Avoid Disappointment and Future Regret

During the Christmas holidays I was sitting in the living room watching for the umpteenth time, Jaws, the first one, the one that sat us all on the edge of our seats with its BOM BOM,BOM, BOM, and frightened us away from the ocean to this very day. The Jaws ride recently closed at Universal, so I think the twenty-four hours of Jaws was a special tribute to a dying classic. Hmmm, can a classic die? I digress, this has nothing to do with Jaws except to create a setting. The movie stopped often for commercials. However, for some reason, the advertisements played that evening were the same ones every single break. Yes, we still sat through the whole ordeal. What is it about that movie? Hence, the handle "classic."

One advertisement was hocking a gold plated coin, blah, blah, blah. The sale was promoted with this line thrown in toward the end of the ad, "Avoid disappointment and future regret."  Ha! Ha! It made me laugh, but I took that statement and wrote it on my erasable calendar on the refrigerator and announced to all who cared to hear, "This is my motto for the year 2012." Now I am faced with a humanly impossible task, but I have a plan for success. It goes like this, I will "Trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding. In all my ways I will acknowledge Him, and he will direct my path." It's a promise and a beautiful, effective mantra from Proverbs. Happy New Year!

Peace. Love, Linda

The Faces of Redemption

The face of redemption, as I remember it from childhood, looked like an alter call at church, a dunk and a splash in a baptismal, and another round of "Just As I Am." It was a singular act of contrition that brought one to his or her knees before God and a cast of onlookers catapulting the newly "saved" into a set up for eternity. I'm not casting shadows on that face, but when I think of redemption now, I view it in a much broader sense due to decades of shifting light.

A few years ago, I read a book called "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck. It may have been that literature that began a shift in my perspective about what the work of life is. The work of life, the "kingdom of God," the reason for living is a roller coaster of mini-series with episodes of disturbances in the universe, the kitchen, the living room, a restaurant, the airport, the work place, marriage, childhood, adolescence, adulthood. I could go on but it's getting close to bedtime. It sometimes seems as if one unfortunate event is only over because another shoves it out of the way. To those who take the common path, these events are the woes and sorrows of life, the miseries we somehow deserve, or the "rain" falling "on the just and the unjust," but today when I think about it all, I call them acts of redemption. It's not a singular event at all. It's an eternal process that escalates exponentially when the pain begins to drain.

But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." John 9: 10-11.

 Peace. Love, Linda

Pray for Sylvia Flores, my daughter's mother-in-law.

Tomorrow she goes in to surgery to get a spot removed from her lung.

Joy

There's a place I go sometimes that I can't describe well because it's more about a feeling than a visual; although, sometimes a visual experience will send me there. It's fleeting. I felt it on the January day described in my last blog. Sometimes I feel it after talking to someone at the shop or watching something inspirational on TV or reading the Bible or running down the hallway chasing Bella Grace or walking at the lakefront with Darren. I know the feeling is joy. I don't know how I  know, but I know.

Joy doesn't always come wrapped in glimmering moments. Sometimes it dresses in everyday clothes. It's, as my Daddy used to say, " I woke up and put my feet on the floor. It's a good day," joy. That's joy, the enduring kind, the eternal kind. The kind that says life is worth living no matter what events take place,and death is a dream unimaginable and beautiful beyond words, the place Steve Jobs saw while uttering his last words, "Oh, wow!" "Oh, wow!"

Marketing experts try to capitalize on joy by making us believe it's many things it isn't. Not that some of those "things" might not bring joy, but they can't be joy. Joy comes from the creator of the heavens and earth. Joy comes from the source of love and life. Joy is not something we can make or subscribe to obtain. Joy, like love, just is. Be still. Take a deep breath, and accept joy. It's not outside. It's inside. Then, when you know you've experienced  it, say thank you to the source of all joy.

With the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe according to the working of his great power. 

Ephesians:1: 18-19

Peace. Love, Linda

January Day

Sometimes the air is crisp and slightly warm simultaneously like an apple cinnamon pastry fifteen minutes from the oven.
Fresh. Delicious.

Sometimes the sky is blue and so intense it's tangible like Ginger Ale and cubed ice flowing into beveled  glass.
Sharp. Sparkling.

Sometimes the light is surreal, shimmering like a waking dream flowing in bursts of blaze and dancing shadows.
3D. Ephemeral.

Sometimes. Like Today.

Thank you God for this most amazing day.

 

Peace. Love, Linda