In My Heart

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The other day as I was driving home from a shopping trip, some people from my past came to mind. I thought about the ways they had influenced me, ways they had blessed me. I thought about writing them a letter, and then I thought of the myriad of people who have blessed me over the years and the heart of this post was born.

Dear Friend,
I am so thankful to have had you in my life. Whether we keep in touch or have taken paths to different places, know that you are in my heart. You are in my heart because I love you and because at some point in time our lives were woven together. In the tapestry of my life, you are a thread that has added color, variety, interest and blessing. My life's story is different - better - because you were a part of my life. Thank you!

I think of you often. When I do, I smile and feel blessed. I love it when I see some interesting tidbit about your life on Facebook, something that makes you happy and fills your life with joy. I feel sad when I learn of hard things you are facing and I pray for you. My soul brightens when I hear your voice, see you in person, or find a message from you in my e-mail or on my phone.

Thank you dear friend, for loving me, for sharing life with me, for listening, for laughing, for playing and probably praying with me.

You may be a friend from school days, a family member, a colleague, a fellow church member, or a kindred spirit from some other place. However we met, whatever we have enjoyed or endured together, know that I am thankful for the time we've had together and count you as a precious blessing from God's hand in my life.

Blessings to you, dear friend!!!
Dar

Forty Days of Forgiveness

Forty Days of Forgiveness

Several years ago after I had been through an experience that left me deeply wounded, changed, and angry. I wanted to be able to let go of my anger and be able to interact with the people who had hurt me in a healthy, loving way. I knew that I needed to forgive and to heal. I committed to spend 40 days working through the issues I was facing.

I picked out a special journal in which to record my journey toward healing and forgiveness and divided it into four sections.

Section one included pages to ponder four different subjects that would help me see life in a healthier way. “Dreams” came first. I had stopped dreaming and I needed to see that the future held hope and promise. “Thanksgiving” came second. Taking time each day to list one thing for which I was thankful, would turn my thoughts away from what I considered to be unfair and painful, and remind me of the blessings God had given me. Because my experience had left me raw and feeling defeated, “compliments or accomplishments” was my third subject. I wanted to keep a list of positive things people had said about me or things that I had done that I felt good about. Lastly, I included “confident because . . . “ and listed reasons I had to feel confident. Here I focused on what the Bible has to say about who we are in Christ.

Section two included pages for each person, including myself, whom I needed to forgive. Each day I wrote the date under each person’s name, the offense for which I wanted to forgive them followed by a positive quality. I allowed myself to forgive the same offense more than once, because often the same issue reappeared time and again. However, I would not use the same positive quality more than once. This stretched my thinking, and helped to remind me that despite how I felt, each person had positive qualities and had been made in the image of God.

Section three contained pages for each day of my 40 day journey. I wrote the day and the number of the day of my journey (ie. January 1, 2006 – Day 1) at the top of the page. I prayed about topics God had led me to at the beginning of my journey. I poured out my heart to God and worked through my issues.

            In the final section, I left space to record things I learned and experienced during my journey. I wrote brief summary statements so that I could remember those things I wanted to incorporate into my life.

            This 40 day journey through prayer and processing brought about deep healing as I forgave myself and others and began to see the bigger picture of what God had for me.

The Blessed Heart

Ah . . . ah . . . ah . . . ah-choo!!

          “Bless you!!” 

          We sneeze and someone blesses us. Routinely, glibly we say the words, but do we stop and think about what it means to be blessed? Do we recognize the blessings God has given us?

          There is a story I love about twin boys (although I don’t know the original source).  One was an optimist and one was a pessimist. Their parents were concerned about the direction their attitudes would take them in life, so they decided to teach them a lesson one year on their birthday. 

          The parents filled the little pessimist’s room with toys – every size, shape, description, color. They got the latest, the greatest, the most popular toys on the market. They filled the little optimist’s room with horse manure. (I don’t know who was responsible to clean it or for health care issues, but I’m glad it wasn’t me!!) They stood at the door to the little pessimist’s room, hoping he would be thankful, but before long he was complaining. The toys were too hard to assemble, they weren’t the right color or size. They weren’t what he wanted. Nothing pleased him. The parents peeked into the little optimist’s room, hoping that he would have learned to be more realistic about life. The little optimist was wandering around the room smiling and happy. When they asked what he was doing he replied, “With all this horse manure, there just has to be a pony in here somewhere!”

          Are you complaining about the beautiful “toys” you’ve been given or are you looking for the pony?

          Paul wrote the book of Philippians from prison, yet over and over he tells the church in Philippi to rejoice. His circumstances were not what we would call favorable or a blessing, yet Paul didn’t see it that way. He considered where he was a blessing because he got to see the Gospel spread because of his confinement. He rejoiced. He saw the blessings in the middle of a place where many of us would only see the horse manure.

         Have you taken time recently to count your blessings? Why don’t you take a few minutes to list some of your blessings? Write down 10, even 20 things that you are thankful for. They can be simple, general things like clothes to wear and food to eat to very specific things. 

Are you looking for the pony or complaining about the toys?