by Sharon O | Sep 18, 2010 | Uncategorized
A grandparent’s heart grows wider and deeper~
with every grandchild born.
It is an honor and a special privilege to be grandparents.
It is love at a different level.
Our son now has three son’s.
Samuel is six… Josiah is two and a half and Seth is one day old.
A baby was born.
To parents who love and nurture and care for each other so they can care for their children.
Changes will come to this house… making room for one more is a bit of a re-adjustment.
Rooms reorganized and closets de-cluttered. Change… is good.
Each child is different and needing different things.
When we were young parents we brought our children up with the prayers that they will be good citizens some day. That they would be responsible and true to themselves.
That they would love their Lord and serve in some way.
That they would make us proud.
Our daughter has three daughters and now our son has three sons.
We are very proud and pleased and so very blessed.
A baby to love is a beginning for us all.
His life is fresh and new and tender and sweet.
Lord God bless our little ones and protect them always.
Surround them with angels and form a hedge of protection around their every move.
Thank you God for entrusting these children to their parents who love them and to the grandparents who would do anything to make their lives safe and comfortable.
We are thankful to have Faith, Hannah, Alexis, Samuel, Josiah and now Seth join our hearts circle of love.
Lord God we give you thanks~ we are SO blessed.
What blesses you today?
by Sharon O | Sep 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
I thought of something the other day or maybe I heard it somewhere.
“Nurturing a tranquil soul.”
What a concept~ What an idea.
For the last year I have been off work and really have enjoyed being home.
The goal has been to slow down and enjoy the day~ slow down and enjoy the moments.
When I read ‘nurturing the tranquil soul’ it resonated with me so intensely.
We all should strive for a peaceful soul. Or a place of quiet inside.
It is hard work to slow down the pace of our fast moving world.
It is hard work to be still and be quiet.
Dictionary.com says:
Nurture: To support and encourage; to bring up; to promote development.
Tranquil: Free from commotion or tumult; free from or unaffected by disturbing emotions; serene: calm peaceful and quiet.
Does it feel like something you want?
Nurturing a tranquil soul.
That is not meaning you have to sit around in a yoga position humming.
It is nurturing a peace that passes all understanding deep inside inside your heart.
So that when something bad happens you grieve but you are not broken into pieces.
When something unexpected happens you are shocked but not knocked down.
John Eldredge says it is a sense of belonging… to oneself.
Just as we want to belong to a family we also want to belong to ourselves.
Have you ever met someone who is nice to get to know but as you get to know them it feels like they do not know themselves very well? It’s like they are not connected… not having an idea of what they are showing to others. They are sort of clueless.
I think nurture is a wonderful concept.
It is our ‘purpose’ to encourage others~ to promote others to do well and to be peaceful.
Be calm and quiet. The word tells us to be quick to hear and slow to speak. We find strength when we are quiet.
Helping others to nurture themselves helps them to move deeper into a sense of self and helping ourselves to do the same.
I ask you… how well do you nurture your heart or soul?
Is your hearts desire always way back there somewhere while you attend to other more important issues?
I ask you…
do you nurture yourself in the way you would nurture another?
If the answer is NO ask yourself why.
ARE you not as important as another? repeat the question:
are you not as important as another?
Remember to be tranquil is to be free… free from noise, commotion or disturbing emotions.
Are you free today? I pray that you can come to a place where nurturing a tranquil soul is normal for you.
by Sharon O | Sep 13, 2010 | Uncategorized
The Compassion team just returned from Guatemala and each person wrote blogs about their experience.
Today instead of me writing I am going to let them write.
Starting with /Ann Voscamp@AHolyExperience.com/
Be sure to have your sound on. Her site is beautiful and she is a powerfully gifted writer.
You might even need Kleenex nearby as you read the heart wrenching stories.
Then you can move on to Lisa-Jo (The Gypsy Mama) www.Thegypsymamma.com/
Next you can read:
http://amandajones.com/ Jones (Baby Bangs)Living Proof Ministries
After that you can read:
http://www.lindseynobles.com/
There are a few other bloggers who went with the team you can log into their sites I believe from the other sites.
Reading their last weeks accounts of everyday life in Guatemala will help you understand poverty and its face and put a name on your heart I hope to sponsor a child.
Sponsoring a child only costs $38.00 a month.
We pay more for coffee or frivolous lunches out or that fancy pair of must have shoes.
I encourage us all to think about missions. Not necessarily go to far away places. But if one cannot go then one can certainly sponsor a child who lives there. Finish your reading with the leader of the Guatemala group:
/www.ShaunGroves.com/
I encourage you to take the time to read these posts maybe even subscribe to them. Personally I subscribe to about 35 blogs. They encourage me to press forward and also it is like a devotional time on line along with my bible studies.
I would LOVE feeback if these links work and what you thought of them. I tried to click onto a few of them from my blog here and couldn’t get them to work please let me know if I did anything wrong with the addresses.
Today it was important to take a bit of a break and encourage us all to think beyond ourselves and to realize the world is not often the way we see it in our cozy neighborhoods and warm homes.
I pray that we can look beyond our own lives and SEE the lives of others.
by Sharon O | Sep 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
Continuing on the topic of soul sessions
our pastor was sharing how it is good for us to have healthy fear.
That got my attention because as a child living in a home that often brought fear to the surface I was intrigued by his comment ‘healthy’ fear.
The example he shared was about his little daughter and how they often would tell her to not touch the stove… it is hot… it will burn. Over and over the voice repeating to her ‘NO don’t touch’. Then in a split second the day came when she did. The door was left open and she reached in to touch the bright hot surface.
She learned in an instant through pain and tears and cold water the cause and effect of the warning. Don’t touch the stove it will burn you~ don’t touch~ it will hurt you .
Then he continued to say ‘we do the same’ thing with God.
God will say, “NO don’t do that” in many different ways as a protection for us so we will not be hurt. It is our choice if we reach out and touch it and when it hurts us the truth becomes a reality we can grasp because we experienced it. What God was saying was true.
Just as pastors little daughter became more respectful of the oven when the door was open.
We become more respectful of the warnings of God.
Pastors little daughter probably walked by that stove every hour touching the cold outside frame and not understanding ‘it is hot~ it will hurt you.’ Only when the ‘heat’ hurt her did she grasp the truth and it became a lesson for her to learn from.
Pastor was saying: Healthy fear is prevention so harm cannot take place.
I ask you today…
what has brought a healthy fear to you.
Does the fear of God keep you from sinning?
Do you feel protected because of his warnings?
Just as a parent would run to their child and warn them if they were in the street God runs to us in protection for our safety. He sets guidelines and rules for us so that we can stay safe.
Have you ever had a police officer follow you as you were driving?
I tend to grip the wheel tighter as the anxiety rises for me to perform well.
It is the presence of the car and the uniform and the badge where respect and protection come from. The whole time they are driving behind you it is a test to see if you follow the rules and heed the warning. You have a healthy fear for him for you know that he has the power to site you for doing wrong.
Healthy fear is good in many areas of our lives.
Exodus 20:20 tells us: Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid.
God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you
to keep you from sinning.”
I pray that we can stay thankful that we have a God who cares so much
that he is willing to test us to see if we sin or not.
Is he following behind you today?
by Sharon O | Sep 7, 2010 | Uncategorized
Our Pastor has been teaching a series called soul sessions.
It has been thought provoking and interesting.
The question he asked last week was this:
What distortions do you have about God?
I had to stop and think about that question:
Always looking for the meanings of words I found these to match what he was asking from dictionary.com.
Distortion: a change in perception so that it does not correspond to reality.
The disguising of the meaning of unconscious thoughts so that they may appear
in consciousness as in dreams.
My answers to his question were these:
That He would not love me even though I know He does and
That He would leave me even though I know he won’t.
It is my belief that our distortions about God are based on our core beliefs about ourselves
from the world we grew up in. I believe those distortions are a reflection of what we experienced and perhaps were taught in a conscious way or an unconscious way.
The lessons we learned through other lessons given by those in authority.
(These are only my thoughts not verified by a professional in any way).
In my case: abandonment was a big issue when I was growing up.
The message that I was not important was loud and clear.
When a parent leaves it sends the message deep into the core
of the belief system of the child.
I know in my heart without a shadow of a doubt~
that God loves me…
but if I couldn’t be loved by my parent why would God want to.
I know in my heart without a shadow of a doubt~
that God will never leave me…
but I also know that because my own parent did…
it could be possible for God to do the same.
Now in saying all that without the intense meeting with God I had as a teenager…
the ability to doubt and to question would be much stronger.
(the story is here on this blog ~ march 21st entry)
God answered my prayer in such an intense way there was no choice but to believe.
There was no way I could not. The sureness of my new belief system was fortified
by the answer to my prayer. He knew I would need something so dramatic and so meaningful in order for me to believe in Him.
When the questions come… does God love me enough.
The word will tell me…”I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
When the questions come…will God leave me.
The word tells me… “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Pastor said, “Love defines your relationship with God”…
if your parent didn’t love you enough is it possible to know God will?
Pastor also said, “Hope is found in your view of God…
the survival of your soul is dependent on your opinion of God in the moment.”
A crisis of Faith is a moment in time where you have to put your faith to the test.
For example when my mother in law found out she had terminal cancer she said, “well we will do the best we can and then leave it up to God.” She had a deep love for God so her soul was settled with the fact that she would see Him one day and it would be good. Because of her opinion of God and who He was she fought her cancer without becoming bitter or angry.
Her soul was settled and it had a profound effect on those who were with her throughout the process.
Pastor continued to talk about the survival techniques we learned growing up.
I could so relate to this since my own journey was full of hard and difficult places
my survival technique was to wall off anything or anyone to keep more hurt away.
Only when God touched me and met me through a prayer from my heart
could I truly believe and trust Him.
Soul sessions are all about discovering who we are as a person.
Our Pastor said, “Hope is always found in your view of God.”
I challenge you to explore the distorted thoughts and views you might have about Him.
Write them down and pray about them.
If you don’t know what they are ask Him to reveal them to you.
Then find scripture to counter balance your thoughts and beliefs.
Is a distorted view of who He is… hurting you in your relationship?
I pray we all search our hearts for what is holding us back from accepting a real relationship with a real and loving God.
Our hope is found in our view of God. I pray it be a positive one.
