Our new prayer

I am sure you have heard this prayer, and have maybe said it yourself or with your children at night.

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
Angels watch me through the night
And wake me with the morning light

I grew up saying it with my sisters and started saying it with my children awhile ago, but recently we changed the words and I LOVE IT.  Now it more closely embodies my prayer for my girls.

I pray that their way home is straight and always lit with a light from above.

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
Please cleanse my eyes all through the night
So I may follow Your angel’s light

A beautiful change

In Mark 11:24 Jesus says

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer,  believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

I love this statement in the Bible.  It has been very close to my heart for a long time and it is one of the reasons I so strongly (and selfishly) believed and prayed for My Best Life for so long and this statement again held true when I began believing and praying for Our Best Life.

I am starting to find it very interesting that the more we believe and the more faith we have, the less we ask for in prayer.  Jesus knew about this beautiful change that happens within our hearts when we believe and He buried this wonderful secret deep within His statement for us to find as our faith and belief increase.

Lord please help me to remember every day, every hour, and every minute to believe and to have faith in Your Will so that my prayers of request decrease and my prayers of love, thanksgiving and gratitude increase despite the weather within my life.

Lord thank You for Your Divine Will… it is full of love and goodness for EVERYONE.

Please let this be my prayer…

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, my Love.

Answered Prayer!

I was looking back through some previous blogs I have written (I think I am my biggest fan… ha ha ha), and I came across a blog I wrote in July 2012 titled Betrayer and Beloved?.

At the end of this blog I asked our sweet Jesus, “Please help me to love Judas Iscariot as you love him.”

Guess what I just realized… I have fallen in love with him.  I fell in love with him during Lent 2013, and I have been thinking of him, crying for him, praying for him and loving him ever since.

I think our sweet Jesus answered my prayer and has shown me how much he loves him by opening my heart to Judas Iscariot and helping me to fall in love with him too.

Knock and the door will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7)… ask Jesus to show you how much he loves someone you don’t understand, someone you fear, someone you dislike or might even hate and just maybe your eyes and your heart will be opened to how much Jesus loves this person and you too will begin to rise above your fear and hatred and will begin to fall in love this person too.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7), my sweet friends!

Cleansing

Sometimes when I am working out I like to pray to be a straw that is full of holes so that anything good poured into me from above will not be held within me, but instead will flow through all of my holes surrounding everyone I encounter or see with His Grace.

As you know I have been going to the gym pretty regularly for the last 5 months trying to get back in shape. Over the last few weeks I have started really focusing on trying to improve  my diet and have started reading about body cleansing. I read an interesting article a few weeks ago that discussed the benefits of sitting in a sauna after a workout and how this can help cleanse many toxins from your body. After reading this I started sitting in the sauna of my gym for a few min at least once a week.

Today while I was sitting in the sauna following my workout, it hit me! As I watched the sweat drip down my arms, I realized I am already full of holes… my body is covered in tiny pores.  I am a straw full of holes… we all are!

I think now I need to focus on cleaning out my own physical and spiritual gunk so that someday the clogs will be cleared and everything that pours forth will be clean and full of His Glory.

I am cleaning out my friends… please pray for me!

Who would you remember?

Imagine that you work for the post office manually sorting the mail.  I am sure that you would see thousands of letters come through every day.  Do you think that you would remember anyone specific?

I have been thinking about it and I think there are probably three types of people that would stand out among the rest of the mail.

1.  The first person I would remember would be the sick child in town who receives hundreds of letters each week.  After seeing so many letters go through my post office for this child I would probably want to meet him or her to find out how someone so young had already touched so many lives.

2.  The second person I would remember would be the person in town who sends hundreds of letters each week to their fellow townspeople, their neighbors.  After seeing so many letters go through my post office from this person I would probably want to meet them as well and find out where he or she finds the time to touch so many lives.

3.  Finally the third I would remember would be the person who sends hundreds of letters to themselves.  It might cross my mind that this person needs help, and doesn’t really understand the purpose of the postal system.  I don’t think meeting this person to explain in more depth the purpose of the postal system would be useful, because clearly they understand the logistics of sending mail, but seem to be missing the depth behind the technicalities.

I think instead I might to try and arrange for #3 to accidentally meet #2 who is sending so many letters to others.  If they met by chance due to incorrect delivery of some of  #2’s hundreds of letters being delivered to #3, then maybe #2 could indirectly help #3 better understand the depth behind the logistics of the postal system.

I know there probably aren’t very many people, if any, like #3 when actually sending mail, but when praying is this the case?

If prayer is somewhat like this scenario, I hope that I will try harder to be more like our friend #2.   I want God to know me as His child who sends love out to all of my brothers and sisters, not as His child who can think of no else but myself when speaking with Him.

I know I still have a lot of work to do, but at least I think I now have the compass pointed in the right direction.

Eat, drink and… be Mary!

This is the time of year when we are celebrating, we are throwing parties, we are attending parties and we are being “MERRY”!

A few years ago we threw a Christmas party and our invitation read, “Come, eat, drink and be merry!”  I was thinking about this today because we wanted to throw a party this year, but I didn’t get around to planning it.  When I thought about the invitation we sent a few years ago, I paused on the phrase “be merry”, in my head I changed it to, “be Mary”.

Did “be merry” originate from “be Mary”?

Rather than research the actual origins of this phrase, tonight I would rather come up with my own story!

Maybe years ago when friends were toasting and celebrating together during the Christmas season, they really did use the phrase, “Eat, drink and be Mary!”, with the intention and the prayer that they themselves as well as their friends would live as Mary did, full of faith in God and consumed with love for Jesus!

I pray during this Christmas season and the year to come, that we will all “be Mary”, living like Mary full of faith in God and consumed with love for Jesus!

Be Mary, my friends, be Mary!

Look beyond the clouds…

I watched Joel Osteen on Sunday morning.  I loved his reminder to keep your vision in front of you and dream big!

While I was running yesterday I was thinking through some of my dreams and wondering if I had been limiting myself by not dreaming big enough.  I then prayed for a moment for God keep my heart open to the seeds of a big dream he would like to plant.  By the end of my run, I was thinking about someone who has been on my mind a lot in the last few months.

Then for a moment I looked up, and instead of seeing an image in the clouds I saw an image in the blue sky which was formed by the surrounding clouds.  It looked like a finger pointing in the direction that I was running.  It reminded me of the optical illusion pictures you have to stare at for a while in order to see the hidden/other picture.

It might not seem big, but maybe sending prayers and love through time and space to this person is a big dream.  Maybe I am going in the right direction.

I guess I can’t know for certain, but I am going to keep looking beyond the clouds and searching the blue sky above for the slightly hidden, bigger picture!

It is Our Best Life!

DREAM it, say it, live it, believe it, and it will be!

Write it in the stars!

I am reading a book that talks about soul mates.  To enjoy this book you have to first be open to the idea of reincarnation.  If you can consider this with an open mind, then the book talks about the fact that you might not spend every life with your soul mate.

While reading this book I was thinking about this a lot and it made me wonder… what if my husband and I aren’t soul mates like I have always thought?  What if we are just heavenly acquaintances working together in this life? This thought made me so sad.

Fortunately, I usually bounce back pretty quickly.  I was sad for about a day, but then I decided there is no way for me to truly answer this question and maybe the answer hasn’t been written just yet anyway… maybe our free will comes into play as the question is slowly answered over the course of our lives through our thoughts and actions.

Therefore I am going to return to my original belief, that now has a little more substance and thought behind it.  We are soul mates!  Believing this with more conviction than ever, I now want to continue loving him, but loving him more, continue caring for him, but caring for him more, and continue connecting with him, but connect with him more. I want to find my joy in bringing him joy!

Then when this life is over and our souls meet again… we will have so much love in our hearts for each other, so many wonderful memories shared and so many lessons learned together that we will be soul mates… we will have written it in the stars!

Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Our President has Not Shrugged!

Unlike Atlas, Mr. Barack Obama did not shrug!

Regardless of the growing weight of our country on his shoulders, regardless of our finger pointing, blaming, and judging without ever walking in his shoes, he ran again and he won!

Let’s unify, let’s remove our Republican or Democratic cloaks and remember that we are all Americans and this is our country.  Let’s try to take some of the weight off of his shoulders by coming together, because even Atlas eventually shrugged.

Let us not set ourselves up for failure, but instead support our president in prayer.

  • Let us pray that he finds the right path, the path that is pleasing to God.
  • Let us pray that someday when Mr. Barack Obama is standing before Our Creator, he will be able to look God in the face as God gently smiles at him and says, “Well done my son!”.

Please pray with me my sweet friends, it is always so much more powerful when we join together and when we pray for others.

I am sending my love to all of you and always praying for Our Best Life!

The eyes of love…

My husband went for a run the other day and when he came back he was literally dripping with sweat and he asked me if he smelled bad.  I leaned in, took a big whiff and honestly I thought he smelled nice and I said “You smell good to me”.  He smiled and said it didn’t count because I see him with the eyes of love.

I was thinking of this today and thinking that seeing someone through the eyes of love is more true and real than any other way to see someone.  I think it should always count and be the only opinion that counts!  Maybe I was the only person on earth at that moment that didn’t think my husband smelled, but maybe I was also the only person in the world who could really smell him.

Doesn’t God look at us with the eyes of love?  Isn’t this how he is able to constantly forgive and forget everything we do to ourselves and each other?  Does this make it okay to live life with our rose colored glasses on all of the time?  Does this make it okay to try to see the good in everything?

Maybe there are no rose colored glasses.  Maybe instead there are dark and dingy glasses that block us from seeing with the eyes of love if we refuse to take them off.

I feel like at times constant optimism can hurt the ones we love if they are suffering or going through a very difficult time, but maybe it isn’t constant optimism.  Maybe the dark and dingy glasses are off and saying “It is going to be okay” or “You are going to be okay” is not a lie or a hollow consolation, but more real and true than our loved one can yet see.

Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

If we really are wearing dark and dingy glasses maybe a good way to start trying to remove them is by literally saying out loud “It is Our Best Life” everyday.

Let’s take off our glasses and start seeing everyone with the eyes of love!