by Sharon O | Nov 23, 2010 | Uncategorized
Gratitude is the memory of the heart ~ Jean Baptiste Massieu
Thanksgiving.
A time for being with family or friends.
A time for feasting on wonderful food and sharing in fellowship.
A time for setting one day aside for resting and giving thanks
for life~ love~ and health.
What will you do this thanksgiving?
Watch the Macy’s thanksgiving day parade while preparing the food?
Will you sleep in and relax or
will it be a day of bustling around baking and cooking
‘stressing’ to make everything just right.
Before our day begins~ My prayer for us all is to stop
stop
Pause and slow down
to give thanks.
My prayer is that we will open our eyes
to look and see
what we have surrounding us.
My prayer is that we will know
how richly blessed we are.
We are warm~ fed~ and loved.
We have clean sheets on our beds and warm blankets.
We have furnaces that take away the chill at the touch of a button
and ovens that cook our food.
We have hot water by the turn of a faucet
and warm towels from the tumble of the dryer.
We are blessed people~
We have the freedom to go the church of our choice
or the market when something is needed.
How sad it is that
We forget…we forget.
We are forgetful people and our memory is bad.
We are ungrateful at times
We seek more and strive for more.
While others in different countries have nothing.
We remain ungrateful and forgetful
and it is sad to realize that is who we are.
I pray that we can see
we are wealthy and rich and so abundantly blessed.
Given much~ our bounty is full
Our cupboards are running over.
Even when we live from paycheck to paycheck
we still have the choice of grocery stores
with the ability to replenish our stock with
fresh water to drink and the protection of a home.
Thanksgiving needs to be
not just a day to sit and fill ourselves
with wonderfully warm food prepared by loving hands.
It needs to be
it must be
a way of life.
We must find a way to remember to give thanks
to the one who loved us first
and provides for us all that we have.
We must find a way of waking each day
and reminding ourselves
how much we have to be thankful for.
Gratitude is a memory of our heart~
We must remember how far we have come.
Are we grateful this day
Are we thankful this day
can we allow ourselves to ask the question?
I read today on anothers blog,
and I hope it is ok to share:
“When we sit around the table and reach out for each others hands
we enter into a sacred place.”
May our hearts prayer
not just be a short ‘thank you for this food prayer.’
But a prayer of thanksgiving
for we are truly blessed and richly provided for.
The same blog I read said:
Without the pause before the thanks, it is just habit.
May we never make giving thanks a habit
that is so mundane and normal
that we lose the power of the sacred moment.
Prayer is a sacred place
I pray that we will allow this thanksgiving
to become a new way of life for us.
I pray that we will allow ourselves a quiet
silence to ‘give thanks with a grateful heart’.
On this Thanksgiving I wish you a new way of life
and a new hearts perspective to be thankful.
by Sharon O | Nov 17, 2010 | Uncategorized
The dark, gray skies overhead threatened an early snow. 
Rushing shoppers, all bundled up to ward off the cold, crowded the sidewalks, lost in their to-do list for Thanksgiving.
Oblivious to their surroundings, no one noticed a small, shivering boy standing in front of the shoe store, his nose pressed against the window, barely dressed and only flip-flops on his dirty feet.
However, one man did see him and stopped, dead still in his tracks, causing others to bump into him. He didn’t notice the bumps and grumblings, but he did notice the small boy because he had a son about the same age. Thinking how he would feel if this were his son standing there, barely clothed, the man quietly slid next to the boy, the man stood there for a moment, and then said,
“They have some pretty nice shoes here, don’t they?”
“Yeah,” came the soft reply.
“Which ones do you like?”
“That pair over there… the cool running ones.”
“Oh, I”ll bet you could run fast in those.”
“Yes sir. I could. Like the wind!”
“You know, I have a little boy just about your age.”
“Oh, yeah? I’ll bet he has shoes like that.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, he does. But I have an idea.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“How ’bout I take you into the store and buy you that pair of shoes?”
The boy stood there motionless.
After a few moments,
with tears in his eyes, he looked up at the man.
“You want to buy me shoes?”
“I sure do. Your feet must be freezing and I’d love to buy them for you.”
The boy couldn’t even answer.
The man took the boy by the hand and walked into the store.
Finding the manager, the man described the pair of shoes and asked the manager to please get a pair in the boy’s size, along with some socks.
Then, he said he and the boy would be in the restroom and would he please bring the shoes and socks in there.
The manager gathered the shoes and socks and, upon entering the men’s restroom, found the man on his knees washing the young boy’s feet.
“Can’t stick dirty feet into clean, new socks and shoes, now can we?”
The young boy just stared at the man as he lovingly washed away all the accumulated street-dirt and gently dried his feet.
Feeling he was intruding on a very special moment, the manager quietly placed the shoes and socks on the floor without saying a word.
After placing the socks and shoes on the boy’s feet, the man stood up, and with hand on his hips, said, “Okay. Let’s see how they look. Walk around.”
The little boy couldn’t move.
He stared down at his feet that felt glued to the floor.
He looked up, tears now streaming down his little face, and said,
“Mister, are you Jesus?”
The boy’s words took the man’s breath away.
So overcome with emotion, the man could barely speak.
Finally, he muttered,
“No, son, I’m not. But I know Him very well.
And this is a gift from Him.”
“This is the greatest Thanksgiving ever.
Would you tell Jesus thank you for me?”
“Well, let’s go for a walk and I’ll tell you how you can do that yourself.”
After reading this writing I asked permission to post it and share it with the readers on this blog, to help us all to get into the thanksgiving spirit. Whether we purchase a pair of shoes for someone, or write a letter, send a card, or make a phone call. Perhaps it is time to tell others how to ‘thank Jesus’ for the greatest gift of all and give someone a reason to give Thanks.
by Sharon O | Nov 15, 2010 | Uncategorized
The other day looking outside I noticed
the wind blustering and blowing
as the rain poured down in many directions
and the darkened clouds
cracked the skies with thunderous roars.
Then all of a sudden
the hail came
pounding and pounding with loud earthen noise.
I watched it from the warmth and protection of the window
feeling thankful that I was inside and not out
as I heard the roar upon rooftop
tumbling onto brown green grass
turning into tiny balls of white.
The force of the wind gave the trees no choice
but to let go of the leaves that were once hanging
the beauty of glorious reds and yellows
tranforming limbs empty… barren
as the colors
now carpeted the wet and white ground.
I was in awe of the moment… time of day and season
and gently reminded of the many things
we have to be thankful for.
Remembering that:
fall…is
a time for hunkering down and finding solace in a warm room.
a steaming cup of tea.
a good book.
a phone call with a friend.
a pot of soup on the stove.
a nice glass of wine.
a hand written letter.
fall…is
a time for dying leaves and empty trees.
fall…is
the entrance into a time for giving thanks
for loved ones near and far.
fall is…
the invitation for
Thanksgiving to come and walk alongside us
as families
share food and festivities
and dishes pretty with goblets shining and steaming cups of coffee.
Thanksgiving…
where pumpkin pie with real whipping cream is
the dessert of the day
and magical moments where children and old ones
mingle and visit
in the midst of meaningful conversations
and we give thanks that we can do that this year
for we know
next year could be different.
Thanksgiving…
a time for giving thanks
for hot flames of fire dancing within the fireplace
and the Love of a God who reaches down
to save us from ourselves.
Thanksgiving…
for hope given to a world lost without it.
Thanksgiving…
for life and breath and love and dying.
Just as the leaves let go of the limb that holds them
we must let go of our stubbornness of heart
and remember to give thanks with a grateful heart
to the one who gives us choice.
For life and love and liberty
and health of spirit too.
Thanksgiving…
where knees bent and hands folded
express sincerity
from a place deep within us
to the one who
holds us close and restores our souls
barren
like empty tree limbs.
Thanksgiving…
is a time for remembering
who we give thanks to and why.
Thanksgiving…
is something special for us all.
I pray we take time to give thanks.
by Sharon O | Nov 11, 2010 | Uncategorized
Jeremiah 31:3
The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”
Hebrews 13:5b
God has said,
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Can you hear the promises from God to you?
This was a deep question I asked myself…
when we were sitting in a marriage retreat by John and Staci Eldredge.
Because of my ‘childhood’ and the abandonment issues.
I brought into our marriage as a young bride the ‘agreement’ in my heart…
‘no one will hurt me again.’
If my walls were high enough and my heart was shut off tight enough…
no one could enter and no one could cause hurt.
I went into the marriage with the ‘knowing deeply embedded inside my heart’…
that I was not important and I didn’t matter and in that knowing…
I made an agreement to believe…
‘what was really not true in this relationship.’
Even so… the lie continued to reinforce itself.
As my husband and I were sharing after the retreat a feeling many years ago on our first anniversary came forward for me.
I was pregnant and sitting in a sparsely furnished apartment while he worked over time.
There was no ‘dinner’ out that night. Although I do believe we did go out on a different day.
I wanted it to be our day and to feel special and it wasn’t.
I was sick and nauseated and
I was emotional…
and I was feeling non important.
The lesson replaying itself … if you really were important to him he would not be working overtime.
you are alone…you have always been alone.
We talked about that and in the frame reference from where we are now…
and it would not ever happen. If it was an important day…
work would wait.
But when you are a young person you only ‘see’ the paycheck with the over time on it…
you don’t see or feel or even think about the feelings surrounding that decision.
The opportunity for the enemy to come alongside and speak his lies…
was there… it was a prime event for him.
John said, “In relationships… interpretation needs time”.
Listen to the self talk.
Pay attention and listen to what is happening inside you.
He said, “Pain is the enemies playground for agreements, when you are in pain you are most vulnerable to the enemy and his tactics.”
As I sat alone in the sparsely furnished living room on our first anniversary night.
I told myself… “see… I knew I was not important… I know it doesn’t matter if it is our anniversary… work is more important.” The agreement I made that night set our ‘relationship’ up with the message any time he said, “I would like to go hunting, I would like to go fishing…” my internal interpretation was…
“I need time away from you and this is my way of doing it.”
That really wasn’t the truth of what was happening but because I had placed a filter around the agreement. I could only interpret his leaving as ‘you are not important enough for me to stay.’
This is more important to me.
I have learned a lot in the last 37 years.
Each of us brought in to the relationship baggage from our past.
My big one was abandonment.
As I grew closer to God I realized my husband did love me.
My husband did not purposely choose to hurt me.
We were young. We didn’t know. We both made decisions out of immaturity.
We have worked hard and we made it and it is good.
The promises above… I have loved you…I have drawn you…
I will not ever leave you…*a commentary said the verse really means never never never never never…five times… to get the point across.*
That is a lot of never’s.
I challenge each of us today to ask God to show you what kind of agreements you have made in your marriage if you are married… if not what personal agreements have you made about yourself or other relationships.
John said, “if it doesn’t feel risky it is not love.”
For love risks… to love deeply.
He said, “Your marriage will have rough waters, and deep turbulence, you will have pain and crisis moments, how you handle them as a couple will determine the strength you have in the relationship.” He says, “You live in a brutal war and the enemy does not want you strong and united.” He will whisper accusations to you just so you can replay the, “See I told you so moments.” (boy did we ever have some stretching moments in 37 years) John said,
“You must guard your relationship.
Watch your heart. Take note of your attitude towards each other and pray.”
John said “God is always after deeper healing~ deeper character building~ deeper transparency.”
He also said, “When the storms come… and they will…you must have an anchor to hold onto.”
Do you have an anchor… who loves you deeply and won’t ever leave you?
Take hold of it and cling tightly to the one who keeps you stable.
You cannot drift far if you allow Him to love you and keep you in a safe place.
