The Season of JOY!

Pss. 51:8 “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.”

“If you have music inside you, you have God in you.” ~ Joni 

Define what brings you joy.

As I’m winding down my goal setting of 203 blog posts this year, I’m leading you to music, joy, and happiness all found with the LOVE of the Lord. I know this might sound radical but it is my life and the way I live on a daily basis until something negative smacks me upside the head. As you know, this year has been one of them kind of years.

I pushed through with post after positive post never relegating myself to the negativity out there taking over the world. I can only say, there is only one source to that JOY and happiness on a daily basis and that is finding the love of God in the depth of your soul and find music to be a natural healer on days that don’t measure up for you.

If you’ve read yesterday’s blog, you’ll read how music has a way of healing and I posted links to show proof that music is used in many healing capacities. I know that God is the ultimate healer and since we can’t see Spirit or soul we can only FEEL Him to get to KNOW Him, music is His way of intimately touching us through the rhythmic vibrations.

If you say that sad songs make you cry, they make you reminisce, that is all part of God’s plan to make you feel and sense the world around you and Him IN you. God does not ask us not to cry. He doesn’t order us to be stoic and never show emotion, no, tears are a perfect form of allowing God to stream down your face.

Grief is another form of God showing us that emotions are okay to express. When you hear a song, or think about a loved one you lost (often when a song is played) God is planting a seed of remembrance in your heart that has you directly touching Him. 

Joy and Love are other avenues of expressing God from within your soul. I’d like to do a musical experiment of sorts if you don’t mind. You’ll feel something with each link and I’d love to hear your feedback, if not, take to heart what you experience in the sincerest form and allow them to help you grow wherever you may need.

Click this link: bad vibrations?

Good vibrations? 

Intimacy with God - 

I can almost 100% guarantee you didn’t make it through the bad song, your heart stirred at the good vibration one, but your soul QUIVERED at the seconds or minutes you spent in the intimacy with God link. THAT my friends is the musical Healer in Action!

My mission this year was to bring about a change of heart in each and every one of you through every blog post. Whether my words solidified what you already believed or my words touched you in any way or maybe it was the brief light that you allowed in your door and it helped awaken you to a truth you’ve never known.

I’ll admit first hand that I had no intention or plans of going this far this year with my blog post, but as many of you can see with your own eyes, God had different plans, as always. Now my plans, after the 203rd post is to take a little break if God allows. Maybe I’ve given you all that He needed me to and will see that I’ve exerted myself to the extent that it is time for a refresher. 

The Advent season will come upon me and I’ll be on a quiet sabbatical of sorts as I pray and meditate on the season in my own way. Remember, Advent is not for Catholics only. I have my prayerful meditative month before the celebration of Christmas day as man sees it and it turns into what God wants from ME not what I want from Him or from man. 

Writing has been my lifelong journey since before I ever had the internet, a place to voice the words God places on my heart to convey to you, a people in need of an inspirational message. While families gather for Thanksgiving around their table with loved ones or alone, please know God is always in your heart to warm you this season.  

Pss. 51:12 “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”

As aromas carry through the house of turkey and pumpkin pies as we give thanks, it will ring in the season of scents with pinecones and cookies. Always remember the reason for the season. Not the manmade appointed season, the real season of the Birth of Christ we read about in our Holy Bibles. Let Jesus’ birth carry you into a New Year, a new beginning a new perspective on life and the Spirit that will follow you long after you’ve left this physical world behind.

In God’s Holy name I pray that you have a Blessed Thanksgiving and a JOYOUS Christmas. Much of my time will be spent here praising the One and only keeper of my soul. 

God Bless you all.

Pss. 66:1 “Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands:”

Quotation Saturday ~ Hope, Journey, Peace

I chose peace, hope and journey this week because this week I have been led to a woman’s blog by Hope, Hope Clark that is. Not one to believe in coincidences I was led to this blog for many reasons as the Lord has shown me.

Flailing Arms (blog) has come at a time when our pastor is ending his tenure with our church at Efree and going on a journey where God has called him to give the new Efree church hope in Minnesota.

Our church is involved in many mission trips whether it is in another country (Sudan) or here at home feeding the hungry and aiding the needy; just what a church should stand for. And out of my not understanding a few things, Flailing Arms came along, and now I have clarity and understanding.

Alecia Klauk, writer of Flailing Arms, this week has been on a mission trip in Guatamala, and little known to her, she has given me hope, in knowing and seeing the people that are called by God, endure the fear of going, but overcome it with HOPE, Esparanza!

Hope: Pss. 16:9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.

Peace: Prov. 3:17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

Journey: Prov. 7: 19 For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:

HOPE

“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”
~ Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.”
~ Amy Tan

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weighs you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
~ Ellen Bass

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.”
~ C. JoyBell C.

JOURNEY

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”
~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“Perfectly Imperfect
We have all heard that no two snowflakes are alike. Each snowflake takes the perfect form for the maximum efficiency and effectiveness for its journey. And while the universal force of gravity gives them a shared destination, the expansive space in the air gives each snowflake the opportunity to take their own path. They are on the same journey, but each takes a different path.
Along this gravity-driven journey, some snowflakes collide and damage each other, some collide and join together, some are influenced by wind... there are so many transitions and changes that take place along the journey of the snowflake. But, no matter what the transition, the snowflake always finds itself perfectly shaped for its journey.
I find parallels in nature to be a beautiful reflection of grand orchestration. One of these parallels is of snowflakes and us. We, too, are all headed in the same direction. We are being driven by a universal force to the same destination. We are all individuals taking different journeys and along our journey, we sometimes bump into each other, we cross paths, we become altered... we take different physical forms. But at all times we too are 100% perfectly imperfect. At every given moment we are absolutely perfect for what is required for our journey. I’m not perfect for your journey and you’re not perfect for my journey, but I’m perfect for my journey and you’re perfect for your journey. We’re heading to the same place, we’re taking different routes, but we’re both exactly perfect the way we are.
Think of what understanding this great orchestration could mean for relationships. Imagine interacting with others knowing that they too each share this parallel with the snowflake. Like you, they are headed to the same place and no matter what they may appear like to you, they have taken the perfect form for their journey. How strong our relationships would be if we could see and respect that we are all perfectly imperfect for our journey.”
~ Steve Maraboli

“For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love there is anger; for the wing of destiny there is fear; for the wing of pain there is healing; for the wing of hurt there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride there is humility; for the wing of giving there is taking; for the wing of tears there is joy; for the wing of rejection there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment there is grace; for the wing of honor there is shame; for the wing of letting go there is the wing of keeping. We can only fly with two wings and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance. Two beautiful wings is perfection. There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race.”
~ C. JoyBell C.

“It's funny how, in this journey of life, even though we may begin at different times and places, our paths cross with others so that we may share our love, compassion, observations, and hope. This is a design of God that I appreciate and cherish.”
~ Steve Maraboli

PEACE

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:
- I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
- I shall fear only God.
- I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
- I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
- I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.”
~ John Lennon

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.”
~ Milan Kundera

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

Leaving a Mark

Immortality is to live your life doing good things, and leaving your mark behind.
~Brandon Lee

As a writer, it is your job to leave a mark in the hearts of readers. I’ve seen a lot of writers over the years and quite frankly they have not left a mark, or left an impression that they even care to write. So why be the all mighty and powerful poster of nothingness? I’m a bit confused on that one.

Since the beginning of the new year, I have written every single day. I take the time to write something of value so I can touch every reader of my work. I feel that if I just pull rubbish out of my hat to write, then what is the point in writing? I’m not saying that last year I didn’t write, because I sure did do a whole lot of writing, but my FOCUS was not on the writing world it was a lot of rubbish about my life, my triumphs and trials and I’d toss in a few writing posts. Then I was off taking care of writers and just not interested in writing.

As a train came down the track, and basically ran over me slicing my legs in two, figuratively, I lost the joy of writing! I seriously contemplated giving it up because of the disaster, but as the year ended, I realized, I am more to the world than any person that unleashes hatred on me. More I tell you; to myself, my life, and to the world. They have their cozy place all picked out and I hear it’s a nice warm place too, but me? I rise above, spread my wings and take flight!

Like I said, I began the new year with a juicy new incentive, to WRITE! That’s right, my legs may have been severed but it did nothing to my hands that could tap out promising posts day after day. Here we are, twenty seven days into the new year and already am I revived, rejuvenated, eager to bring to the world something of substance.

As my health hangs on the wings of prayer, which is mighty fine by me since I know my health is in good hands, I continue to shine on and give to the world a light that they may have thought dimmed. *I* can not be dimmed by the likes of imps. Nope, I march forward each and every day, write to my hearts content, and make something of this life that I’ve been given. I’m proud to call myself a writer! Honored that the Good Lord gave me awesome gifts to share with the world.

I began another blog telling of my pretty ugly life story. I’ve written daily writing posts that actually pertain to writing. I have put off all the silliness, tossed aside the immature-unprofessional-zany-crazy-woohoo-life of last year, stood up and took notice of where I was going wrong and have put into perspective just what I am here on this earth for, I have come to this world and this juncture in my life to leave my mark on each and every one of you! The goal of every writer!

This year: Mission Accomplished!

"A writer lives, at least, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world, lies a deeper one of wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes." 

~William Sansom