stopped just for you
While the world kept on turning
Alive yet not living
I can’t live that way
(Cause) nothing is worth more than this day
Loving each minute
A gift
With so much to give
Listen to me
Find the way
To escape from your prison
If you’ll take the key
Unlock that door
Step into your life
Start learning to live again
I can tell where you are
By the clothes that you wear
When you stopped living
By the style of your hair
And what you confess
when you open your mouth
And speak a few lines
You tell me the truth
In spite of your lies
And it breaks my heart
Cause you’re so much more
Then you did back then
It’s all up to you
But you’re missing so much of your life
My friend
Leave it behind
Listen to me and believe
Today is much better
Than all that’s behind you
Try it and see
You’ve just got to believe
Amy Lloyd 2008
Down to Earth
Took that leap of faith,
thought I’d learn how to fly.
Lookin’ for rainbows
and dreams passing by.
Searchin’ for answers
to a whole bunch of lies.
Thought that no one
could love the real me.
As I crashed to the ground
Here’s truth that I found:
Learned I must bend,
so I won’t break.
How to get real,
not ever be fake.
It is the best way,
to smile through my pain.
Each moments a choice –
it’s never too late!
These things were so grand,
life was more than I planned!
Now I’m flying so high,
while I’m walking around,
cause the sky doesn’t end
till it reaches the ground.
Living each day now,
each step by faith.
It’s so good to be
right here in this place.
Don’t need all the answers.
It’s time to be free.
I will never be perfect,
I don’t want to be.
Who I am is enough,
yes, it’s great to be me!
I just want to give love –
Cause love’s what we need
Now I’m walking on sunshine
Hooked on the feeling
On top of the world
Yes, I’m one happy girl
Cause I’ve…
Learned to find rainbows –
right in the rain.
Found out I had more,
the more that I gave.
Chose to be happy,
not to complain.
Live life with passion –
I know what it’s worth,
cause life doesn’t start
Till you get down to earth!
Amy Lloyd 8/08
life: acoustic & amplified 