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Looking For The Gifts

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  As we walk this life we get to live - we have a choice. The dark thoughts want to leave their mark in our minds and we can give in to them or push them back.  One of the ways is to intentionally look for the good that is in and among all what is broken, chaotic, and hard. This morning was one of those days. As I took my morning walk, I chose to specifically look for and open my heart to see what good may be around me. Each counting of gifts, every notice of good is a push back on the darkness and hindering if from making tracks and winning. Looking for the gifts doesn't negate or ignore the hard, it simply doesn't let negativity take over. It pulls us toward the light.  Life holds weeds in and among the good.  Life is both/and not or. Geese flying south. (just above the treeline :))  Sometimes we really do need to look hard. ;) Freshly cut grass and enjoying the markings in the grass. Sun's rays and warmth after many days of cloudy. Random plant growing among ...
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Capturing the Streaks of a Gathering Storm

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  Jesus has said, "I am with you always." Matthew 28:20
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The Beat of Joy's Fragile Dance

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  Joy. Sorrow. Pain. Peace. Good. Bad.. Negative. Positive. Strengths. Weaknesses. Responding. Reacting. It seems that life is continually pulling us one way or the other; creating a dance that at the best of times leaves us panting, questioning, and wondering if we'll ever learn the steps.   This push/pull between life ebbing and flowing, between the moments that make our hearts soar or leave it floundering, create a dance that I too often find myself stumbling over the steps. Sometimes I'm too much and other times it's just right.   Sometimes we laugh too loudly or maybe not at all. It rains too much or not enough. Life hands us a loss and/or a promotion. Sometimes I'm too exuberant in sharing and other times it was apples of gold in pictures of silver. Sometimes someone likes me and then they don't. One moment we may be rejoicing and the next left in tears. I trust God one time and the next I find myself reaching for what I can manage. One time my prayer is g...
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The Goodness of the Lord

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Tea time with Jesus - conversations while daily living happens. Psalm 27:13-14 - I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord. How I can relate to David - despair happens when I look around me and also from what impacts me.  Unless I see the Lord and know of His goodness, faithfulness, and love; I would despair. With the Lord and because of Him there is hope. You may in the middle of something hard, something that took you out.  Wait on the Lord.  Because of Him there is hope that pushes back the despair. Waiting is not passive.  It's not doing nothing but it's an expecting, a looking for and looking to while life happens and the silence deafens the ears of our heart.  Waiting is looking for Jesus in the very place that we did not expect.
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The Satisfying Water That Jesus Gives

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 Teatime with Jesus - Conversations tucked in the daily moments of the day John 4:10,13 - Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me to drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."  Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." Water - pure, clean, quenching, satisfying.   Lord, today I had moments of wrestling with unsettledness, reaching to quench the aching ache and the longings and desires of my heart with something other than You.  As water quenches my thirst on a hot summer day, so You as the Water of Life quenches, satisfies this ache, even the good desires of my heart that seem to lie silent or even as I wonder what is the meaning of all that is happening...  Lord, more than an outcome, more than fulfill...
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The Sun, The Son - Gives Life

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 Tea with Jesus - Conversations in the daily moments of life Jesus - You are the Way, the Truth and the Life.   As the sun shines on my face, I give thanks.  The sun warms the body and allows physical life to be on this earth.  In the same way, You, the Son, warms my soul and allows the truest form of life to be.  You are the Life and give life and want to give it to me abundantly.  As I stay with You and claim Your Truth, I find Life.  Thank you for life. Your child
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Convinced of the Father's Love

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  But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.  for I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:37-39 In Genesis when God created the world and man, He declared it good, very good.  Man had not done anything yet to prove or earn God's love.  God loved and declared goodness because that is what He saw in His creation.  God loved and declared goodness because that is who He is - period.  You and I will do nothing to alter this and Paul declares the reality of this truth for himself.   Paul writes the words, declaring them for all of us to believe. There are so many things that break this truth for us - the brokenness us humans carry that affect others, whether by simply being human or i...
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