Category: Blessing

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Blessing

Lord, why do I struggle so over the notion of blessing?

Early on, you were introduced to Me as Judge, as Angry, as Someone to Fear. What if I told you that wasn’t Me at all? Not just that you misunderstood or that you were little, so I looked Large and Scary? What if I told you, you were kidnapped and the one whom they said was God was not Me at all–but I was there, working to free you? I was every hand that helped you escape. Your freedom and safety meant more than any law, any rule. I mean only to bless you. I mean only to sustain you. I mean only to hold you in love.

What if you lived a long life without illness, and then–suddenly–in one glorious moment, your heart just stopped and you stepped across into your heavenly life? If you could begin believing for that destiny, you could let go of so much fear, so much anxiety. If you could believe you will always have more than enough, you could enjoy your blessings and enjoy sharing with others as well.

Lord, customers said recently, I bet you can’t be kept inside. It’s true! I do love the outdoors. They could see that, in the work.

Trust the right people to see. Who says a publishing executive can’t wander into the gallery? Who says you can’t be discovered? Let Me lead you to blessers and let Me lead blessers to you. Be ready to receive, not only blessings, but blessers and benefactors. And be ready to become a blesser and a benefactor to others in turn.

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Live Wire

This is my prayer today, Lord–a blanket of blessing. Our atmosphere reaches, surrounds, rounds the world. Sunlight, too. Let Your Presence be as Light, as Air, everywhere. Now the branches of the trees are moving, like Spirit moving, the message of Wind. Lord, there are years I was out on a limb, getting in trouble and needing rescue, by helping, by care-taking, by enabling. Today I am just blessing. Lord, help me hold tight to Your hand. Help me to shine steady. So, here I am. This is one of those times I just want–need–to listen.

Right now what you are listening to is memory, is your remembrance of Who I Am. I AM indeed Powerful–and patient. Playful–and serious, profound. Gentle–and Ginormous. Nothing too tiny, nothing and no one too huge for My touch of transformation. All My resources are yours, are available to You.I want you to move into a new way of thinking. You have thought of Me like electricity, and thought of yourself like an instrument–a radio or a blender or an iron, and thought of others as distinct and separate instruments, each one with a designated pre-determined function.

Yes, like the verse says, I have given some as prophets, some as teachers…

I want you to think of yourself more like the wire that carries the electricity, but that can be attached by the Master Electrician to any appliance, any outlet, as needed. You are not stuck in any one ministry, any more than you are stuck in any creative expression. Prose AND poetry AND song AND photography. Prophecy AND healing AND discernment AND gifts of giving. Go with God takes on this meaning: Go in God. You are wire, wired. You are Live. You are connected to the source. You are also grounded–the grounding is grace, is mercy, is your growing understand of Who I Am, that I do not intend for you to be attached to a bomb, but to anything that blesses, that builds–whether that is building esteem with a word or building community.

No one–except the Electrician–really thinks about the wiring, unless it is shorted out, or frayed, or cut. Everyone focuses on the device. Devices are useless without electricity and they need wires. Be the Wire. Be available to “plug in” whenever I lead you. It is My job to take care of the wire–to refresh you, to make sure you are carrying full voltage. I Am doing that now. You’ve had a voltage drop, like a brown-out in a storm. I am re-igniting the Grid for you. That might mean bypassing certain sections. Not every need is yours to address. Wires are color coded for a purpose. You are yellow for joy. You are green, for gentle growing. Let Me energize you and let Me be the Master Electrician. You don’t have to figure it out. Just receive, and flow, and let the Spirit move very naturally in you.

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Barren vs. Bountiful

Lord, I know we just talked about sailing. About sending out dispatches. Today I am seeing this vast field, a field of abundance, of plenty. And part of the plenty is Joy, and part of the Joy is in knowing there is plenty, knowing there is abundance, knowing there is more than enough for everyone. I am at the edge of this incredible field, and I am laughing, because it stretches beyond the horizon. There is so much, so much, and I step in, one tiny person in the midst of Huge, and I am giddy with the impact of the scale of the vastness. I can’t mess it up or ruin it. I can enjoy it and invite everyone–everyone–in. We can all spread out; we won’t crowd each other here. This is a place of provision, of joy, and of delight. I wander nomadic and find within this field groves filled with fruit. Sunny glades. Peaks of piercing beauty. This is like heaven, a feast for each sense. Lord, thank You for this field. Is FIELD an acronym? Something You want to tell me? I can’t figure out the D. What are some good, great D words? Like Decide. Or Devotion. Or Delight, as I just said. L can be Live or Love or Learn or Light. Luminous. Land. D for Day, too. For F I thought of Find. Could be Follow. Could be Faith. Whatever it means, I can still see it, still feel it. F is for Feelings, too. Everyone I have ever loved is here. And “here” they are whole, hence happy. Complete. There is no striving or straining. I can see this exists; is this only afterlife? Is this only a place whose door is death, into this life? I see barrenness now. Is that like our earthly life?

Barrenness is life for so many. They try to scratch out an existence in a void, in a vacuum. The field is a metaphor for what I intended life to be–a continuum, life here on earth in union with Me into what you call afterlife, in union with Me. I never pictured or created or intended the barrenness. I am Creator, not destroyer. I am Finisher, too. When people are living in Barrenness, they haven’t come far enough forward.

Think of the Creation Story differently. Think of it as a metaphor for your awareness, physically and spiritually, with increasing understanding, resources and companionship. There is always an adding-to, a building-on. Think of your life this way. What Day are you in now? The Sixth Day–you see yourself as toiling, as having to toil. It is all here, everything you need, but you think you have to toil for it. That creates barrenness in your thinking and in your heart. Move into the Seventh Day–rest. The day when you enjoy, where your life flows, where it runs like clockwork, smoothly, oiled by My Spirit. Trust My Oversight. You can play in the field. You think you have to bring in great lights and work all night. I mean you to have fun, joy, delight.

FIELD is a place of Fun. Inspiration. Enjoyment–and Enlightenment. Laughter–and Love. Delight. That’s the FIELD. Your tractor–the camera, say–is to help you explore with ease, not exploit, not even engineer. My Field doesn’t need engineering. Just exploring and enjoying. I say again, let Me surprise you. I have  waited, in human terms, a long time for those who will allow Me to delight them daily, to share My bountiful world, to play with Me. I am inviting you to be that someone, one of those someones who can model this lifestyle of freedom from fear, from worry, and from anxiety. Freedom to play and revel and run and laugh. Let your body be covered in butterflies. Frolic. The Field is a place of frolic. Even your rest will be energized, alert and attuned, so there is no more fatigue. I want you to be more than sustained. I want you thriving.

Speaking of bulletins, you get bulletins every day from Barrenness. Pay them no mind; they are in a foreign language. Allow yourself to lose the ability to translate or to understand. Speak in tongues, literally and metaphorically, and learn the new language whose underlying structure is laughter. Live it here. Live it now. You don’t have to wait. You don’t have to be in Ocracoke, or in Florida. You don’t have to be out west. Call it in. Approach everyone and everything with love, and you are filled with love. My Love does not run out, or dwindle, or dissipate, or dim. It increases. The taller you get, the bigger the Field is. You will never outgrow it. Revel and roll like a young child. This is your world. This is your every day, your “this day,” your today. Your now, Now. NOW.

Now? Wow. You have said these sorts of words to me before, Lord. I recognize pieces and parts from years back, even. And I think I hear You, and then I forget. I slip back. I’m sorry.

Just keep your ear, your eyes, and your heart open. I will never stop calling to you, and if you let Me, I will never stop calling through you.

Ok, Lord. Ok. 

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Promises, Promises

Promises, promises. Lord, that is what we say when we mean the opposite. The sarcastic voice reveals promises not kept. So about four days ago–I had to go back and reread the whole thing–You said You were signing a Permission Slip for me to begin to form a relationship with another wild fox family. So I have to start by saying both Thank You and I’m sorry. Sorry because deep inside I doubted. I doubted I was really hearing You. I doubted, not that You could, but that You would, and for me. I guess this is a human struggle. It is my struggle sometimes, and more than sometimes, lately. Anyway, that was on April 16, thatYou said that. The very next day someone sent me a message about a fox den. And I finally got the chance to go check it out. I was almost holding my breath, driving. And there they were. Baby foxes, doing what baby foxes do. I felt something deep inside just shift, like a sliding door moving aside, sliding open, setting me free, letting the air in, letting me out. I checked again at dusk. Still there! So again. I am sorry and Thank You. What a gift. I am actually–despite all these words–almost speechless. You said Permission. And here they are. Within days. 

What were field trips for?

Enrichment I would say. At least in my school years. We went to art galleries, we went to historic sites, we went to museums. The idea was to augment the classroom book learning with experiencing at some level what it was we were studying.

What else? What else did you just remember?

I had this flashback to middle school and the Science Club. The field trips to the lake bed, to the fossil deposit, to astronomy night, where for the first time I looked through a powerful telescope at the stars. That was amazing.

And where are you going?

In half an hour I meet up with other local photographers and we are going out, in the middle of the night, to photograph the Milky Way! Star shine! 

You see? Permission! A permission slip from your packet. You have permission to go outside, in the middle of the night, and photograph the starry sky.

Thank You, Lord. And God, I am sorry if I doubted You.

You didn’t doubt Me–you doubted yourself, your hearing. Because your longing was so great, you found it easy to imagine perhaps this was all your imagination. One of the reasons we started with foxes is precisely because your longing is so great. I long to meet you at your point of longing. And I long to show you just how connected we are, so you trust that connection more and more. This is one more example, one more experience, one more “faith comes by hearing” you can live out in experience.

Thank You again, God. So much joy. And tonight, when I went, I had a timeframe. I needed them to come out by a certain time. I couldn’t stay all evening. And one minute, literally, one minute before time was up, out they came! Thank You.

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Savor

Thank You, God. I almost typed, thank You Daddy, and that fits too. Tonight we are tired, really tired, but glad-tired, relieved-tired, oh-so-grateful-tired. A long day’s drive to Chapel Hill and back, with a CT scan for Pete and a surgical visit in the middle of it, and all good news everywhere. The hernias which have formed as a result of his surgery seven years ago are not dangerous or requiring surgery at this point, his insides are still clean and healthy, and our hearts are so much lighter after making the trek. Thank You as well for safety on the road, especially on the trip home, after it got dark and we were even more tired, trying to strain our eyes to watch out for deer. On the way, I saw a lone Great Blue Heron, a symbol for the two of us from seven years ago, as well as a couple juvenile eagles and both (I think) a red-tailed and red-shouldered hawk soaring above us at various times. Lots and lots of black vultures and turkey vultures, aerial acrobats, who always remind me to release anything negative, anything in the past that might hold me back from fully living in the present. Good reminders today. I know I said it already, but honestly, God, thank You. I tend to say Thank You a lot, I know. But I especially want and need to say it tonight.

Do you know why gratitude is so important? Gratitude keeps you focused on all you have, rather than on all you lack.

There was something else I felt You were trying to tell me, right after our appointment.

Yes, you immediately turned your thoughts to intercession for others you know in need, and I told you to wait, and to savor the feeling of release and relief, rather than dart off into the next thing.

Even if the next thing was a giving, spiritual kind of thing?

I have told you this before–you don’t have to give all your gifts away. Farmers eat from their fields, too. So relish the fruit of this day. Allow yourself the peace that the day provided you. Hold on to the joy, and share it with one another. There will be plenty of time and opportunity to intercede for others. For right now, just rest in the peace and the joy and the release you both are experiencing. This is a gift I mean for you to keep, not to give away.

Ok, Lord, we will. And God?

Yes?

Thank You. 

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Capacity to Receive

Lord, all that is happening now feels like a new day.

Yes, this is what I am giving you, giving you both. A new day. I want you to really enjoy this. Revel in it. The “Turn Tide Turn” you have prayed for others–I AM speaking it over you. What about them? I will give to each one as much as each can hold. Pray that they will increase their capacity to receive. That is what I Am doing now in you. I Am increasing your capacity to receive. Your gratitude, and your wanting blessing for others are big keys, but your feeling unworthy or somehow undeserving has been the big obstacle and that is what I am removing now. Those others have different obstacles, like jealousy or anger or grief. You have been trying to move those obstacles within them. Don’t focus there at all. Just keep asking over and over, God please increase so-and-so’s ability to receive. For every health, financial, or life need. And then, let them go. You don’t have to keep begging Me to be Who I Am. Ask once, and then remember, this IS what I Am doing for them. Then say, “Thank You God for increasing so-and-so’s capacity to receive.”

Ok, Lord, well there is…and … then there is …

Sssh. That’s enough. Enough for one day. I Am focused on you. I will inspire you. This is a Creative Partnership. Think of Me as your coach–we are doing this together. But you are not a puppet–you, in fact, are brilliant. You are; you shine. You do. Announcing, your bright glorious future starts now.

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Encouraging Words

Lord, recently I encouraged someone about college, and someone else about painting, and still someone else about a sister Nags Head gallery…Barnabas. I am still being Barnabas. I love that. It’s such a part of who I am.

It’s such a part of who I made you to be. Every time you give in to that impulse, you are yielding to Me. Every time you yield to Me, you allow the River to flow to someone else. It’s as if you are always doing a Rain Dance, always dancing the Sun Dance, seeing all those who come in your door as part of your larger tribe. And so they are. Your gift is this seeing and knowing, and your willingness to connect, to dance, even when you are tired. Even when concerns of various kinds come seeking your attention. By keeping your intention pure, you can–and do–do much good. You set your intention. I will supply the power, and the impetus, and the opportunity.

Lord, my intent is to bless.

Then Blessing you will be. You are the Blessing Way, personified, shown through the lens of a life, what you like to call an ordinary life. That unexpected Heron with its wings aglow in the setting sun–that’s you. That catch-your-breath beauty and centeredness, that sparks gratitude and joy and hope in others–that’s you. The Blessing Way is who you are, not just where you are going.

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Blessings

Another gray day, and cooler. I do feel sorry for the folks who are here this week. More northeast winds and drizzle turning to real rain coming. But I saw my first osprey in Duck for the season, hovering over our cove. And I heard birdsong when I got back home, an hour or so before dusk thanks to Spring Forward time. So what would You say to me tonight?

Quit apologizing for My blessing. Quit being embarrassed over My largesse. You are so grateful for small, for little, for glimpses. Be grateful for large, for big, for vistas. You hold back telling of your blessings out of fear of others’ judgment. You think they’ll think you are ostentatious, that you are boasting, that you are snobbish. No one who comes to know you will ever think that. Anyone who believes that doesn’t know you. You’ve been faithful over little. Just rejoice and receive the “much” that is the fulfilling of My promise. Much opportunity, much blessing. It is okay to be astonished, but not to feel embarrassed, as though you do not deserve My blessings. You are getting a glimpse of this truth: everyone does. So model this.

 

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Loving my life

I just sat down, well I have been sitting, I guess I mean, I just stopped from placing inventory orders in order to (order, see that, I have order on the brain!), in order to catch my breath and talk to You and the instant I did that, I heard a chorus in my head of Hail, hail, the gang’s all here! So I guess I want to start by thanking You for my tribe. Really, God, thank You. I have such incredible support, staff, artists, friends, Pete–sometimes I almost feel guilty for being so blessed.

Guilty?

You know how sometimes folks say this or that isn’t fair? Well, how is it fair that I have so much in my life?

Eve, what you are grateful for, and your attitude of gratitude itself, that was, is, My Plan, My Desire, for all of humanity. What isn’t fair, as you say, is that anyone on the planet lacks. And yet so many do.

God, yes. I was talking about that in a roundabout way with a friend today. We were both talking about folks we care about whose lives seem…what is the word I want? Not harder than ours, exactly. I mean, we have both seen our share and more than our share it seems, at times, of hardship–but we love life. We do. We love not only life, but our own lives. We love the possibilities in each new day. We love the mystery and wonder. I told her, I can be distracted away from trouble or sorrow in a minute, just by the flash of light on the water, or wings darting past my window. I am so in love with this big beautiful world, even on the days it seems small and not so beautiful. I just love it here.

This is all I ever wanted for My Children–and remember, when I say, My Children, I mean every single person. Or as your headline writers put it at times, for emphasis: Every. Single. Person. All of you. Or, speaking southern, all y’all.

Oh, God, You are too funny? All y’all? Really?

People assume I have no humor. How can they think such a thing!

There is joy in humor, Lord. Not the kind that puts others down. The kind that laughs for the sheer exuberance of it.

That is the joy I mean you to have. There are those who look for, and expect, and find, every single day, something to complain about. Something to be upset about. Something to get angry about. There are also those who look for and expect and find, every single day, something to rejoice about. Something to give thanks for. Something to smile and laugh over. That is who you have become, and it is beautiful to see. You shine, now. You do.

God, You did that. You did. It took a long, long time. And I cry sometimes still.

Of course you do. But even through your tears, you shine.

So I guess all I really wanted to say, here at the end of the day, is thank You. Thank You and I love You.

You are welcome. And I love you, too.

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Flow

Lord, my friend from halfway around the world, she wrote, said she was praying for me, talked specifics which she could not know on her own, only from You. Why did You do that?

I want you to know, by experience, that there is no distance when it comes to My Spirit. No distance, no separation of time, no boundary.

Lord, she felt led to pray for health, for me. God, this is really hard to say. I was just reading back in an older journal, four years ago in fact, when we were moving into our new location, and I got word of the award for Meditation, and You said a keyword for me then was Receive. So this is my perennial struggle. How can I ask, how can I receive, when it seems as if others don’t?

Don’t?

Don’t receive. What gives me the…what? Blessing? What gives me the right to a blessing that others need, too? How can I say yes to receiving?

By your logic, the world would be reduced, not enlarged. Everyone would have to grow smaller and diminish. The world would shrink, and shrivel, instead of thriving and expanding.

But…but it is hard to talk about Your blessing, of any kind, of saying, I believe I have received x-y-z, it is hard to express outward gratitude, not because I am not grateful, but I am painfully aware, and I mean painfully, of folks whose circumstances are more difficult than mine. So I tend to want to hold back.

I have told you before, the best evidence is a good and consistent example of the life I mean for humans to enjoy. If you decide to model sickness, stress, hunger, poverty, as a result of joining your life with Mine, what does that say about Who I Am? It says one of these things: I have no power, I have no interest, or I have no compassion. It says, I am sorry but I cannot help you; or, I have power but I really don’t care what happens to you; or, I have power, and I care what happens to you, but you are not worthy of My blessing, because I Am the Great Withholder, instead of the Great Giver.

Okay, so what is the great obstacle then to receiving? Why don’t more receive?

Look at yourself. You think up all sorts of reasons why you “cannot” receive. Some have to do with you, some have to do with others and what they think, some you believe–erroneously–have to do with Me. I want you to picture once more My Will as a compass. I want you to picture My Will pointing toward a direction, and on the path of that direction is everything a human being needs to thrive during a lifetime here. Think about that for a minute. Everything a human being needs to thrive. That means nurture from the moment birth-parents realize they will have a child. That means nurture from birth into childhood, through school years and beyond. That means health and a sustainable life out of poverty. That means safety–in the home, on the street, in the larger world. That was My Original Plan. So that is My Will. When Jesus came, did He ever, even once, refuse to heal on the grounds that it was My Will that the person be ill? Did He ever say, I am sorry, but this sickness is from God, and you must just bear it? Did He declare, this will make you stronger and increase your character? Or did He say, over and over, in word and gesture, I Am Willing, be healed. Rise up. Stretch forth your hand. Take up your bed and walk. Be cleansed. Be whole. Be strengthened. Be well. Blind eyes, see. Lame limbs, leap. Mute tongues, speak and praise God. What did He do? What did He say? And Whom did He say He represented on your earth?

Now, picture that compass, pointing a direction. And picture magnets, powerful magnets, called public opinion, ignorance, bigotry, prejudice pulling humanity off course. Picture magnets of leadership gone awry, wanting control more than wanting to serve–both in and out of what calls itself My Church, a community that was originally intended to replicate Jesus’ message and modus operandi. And what was the message? Fear not, God is with you. And what was the m.o.? Be healed, be fed, be free, be whole. Be who you were created to be.

In the middle, the center, of that path is everything I ever intended for humanity. Folks talk about being in the Center of My Will as a sort of criteria for receiving and what they usually mean is, I will withhold My Blessing unless their lives line up just so in perfect order. But what is true is more literal than that: the blessing flows in the center, so come to the center and you are automatically in the flow. That is why practices like intention and affirmation and gratitude are so powerful; they place the practitioner in the center of the Flow. The Flow of My Will for humanity. Unfortunately, many good and wonderful people have been pulled away by fear, or by believing what others in leadership tell them, even if it is far from My Truth.

So Your Will is healing?

Yes.

For…everyone?

Yes.

Ok, here is a dumb question, then.

There are no dumb questions.

Ha, my friend Judy says that.

She is correct.

Ok, well…how do we die then, if Your Will is health?

Just like the butterfly emerges from the cocoon, just like the chicken pecks its way out of the egg. Transformation. Resurrection is all about transformation. In My Original Plan, there was no death, remember? There was life unto Life, glory unto Glory. “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn; it shines brighter and brighter until the full day.” And remember, in My Sight, all are created righteous; and in the final hour, all are declared righteous. So My Will always was, glory to Glory. Light to Light. Humanity to Eternity. Step across the bridge, easily and rejoicing. That was the Plan.

Gosh, God, we are so far away from that. In all ways.

Not so far as you think. For you, the final moments will be that easy. That gentle. I have promised you that before.

I want that for everyone.

Keep praying. Keep asking. And keep modeling the life I intend. For right now, that means being willing to receive. Receive so you can give. One of your gifts is Hope, remember? Be willing to have a testimony. Not to draw attention to yourself, but to Me and Who I long to be in every human life, in every human heart. Believe, and keep believing. Receive, and keep receiving. Be a big ripple in the pond! Help others believe and receive. You cannot do that by standing on the bank of the River, longing. Only by living in the Flow.

OH! I see it. Sort of.

Yes, you do.