Category Archives: Realizations & Ponderings

Self-explanatory

Remember

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Memories.  A mystery of the mind.  Somehow in the electrical wonderland of our brain cells and zapping of nerve synapses we are able to log away and then call to mind again people, places, events, smells, words, songs, emotions, tastes, sounds and more from our past.  Might be from long ago or just five minutes ago but most of us can remember.

Some not so great memories get pushed behind others so that they only show themselves in crisis, hypnosis, or maybe when intentionally going through our mind’s files so to speak.  We don’t often want to pull out the folder with negative encounters, painful losses, or misunderstandings in it.   Most of us would rather reminisce about good times – pleasant memories and thoughts that make us smile or drum up warm fuzzies. Continue reading →

Shift

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It’s happened before, numerous times actually.  God shifts my gaze from myself and my so-called problems to Him.  Unfortunately, I seem to gradually rotate back to my old way of thinking and often need Him to turn me around again and again, back where I see only Him.

Last weekend he turned me around by letting me see a special friend who is in the midst of her fight against cancer.  I hadn’t seen her in person since her diagnosis and it moved me more than I expected.  Though she has lost her hair and we both look older, in her beautiful eyes I still saw the real her.  Love flooded through me and then shame for being so caught up and overwhelmed by my “problems.” Continue reading →

Come on, let go

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I feel like I’ve been holding in my little hands things and dreams I expected to keep or have, even prayers answered the way I think they should be.  I also feel like God has been reaching down with His big daddy hands, grasping mine and shaking them so I’ll let go of the stuff I think is good but He knows is not what I really need or want.  I remember when my girls were very young, shaking their chubby little hands at times to make them let go of something, like handfuls of dirt or some other yucky thing they were about to put into their mouth. Continue reading →

Roots

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My sister, Jodi, writes a monthly newsletter for women about overall well-being and making healthy choices.  Her words are always encouraging and helpful.  This month she shared a great illustration about a vine that keeps cropping up near their house, because although they’ve cut and pulled it away time and time again, there is evidently still a root in the ground somewhere and so it keeps coming back.  Jodi says that similarly, in our lives, if we don’t get to the root of a problem, we can cut and pull at symptoms that show on the outside but they’ll just keep recurring.  So true!

If a negative attitude or thought sits long enough inside our hearts, I believe it begins to take root and will be harder to get rid of than if we extract it as soon as we notice it there.  Continue reading →

Do we really know?

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When I woke up, honestly my first thought was that Jesus was coming back.  I slept in the top bunk in the staff dormitory at Forest Home Family Camp in the San Bernardino mountains that summer.  It was the middle of the night and my bed was jolting forward and backward so severely that all I could do was grip the sides of the bed and look over to see my roommates standing in the middle of the room clutching each other and screaming while bottles and brushes slid off the bathroom counter.   It was my first earthquake experience and was quite the eye-opener!  The rest of the night we all huddled together on sleeping bags on the floor, stiffening a little each time an aftershock rumbled under the floor.  More than any other time before then, I felt very small. Continue reading →

Do I have something in my teeth?

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Obey God’s message! Don’t fool yourselves by just listening to it. 23If you hear the message and don’t obey it, you are like people who stare at themselves in a mirror 24and forget what they look like as soon as they leave. 25But you must never stop looking at the perfect law that sets you free. God will bless you in everything you do, if you listen and obey, and don’t just hear and forget.  James 1:22-25  CEV

God has given this verse to me several times this week (from different sources) so I think I should ponder it more closely.  Obviously He’s got something for me to learn. Continue reading →

Waaaaaa

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I’m reading several books at once and that probably isn’t the best idea for my scatterbrain to retain something valuable from each one.  I started reading “The Me I Want to Be” by John Ortberg (discussing as I progress through with a good friend of mine) and am still reading it.  Then another good friend recommended “Shattered Dreams” by Larry Crabb which is also a really good book.    Toss in my daily Bible reading and, slightly embarrassed to admit, another read through of Eclipse and there are lots of words tumbling around in my head.

I haven’t written for a few days, oddly enough because I felt at a loss for words.  If I could just grab a hold of a few of the ones churning in my mind and put them into some kind of meaningful order to share with you.  Continue reading →

What’s a baby worth these days?

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A California couple has been arrested for trying to sell their 6-month-old baby outside a Wal-Mart store for $25.   Evidently their need for narcotics outweighed their love for their child.  How desperate they must be to try trading the little one for drug money.  It seems they’ve sunk to the lowest of lows.  I feel sorry for them – what kind of existence is that?  The baby was removed by social services so it’s safe, even though it was born to and nursed by a woman hooked on meth.  You can read an article about it here.

When I read this I was appalled, baffled.  I’m sure the women the father approached in that parking lot were so taken off guard.  “Is this guy kidding?  $25??”  Surely a life is worth more than that.  Continue reading →

New Every Morning

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mer • cy [mur see] noun
1.  compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one’s power
2.  the discretionary power of a judge to pardon someone or to mitigate punishment

Do you ever feel like you’ve really grown, reached some new milestones in your faith and become stronger, only to look in the mirror one day to see a shallow, doubting, pouting, childish disciple looking back? Continue reading →

True Beauty

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I have to admit, some reality TV fascinates me…or at least captures my attention for a while.  Last night my youngest daughter and I watched part the show “True Beauty” in which several models are in competition to see who is the most beautiful, who can become the “face of Vegas.”  What they don’t know is that judges are watching what happens behind the scenes and deciding the winner based on inner beauty: their character and not their looks.  Continue reading →