greatful enough

I will admit i have been struggling lately with greatfulness. God has taken us out of the bad situation and provided for us as I had great faith he would. But i find my exspectations of him providing were too high, I exspected a wonderful house, where i could hear the ocean ,not the hyway. I exspected a job where i would actually be cooking, I exspected more of everything. What i am forgetting ,is that i forgot to ask for specifics, i thought i would be greatful for anything, and i was wrong about me.....Oh what a hinderance, could this be pride.
There is a story of 10 leppers, jesus heals them all, but only one returns to thank him. I am disapointed in myself, I thought i was like that one, I thought i didnt stuggle with this.
It is so funny How quickly God can turn us in twards his ways. I have to sit now and think, yes i had a home with lots of things,but i had no church home. yes a had a comfortable bed ,but I had no rest . I had abundant fruit trees, but was not producing spiritual fruit. I had a life of sin and loss and lonelyness cause i had been turning a deaf ear to God.And now he has oppened a world of doors to my family and I find myself complaining . This is where i am stuck...if i had asked my God for specifics, would he have taken that as me being selfish, or provided what i asked, maybe my faith isnt as strong as I thought. or maybe i need to learn true greatfulness. and know that what God has for me may not be done yet, and that everything that he has provided will eventualy lead to the better life i wanted,but more then that to the will he has for me. now many of you know i wanted to go be a missionary a few years back,But I am seeing now that through everything else that happened instead, I have learned what i wasnt prepared for yet. I couldnt deal with persecution in my own home, so how would I have delt out there,I fell short and now i am being shown where and how to fix it. sometimes we think we are ready to give everything up for God, but are we really ready to do what he wants , instead of what we want.
so starting now I am going to do two things, work on praying for speciffics, and work on being greatful for all I am given cause its Gods will. And let us all remember that God wants to give us good things,and to satisfy the desires of our heart,but as our father he must disern those things we want that are truely not good for us. it only starts with faith, then there has to be trust, and of corse gratitude.

the power of truth

What has become of real truth in our society, now it is like a leprocy to tell the truth. Honest people ,or even those striving for total honesty have become the minority. When did it become wrong to admit your mistakes, to appologize or feel remorse. everyone is self justified now. But I will tell you I am imperfect. Thats why i am a Christian.Many people belive Christians are hypocrits, and that is true i will omit, hence really we are all hypocrits. Jesus came here not for the people that were OK ,he came for the sick, the Lost and fosaken, the loosers, the robbers, the tax collectors and prostitutes. He came here for me , cause I was a wretch... But as many people who come to him to pray the prayre of jebez, I asked to be honest, And Jesus is the truth so who else to better teach honesty. I normaly would use metephores of me beeing like water, or My god as my rock....but here i am gonna throw another concept out to you... I am this rock, I was very riged, hardened by being unloved, My Lord is the ocean, and we clash like you wouldnt beleave. He trys to hold me tight but I send him back to sea in my stuborn human form, but he comes back and embraces me again, and again , till my heart is worn smooth, He never gives up on me, And hes not going to give up on you either. But dear friends we need to not give up on truth....we need to hold eachother accountable, stop saying it was all my fault, I will say gladly what was my fault, I know my side, but stand up and say what was your fault,honesty feels amazing.....let that water crash up and pull out any want to tell a little lie,even if its to protect, even if the motives are right.....always be honest,always....let your heart of stone fall away and see the truth....not simply my opinion of truth....but the real truth.JESUS WANTS YOU MAN... HE WANTS TO HOLD YOU...NOT JUST CAUSE I TRYED TO GET YOU TO SEE...BUT CAUSE HE LOVED YOU SINCE BEFOR YOU WERE BORN...we are all wrong...but Jesus is always right, cause he was always loving,compassionate, commited.Do you know what they do with sand, they make glass that floats on water. do you know what Jesus does with the bits and peices he breaks off of your hearts of stone...he reforms you to walk on water....he gives you a faith to do anything. You can take a rock, grind it up and blow it out to an orb shape...and you dont see the stone anymore, you see light and beauty....and that is You as an honest vessle of God.
MAY THE SON SHINE DOWN ON YOU,AND MAY YOU BE A NEW CREATION AND REFLECT HIS LIght

following the right path

Following the right path is something everyone stuggles with. For a few years now i have been on the beaten path, forgeting all i know to be true to follow the ways of man. my eyes were filled with images of the world, my ears filled with sounds everyone hears, my mouth with speach everyone speaks. But recently I caught glimps of the path I had forsaken. It was a big risk to take, few had taken it befor, but a master trail carver has carved it, it was extrordinary, and not done in the way of this world, there was a man i reconised walking befor me, a great light shown from him and it illuminated me as I steped onto the path i had strayed from.My Lord was befor me...he was smiling.....for i was returning to his flock again, bouncing along behind him.
I had to take a leap of faith,a leap out of the sinful life that was crushing me. everyone i know who was of the world cursed me,said it would never work, everyone who was of his kingdom cheered me on. And the Lord has provided for us so well, he has healed our cuts and scrapes from the thorns along the wrong path, he has given to us abundance. If you today are standing in sin, and the world looks gray, step into the light of Christ, take a leap out of the sin....follow Jesus. for there is no earthly man worth following, the world will always garenteed let you down, and not live up to your exspectation, it will lie and cheet and act as though it had done nothing wrong to you,the world will blame you, and never commit to you, it will steal the life and the light from you. But you can always come Home, Cause Christ is out serching for you when you stray. God wants his flock to be whole, not a single one lost...return to him, and he will celebrate your arival. only a house built on the Lord can stand

how we look at things

CREATION,that word can stand alone in itself as one of the most amazing things ever done.In our daily life how do we look at creation? I will admit i complain like everyone else,I dont really like bugs or hail,volcanos,or germs, mold or sharks. But everything when looked at from the standpoint of the creator is amazing, even the things i dont like, like polination by bugs,the crystilization of rain into hail,the formation of mountains by building up lava and pressure,the way the blood fights off germs that can harm us,how pennicilan was discovered in mold,or how sharks teeth rotate in. we need to look at life as beautiful always. A friend of mine theresa took this photo of her feet, She has been traeling in the footprints that Jesus walked,Reaping wheat, reaping a deepness her savior is instilling in her heart.And apon looking at her amazing photographs i felt imediate guilt,I look out over wheat feilds daily as brown and ugly, I admit i miss living a more colorful life in many meanings of the world colorful.But Jesus knew how wheat was made right down to its protons and neutrons,he encased it in its bristly hair to protect it from preditors and designed it to flow like waves over the fields. to be a main food of his people,yes he loved us even when he was first inventing wheat. Amazing.yet i take this for granted,even as a baker,a creator myself, I look out and think ugly wheat, Now i can even find sin that needs to be threshed from my soal in that. Now i am not entirely shallow, I notice the wind, Thank God for inventing snot to carry away germs and dust from our bodys,I think feet are beautiful even when they are old and knarled,But i too must learn to look differntly at those things in creation that are beautiful but scairy or misunderstood.Theresa thank you for the pictures, for making me look differntly at wheat,for reminding me to not tread so harshly apon what has been made for us to protect and use wisely. And Lord Thank you for all you have made, I have opened my eyes, and your right, it is Good.

the garentee of change

I have always held a fastionation with old houses, places so run down they are no longer inhabitable.they have a history,but more then that they have held life.You can see life on them when the light passes over them, they have seen the most beautiful sun sets,they have seen the shadows of silver lined stormclouds.The wind has stripped them of thier bark like an old oak tree. yet they still have dignety.
Life is sure to always change,many people say that people dont change, but we do, our soal is a unique fingerprint. but we grow and learn and change. I have changed so i know this to be true.change is inevitable,it longs for us to ride with it , flow in and out with its tide,hurl our way down a mountain and go rushing as a river to the sea....everything always changes,it is a hoop in life, as any other cycle The Good Lord set up.
everyday i look out my window from where i sit in my living space, and i see an old house, it changes color as the light shines from behind it as the sun rises, til the time of day that it shines orange and red in the eavening light. it is my peace in this dessert, this house that cycles with the sun. It is lonely yet it keeps me company. and it reminds me of the beauty in change, I wouldnt want to give up a single monent in its changing colors, nor a single season.
And when I lok apon my family each day I see the seasons, the cycles,all the moments of thier lives, and i do not want to give up even the coldest harshest winter storm, or the hottest summer. the people i love will always be changing, as i change. but it is our commitment to love them through it all that eventualy makes us look at the beauty of them even in the most difficult situations. Afterall a star at a distance is beautiful, but if we look closer we may see a glorious super nova, which may be thier most painful and beautiful moment. The thing that matters is not that they were in pain,or that they changed, but that I was there to see the change, to welcome it, to see the beauty of someones heart and soal growing,that is the life in us, it is an exsplosion, it hurts sometimes, it is powerful, and yet a simple hoop in the eye of the lord.
That old house across from me has not been loved by someone in a long time,But God still paints it, and I still relish in its reflected light. so maybe it still has a life where it is worthy of still standing.still loved, not for what it once was, not for what it could be ,given some paint and nails,and alot of elbow greese. but instead for the Who it is right now.My daughter aydan is 2 and she always points to something and says " who is that" when she wants to know the name of an object. and oneday she looked over at the old house all orange and she said"the orange house makes me happy" and I got that she understood something deeper about life so i simply said" the orange house makes me happy too" How blessed am I to have an orange house , and a happy girl, in my sight.and how blessed i am to watch tristan and marsh changing too. and even get the occational view of my mother ageing.Her crown of wisdom shinning in the sun. so lets all learn to look for the little changes of light ,of life, in our loved ones. I will be there to see them.I have an all season pass. And thank you God for little lost houses, and the miricals they teach us.

different sides of me

There are times in a woman's life when it may seem she is 2 very different people. The woman who was branched of her childhood dreams and the person she has settled into being. That time for me is now. The 2 photos above represent my self in very real(not so crazy) split realitys. the first is the river Li in china, it is calming,the warm glow of paper lanterns, the stillness of the water,the reflection of all the color that has woven its way though my life. And in it lay the real me, the passionate woman dressed in flowing silks,The one with an exotic flower in my hair, the one you dont see in the photo, letting my feet dangle in the cool water,absolutely in love with life and everything it has to offer.

And then there is the sideways look at a cliff and castle in irland,rainy fog moving in to gray the view.longing to run at the cliff and not stop,how far could i run over the edge.(again not in a crazy way)there i am,fallen down in my abrupt running, looking at my home from a crooked angle.It is gray, and cold and stone, secure, safe,closed in ,longing.I am there off to the side, wearing sweatpants,too poor for a drink at the local pub.taken for granted, always forlorn.

So what does this comparison teach us, to let go of the dream ,or not to settle for less.I do not know if there is a way to merge the two.afterall i have let go of childhood dreams, havent I,or maybe they werent dreams, but something to hope for. but I have so much to loose if I go running at the clif,however ,so i hang on. but what i really want is a way to be myself,even under the ruff circomestances. so off to reinventing myself,the magical girls imagination and the well lived ones' way of taking the bad and turning it into a treasure.let me think awile on that

The idea of slowing

I have been serching for a change this last month, something that says I stand apart from where I am. something that will make me more content waiting for so long to be where i want to be in my life. I have felt much like the scean in my favorite movie"the Piano" when the piano gos down in the ocean and later she thinks of herself still tied to it....still in the depths,swaying with the water.She spent a lifetime in her own silence, till she met someone who she wanted to speak for, a man that made her want to live. much of my life i have been as cinderella, or anyother princess, waiting for someone to add color to my life, to bring out the beauty from within. and as I speak it is i in this small town ,which is silent twards me,that has finnaly let go of the rescuer idea. and have realized what i have known all along. that I am the color to be added to others. i have been reading Marlaina de blasi's books(1000 days in tuscany,1000 days in venice) and in her memwars she talks of things like i have always felt, she slows to become part of things,she actualy tastes her food, wraps herself up in the colors in life, and in doing so she changes people.And so I think of differnt women I have met like this. extrordinary women who change how you look at life. I want to be one of those.But then I must embrace the part of me that society these modern days rejects.The anchient part that has came through time wanting to wear flowing skirts and bake breads rich in aromatic rosemary.and here we embrace an idea......slowing down....an idea that alows us to flow with the waves, to play the piano, but to also keep our heads above water. what if we just enjoy the moment, then ejoy the next, then the next. what if we slow down and watch how the light creaps over things, iluminating this part then that part.what if we are like that light, and we learn to be patient and we illuminate the texture of a bright mango as it fills all our sences, what if we watch the trees move till thier branches pass the secret on to the next tree and so on.sometimes good things wash up on our beach and we keep and cherish these treasures, but shouldnt we also treasure the things that are ripped by thewave and washed away, knowing that theyare the treasure someone else recieves. just what if we concentrate on thatchance that if we let go of that speed and that selfish living, that maybe we can achieve being the light to others.whatwould it hurt to stay a few moments longer in line and actualy meet the person waiting with us.what might we see if we looked behond something wewant for our hord and chose instead something to give. what if we took a small amount and set it aside just to see what we could do.I phrase all these questions as statements, because thats how i want you to take them,the what if isnt a fantancy you cant reach, it is a fact that you can acomplish, but its got to be moment by moment, so you need the stops. what if i cound.(stop and alow it in,dont answer, just let it in, to begin, to become)slowly look at the possibilitys. as many of you know i live without a cell phone, i actualy have a phone attached to the wall, I am not old fashioned, i simply reply when people ask , that i do not always want to be found. when I go to the grocery store i want to smell the mellons and look for some new ingrediant to taste, I do not want to talk to you about what your kid did yesterday, it isnt that i dont want to know...it is instead this(let this blow your mind) that as the bible says there is a time for everything. and when its time for me to hear about your son, i will be attached to my wall, full attention on your voice. some people say it is for safty, the cell, well i read something on wasp spay for safty too, and i am sorry but i am not going to spend my precious number of days in fear carring a can of wasp spray. I am a mom, i do wory, my son gos out with a walky talkie, and so he can say " all is well" and I can say "get your butt home its dark" but as far as real safty I have My GOd and he is "bigger then the boogie man" as a tomato once said. and so I choose now, freedom, slowness,life,flavor,light patience, moments worth more then gold.....I sway with the currant and if I color anothers world then I smile and continue on my journey, my song of whales, slowly but surely I will cross seas . slowly i can already smell the sea

still afloat

There are times in life when we realize we are not sinking,when we are not really flailing either. times that we float through. we let the bad drift past us,under us the unknown, and we focus on the blue sky, the clouds everchanging.We have been through rough waters,shipwreaked,shaken by the storm.....But.... we are still afloat. and the key is simple joy.A gift from above. Joy takes place wile Gods grace mends us from our stuggles.there is a time to look inward,what had we planned, what was the sideroad we took,where are our battle scars. and did we really loose? Or maybe, just maybe. we simply be...... can you forget about the dangers in the deep, and simply feel the breese against your cheek.can you alow yourself to float without worring which way you will drift with the currant. what in your life is weihing you down? let it go, let it fall to the bottom of the sea, it will keep there like the titanics treasures. it may not have been yours to keep for always.sometimes when we let a dream go that we have not yet reached we hold in bitterness. but we must let that go too. for everything we let go of brings something beter here forth befor us. we hold ourselfs back in life with fears of loss and failure. and i asure you i have endured both . but I am still happy I had the bits and peaces i have had, and i am confident as I drift along in life, that wile i look up, and i leave my troubles in the sea, that I am floating over a million pearls that have formed out of things i have sent to the depths. and in that thought they have become smooth and cool and beautiful and i am no-longer afraid of the past, so I can simply concentrate at looking up, at feeling the wamth if the sun, at smelling the crisp salt air. and sure i can hear the siriens of the deep,but they cant drag me down. for i have learned to float by on faith. have you?

a fairy tale to inspire hope

I will tell you a tale of old and of new, of one who rules but again its of two.

Once apon a time there was a fair maiden, but she was differnt from the others, and so she was set aside. and at the same time there was a young prince ,raised off on a mountain far far away. He was very misunderstood, But very adored by the great king. And so the king had them raised in seperate lands, so that they would grow to be such far opposites that when they would find one another they would at first wrestle around with differences. but the king was anchient and wise, and he made them such so that they would compliment eachother, and between them have everything they needed to survive and trive, though he knew they would not at first understand, and hence take many steps back in order to take one large step forward. But the King he loved them both, and had great Hope and faith that they would triump for he provided them with the availability of his great councel. He wrote a book and sent it to the young maiden to memorize as she grew up, and being that she grew up in the mist of very dark forest, she used the illuminated pages of the book to light her path. The prince on the other hand was raised in the walls of a castle, protected from harm, he went around danger instead of through. The king had given him a gift also to guide him, it was a vow, written on the inside of a ring that didnt even fit his own ring finger, so he wore it on his little finger and at times grew frustrated with such a stupid thoughtless gift and shoved it low in his pocket. The vow said "To her be true the one I especialy created just to Love you, with a powerful Love she will bring, for she knows she is a diamond to this King." rhe prince thought the vow silly to and all his days ignored the king when he wispered great wisdom to him, but instead he surrounded himself with wretches who despised the king and mocked him, some twisting his words others speaking evils the prince thought sounded lovely compaired to the kings strict ways.

in the mean time the princes cherished the book, but never felt she deserved it. she fought through many trials, she learned to be true in word but stuggled with her own actions.but faithfully she read the words again and again and turned away from the darkness, and in so doing her heart became illuminated as the pages, and she remembered the words of the king, and she found great joy even in the darkness.her heart grew to be Gold from the magestys great wisdom. but she was still lonely, and longed for a companion. she met many people the king had also given a book to, but non of them noticed her and she started to feel un worthy.

back in the kingdom the prince was fed up , the king had given books to everyone it seemed but him, all he had was a ring that was useless to him, he tryed to talk to the book people, to join thier clubs ,but he never saw anything illuminated in any of them. he was angry with the king still and perhaps a bit blind to him for not even carring for his own son. but the king had brought out of this pain the ability for the prince to find the fair maiden, for only he would see her heart of Gold,and the king knew that only she would love the prince even if he renounced the wisdom of the king. for she could love him with the kings love, till all the bitterness would melt away.

Then the day came, the princes wanted to talk to the king, so she followed his voice up a mountain, and there amounst the bustling bussiness of the castle and kingdom. was a simple man hiding away from all the silliness. so the lady reached out and touched his arm. and from then on no matter thier differences, they were drawn to one another. for a few years all they did is stuggle. But the king stood back and watched. the prince was not ready to give his heart away,and he had long ago forgotten the vow on the ring lost deep in his pocket. The girl she loved him even though he was not what she had exspected.The king was pleased each time they survived a trial or tribulation, though he could see thier strife, they didnt understand one another. then one day wile serching for a key, the prince found the ring, it still made him feel so uncomfortable, but he felt illuminated next to her and for the firt time since he recived it as a child, he read the vow. but the words still didnt make since, still he wanted to give this girl that was so different something special and though he had much, he felt it wasnt what she wanted. so he handed her the ring, and she took it, but she didnt think she deserved it and so she didnt know what to give him back, all she had wrapped up for him was the old book, she had it all in her heart, every wise word of the king. it was what her heart was made of now. she wished she had a way to tell the price what those words had done in her, but the prince wasnt much for long late conversation.so the pricess slowly gave him the book, and when he opened it he felt something different, hurt and anger from thepast, she was just one of those people, she couldnt understand him. she stood there holding the ring in confusion.what did this gift he gave he mean, for she couldnt read the vow, only the price could . and the price could not see the wisdom, only she could see it. so they turned away from one another, hurt and lonely, so very different that no-one would ever know that they had been set apart for eachother, to make eachother better.The prince needed to learn to make the girl feel special, like the diamond of the king, he had to learn to give up all fear and anger and be true to his princess, and to know she had been made especially for him. He had to use the power of the vow to love her. and the princess had to see why the price didnt want the book, and she had to instead show him how her heart was made up of its pages....for the only reason she had known to love him was that the king loved his son so dearly.but would the prince be brave enough to see she wasnt like the others. would he be willing to make the vow even though she was one of them. would he be able to finnaly see that the king gave them both all they ever needed in his gifts, and if they put thier gifts together they would find all the Love illuminated befor them. The world may never know what happened to this couple. but if you look at the photo of the story I tell, you will see quite well the illumination that they didnt see. how the book and ring complimented eachother to form perfect love.sent to them from a mountain kingdom far above.

with love for marshall not to insult, but to illuminate