life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “words”
Worry is not a necessary part of life
The spiritual life is a life that is guided by God’s Spirit, the same Spirit that guided the life of Jesus. So, how can we be in touch with the Spirit, hear the voice of the Spirit, and allow ourselves to be guided by the Spirit?
Can we create some space for God where we can hear, feel, and experience the Spirit of God, and where it becomes possible for us to respond? Is there space in our lives where the Spirit of God has a chance of getting our attention?
We fill our inner space with worry about things that might happen and guilt about things that have already happened. And beneath our worry and our guilt there is a deep fear of empty spaces.
When we create an empty space, we make room for something to happen to us that we cannot predict, something that might be really new.
– Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org/
thought to fill a void
I started on this journey many years ago and had no idea where it would lead me. I certainly never thought I would be where I am! I get multiple ‘inspirational’ type of emails daily. Many of them are from a Christian perspective, many are not. I truly believe they are all seeking to help me with their words, and they do in all different ways. Words are very powerful and st times I am inspired, helped, encouraged, filled with joy and laughter, entertained, discouraged, angered, saddened, broken and many other emotions as I read from all of these sources who are all so different. I love sharing all of these thoughts and perspectives and I soak it all up! I feel so blessed to be able to learn so much, and to be stretched out of my comfort zone, every day. To be able to share my own thoughts with others is a great blessing. I realize that my words may conjure up as many emotions, or more than those I have listed above!
I admire and respect everyone for who they are and what they believe. God as my helper, you will never hear me tell you that I have it all figured out! My goal is to make you think! I think about all the things I read and is seems, for the most part, they either give me a false positive – like I am a ‘goddess’, or a ‘diva’ – or they tell me I am a ‘sinner’ and ‘I stink’ with very little hope that it will ever get better. Ha What I have found to be true is a little different from either of these things, and to me, it makes all the difference to me.
My walk of faith has brought me to a place of confidence. When I did some research on ‘confidence’ a few weeks ago guess what came up? A whole bunch of people (some beautiful…some painfully not beautiful) showing their bodies. Why do we equate taking our clothes off to mean we have confidence? My confidence is not about what I look like, or my body image. It is not about being some sort of Wonder Woman who can save the world because I’m so awesome, but the exact opposite!
My confidence brings me to a place of rest, beauty and beloved-ness because of the love I have found in God. It is not about my struggling to be ‘Purpose-filled’ it is about me being enough. I have found I don’t HAVE to do anything! It is about me expressing my love from the place of who I am – just as I am – because I was created to be….me…just me! Amy Carol – beloved song of Christ. I am accepted, just as I am, and as I except that one precious fact, I begin to live the purpose for which I have been placed into this beautiful world – just at this moment – for such a time as this! It’s all about me (personal responsibility)…but it’s not at all about me (laying down my agenda for the light of God to shine through me)! Ha the amazing conundrum of grace!
This is what I believe. We are human. There is good and bad in each of us. We are all capable of wonderful, and/or terrifying, things. We are created beings – made from the dust. We are born and we die. We have been given freewill to choose what we will do with the ‘dash’ in between. The years we are given to enjoy between life and death matter very much. Every moment of every day we are faced with a multitude of choices – the choices we make are the deciding factors of who we become.
When Christ died for us – he did so because he loved us more than we can ever truly comprehend. God wanted more for us than that we would continue to live with the belief that we are only, always ‘sinners’. He gave us life abundantly. When he talks about the ‘narrow way’ and encourages us to choose it, he doesn’t say it leads to ‘heaven’, he says it leads to ‘LIFE’!!! We are here to live! To experience love, joy, peace, to shine, to enjoy. He binds up and heals our broken spirits so that we may overcome and so that we may KNOW – that we are beautiful, that we are beloved. We no longer need to fear death, or anything else that comes our way. We are no longer bound by our ‘sins’ – they are buried. They are gone! We are free!!!!
I am not suggesting we will never make mistakes. We are human – we do and we will! We need to be transparent with who we are – awareness! choice! openness! truth! love! These set us free! Our faults are many, but when we realize what has been done for us, who we truly are, what God wants for us – instead of hating ourselves, and concentrating on the ‘worm’ that I am, I must redirect all of my energy to celebrate the light which lives in me, and in all of us. I want it to blaze! I don’t allow the focus to dwell on me for any longer than I have to, because it might distract someone from that light in their own life! I move aside and allow God’s light shine so bright it draws people, not to me…who am I? I know that any good in me is all GOD! I want to show other people this light, which has done so much for me! Look, look to the light of the world!
When I REALLY KNOW that I am loved. I must realize, and want to give up, the selfishness of my unworthiness, because as I come into relationship, into true love and intimacy with God and Jesus, it can only be when I am at an equal place with them. I cannot have intimacy if I am not equal. I am a daughter of God, a lover of Christ! I live, give and receive as such! I become desperate for grace, and then I gradually am drawn to realize, as Henri Nouwen says, EVERYTHING is grace and I am overwhelmed by my glimpse of what is so much more than I could ever imagine!
In this season of Lent, may we do all of our remembering in the light of the joyful fact that Christ came to set us free – so that we would not ever be under the law, or stay in a place of judgment, but that we would truly be friends of God, near to His heart – beloved. The great mystery of faith is that we must give up and keep letting go of everything we think we know, in order to gain the whole world! And that is, truly, much more than amazing grace!
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.
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
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/
love sets free
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. – C.S. LewisI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage|
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.
life: acoustic & amplified 