life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Tenderness”
Beautiful
What did I know of Beauty
A 16 years old girl
Sneaking to read Vogue
Wearing my cheap shoes
With hatred in my heart
Comparing myself to everyone
Longing to be beautiful
desperate for someone to tell me
They thought I was
Always searching, competing
In my mind
to see if I was better
Than anyone else I met
Even if someone had told me –
Which they didn’t –
I knew better
My insides full of lies
pettiness
and comparisons…
the thieves of joy
Then I read Your words
and slowly my life changed
I walked Your path
and my eyes saw Your miracles
I caught a glimpse of Your glory
and my heart was branded
by Your beauty
So different from what I thought it would be
I am forever changed
By the love I have found
Beautiful and Beloved
have become my names
Not from the form of my face
But from Your light in my heart
You have made each of us
We are beautiful
I have seen your face
and it is beautiful
The face of God
AL 3/6/12
One Lost Sheep
What if it was just me?
If I was the only one
in the world
lost
wandering
searching
hurting
What if no one else needed saving?
If I was the only one
in the universe
alone
wrong
broken
insecure
What if there was only one lost sheep?
What if it was me…or you?
good
bad
ugly
hate-filled
What is the value of one soul to God?
What would Jesus do?
come
die
rise
give
There are so many that feel alone
Lost and struggling on their own
love…unconditional
love…so real
love…for one
love…for all
AL/3-6-12
ask, seek, knock
Almost 22 years ago I asked God! I had no idea if God was real at that point. I sure didn’t see God in any of the people around me. Religion sure had no answers, and so I started on the path with a very heavy scepticism. I really had no idea of anything. I truly emptied myself, of all I had been taught all my life, and worked to challenge my thought process. I challenged and thought about everything that came into my life.
I determined only to follow what brought me peace and led me towards happiness. I knew I would make mistakes – because I had no idea what I was doing, but I determinied I would do my best to face what I did and not make those same mistakes again! I determined to take personal responsibility for my life and my actions and I started off on my experiment to find life. I was challenged to TRY to live as close to the principles I found in the words of Jesus in Matthew 5-7, The Sermon on the Mount.
It is interesting to me that over those years, when I struggled through this challenge that is humanly impossible, I struggled to feel the humanness of Jesus. I really had no idea if what I was doing was doing anything but leading me into brokenness and pain. I had to hold onto two things. The promises and hope of God, and the fact that I felt the personal, gut peace which no one else had access to. There was something bigger than what I could possible do happening! I was witnessing and aware of this. It was growing and so was my belief – no one could take away what I had seen, felt, tasted, experienced. Those miracles that came to me are more than evidence – they are my life-blood!
I now know Jesus intimately – after all I have been trying my best to live his words for the past 22 years! I KNOW HIM! I know his beautiful heart. I have lived his truth – it is my truth! LOVE!!! FREEDOM!!! RESPECT!!!! SERVE!!!
Yesterday I heard a sermon on Jesus as the Bread of life. As the crowd rejected ‘eating his flesh’ (knowing him intimately) his disciples were left alone with him. He asked them if they would leave also and Peter said, “Where would we go? You have the words of eternal life”. Yes, I echo that today. I have no where else to go – my experiment has turned out to be so much more than I ever expected. I am in love with Jesus! and it makes me glad!
I still know very little as far as the mysteries of God – I am so glad that I am not arrogant enough to think I can figure out the creator of this amazing world! I don’t worry about a lot – I am too busy falling in love, knowing the heart of love, figuring out how I can share that love with others who need it so badly!!!
Find your truth – then, in EVERY circumstance, live your truth with thanks!!!
But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside. – Job 23:10-11
Gracious God, you who suffer for us
more deeply than we can imagine,
may we live and love faithfully
in the name of Christ. Amen.
______________________
excerpt from today – used with permisson
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
Every choice matters! I want mine to be strong!
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid,
but gives us
power,
love and
self-discipline.
– 2 Timothy 1:17
Truth – via Neale Donald Walsh
Every action is either strong or weak, and when every action is strong we are successful.
Wallace D. Wattles said that, and he was right. You know when the action you take is strong, and you know when it is weak. You can tell in your stomach. Endeavor to take no weak action whatsoever. Run away from it. Reject it. Go for the strong action, the strong choice, every time.
You know, by the way, what is meant by all of this. You have been weak in some of your choices and decisions, and you have been strong. You have been both in your life. But no more, right? Only strong from now on, yes?
And you know exactly why you received this message today.
– Neale Donald Walsh
http://www.nealedonaldwalsch.com/index.php?p=Home
Prayer: Pausing to say thanks for what we have in this moment!
We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
– Frederick Koenig
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
life: acoustic & amplified 