Category: Change

Posted on

Watchword for 2018

So You know how I feel about New Year’s Eve, how I feel about rites of passage in general. I like them. I like assessing and planning. I like looking back, looking around, and looking forward. I like keywords and watchwords. God, do You have a word for our planet? For our country?

Love One Another. Everything falls apart without that.

Love is the oil that lubricates every relationship, that soothes every wound, that softens every scar. Love’s oil gives light, gives heat, gives fragrance, and transforms ordinary days into oases of great beauty and joy. It’s the one song the stars dance to, and the waves on the shore. You can never have too much love or give too much love. Love has the power to transform any situation, bring calm out of chaos, and give sight to the blind, especially those who are blind to others. Love is always in season, always in style, never grows old.

You say you want to change the world? Love one another. Begin and end with Love. End your year, start your year. Let love undergird every decision. Do all from love, with love, by love. It’s another way of saying, do all connected to Me. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it is connected to the Vine, neither can you, unless you are connected to Me.

You want fruit? You want impact? You want influence? You want a better world? Choose Me. Choose Love.

Posted on

Life Movies

Lord, we started talking last night as I was falling asleep, and I really need to re-start that conversation.

I was telling you not to close your heart off, but to stay open, and vulnerable.

Lord, someone gave me that same advice years ago. I heard it then as a command to endure.

That may have been that person’s meaning, but it is not Mine. I never condone or excuse abuse or mistreatment. But when you are hurting inside, for yourself or for others, you tend to wall yourself in and work harder as if that will help. It won’t. It will only add more physical fatigue to your emotional weariness.

The truth is, I didn’t create humanity—or the planet itself—for sorrow, sickness, loss or death. I created for life, for I Am the Giver of Life. I created for Love, for I Am Love. My entire nature and being is Love. Out of Life and Love flow joy and peace and kindness and goodness—which you call the fruits of My Spirit.

So when humans encounter the elements of life they were not made for, they react. Some become stoic, so nothing affects them. Some become narcissistic so everything affects them or revolves around them. Some become addicted to pastimes or to substances to numb or distract them from which is too hard, too painful, to bear alone. But you humans were not made to bear such suffering, not in the beginning, and certainly not alone.

You said recently when a situation troubles me, to surround it, to picture it surrounded, like effervescent life, I can’t remember exactly what You said, and I don’t know how to do that. And I need to. Right now.

Imagine you are a movie director. You can film the scene any way you wish. You have an unlimited budget and any props or costumes you need. You have the world as your set. And you have Angels as part of your extras in your casting of characters. How would you film the next scene? What kind of movie would you produce and direct? Set that as your intention and prayer for them.

Lord, aren’t You the Producer and Director?

Sadly, no. People assume so, and that assumption has led to much additional sorrow and misunderstanding. Each of you is your own director. I direct only where and when I Am invited to do so. Oh, I try to interject into the plot, to give warning about where the storyline is going, or to give encouragement in character development. But the human power of choice is always in your hands. That is why I ask you to pray My Will Be Done. It is not a given, in this world—only in the next.

So take a few minutes. Imagine the scene re-written. Then offer that, as prayer. I Am the God of Reconciliation. Picture a peaceful resolution to all that troubles you.

Posted on

When The Tide Turns

Lord, it’s as if I have been hearing You say, “When the tide turns.” There’s a moment, right? When it changes? And it might not seem obvious at first but soon, very soon, you can tell it has turned? Are You saying this is it?

I AM saying the tide has turned. You are now in the phase where you are beginning to notice, to see the evidence of the shift. You were thinking just of the challenges of this year, the challenges of a couple years back. I’m saying, this has been a much longer period, financially, emotionally, spiritually. This period of difficulty really began six years, six long years ago, with Patrick moving in that December, with Pete’s fatigue not yet correctly diagnosed, with all that happened in 2011, with having to relocate Yellowhouse, with Pete’s other health challenges.

Here is what I saw, what I know, what I want you to know: in all of that, your heart stayed true and strong, and pure. Did you worry? Yes. Did you fret and fear? Yes. Did you mourn and cry? Oh, yes. Did you turn from Me, or Pete? Did you turn from Patrick? Did you turn from anyone who really needed you? Never. Not once. In fact, your light shone even brighter. Did you have some occasional grumpy days? Yes, but your overall nature stayed sunny and sweet. You did it! You came through the worst drought and low tide period you’ve been through since your early 20’s. Yes, there were blessings, which you received because you were determined to stay in gratitude and be as alert as possible for them.

So if you could receive all those gifts in drought–Meditation and Freddi’s kits, and Moonrise, and Currituck, and your sales increases, and trips west and to Florida and to Maine and to Connecticut, imagine what awaits you on a flood tide!! Think about everything you have received, everything, on an ebb tide. As the tide was going out, flowing away, look at what you received: Pete’s miracle. You reunited with family you thought lost to you. So look for amazing bonds and connectedness on the flood.

Part of flood for you will be the publishing piece. for now, create the body of work. Just create it. Write the stories, lay out the books. The music will flow in this era too.

 

Posted on

Breathe In The Positive

Lord, I am scrolling through old journals, as You said I could, and I stop, astounded. I am reading entries from three years ago, and You said then words that are so fitting for today. Again and again I read something You said before the situation, preparing me for what was to come. And here You go. You have done it again. So I am going to share this, Lord. It is so timely, I am going to trust it will be as timely for someone else reading in the moment.

Every step of growth—personal and professional—is a leap. You feel unready and unprepared; that is what learning is for. I Am not asking you to be, yet. I Am asking you to become. To be, come. To Be, Come. Come, follow Me. Come with Me. Come, and see.

Today, Come to the Sea. Come to the Leaves. Come Outside to go Within. That is your personal paradox, the distinct definition of your calling. Outside to go Within. Then you fill the well to pour out, outside in your larger world, rippling beyond your circle. That is the breathe in, breathe out, of your life. Go out/breathe in; go in/breathe out. That’s the rhythm of it. Go out, take a deep breath; hold it in; release it out, transformed to nourish the very place you were nourished by. Take in the spiritual oxygen you need and trust that the carbon dioxide you release is exactly what you are meant to give.

You’ve been trying to do this backwards, to live as a tree: to take in the carbon dioxide and put out the oxygen. To absorb in your body the negative and push out the positive. I say to you, take in, be filled with the positive and you will release the negative, and your release of the negative will in turn create the transformation of negative-to-positive, just as the trees do. But you do your part by staying positive, absorbing the good, being on the lookout for the purest oxygen possible. Breathe that. Immerse in that. Let every word, every thought, every breath, be Love. You can change your world one breath at a time. Your love is changing the people around you. Don’t focus on change—just focus on staying in the flow of My Yes to you. Yes to opportunity. Yes to safety. Yes to health. Yes to peace. Yes to joy. Yes to love. Go outside and Be, Come—more of who you are.

Posted on

Incubation

Dear God, before I jump into “do”—what would You say?

There is much within you, waiting to come forth. Some lies at great depth and some is just below the surface, awaiting only your attention to emerge. Incubation is all about waiting, but purposeful waiting. Waiting in the foreknowledge and assurance that powerful and wonderful changes are already underway and will soon be manifest, be visible. You are incubating now.

Incubation is not passive. A diligent mother turns her eggs, makes sure they are warm and sheltered. A diligent mother feeds herself so that when the babies hatch, she has the energy she needs to take care of both them and her. A diligent mother keeps knowledgeable about her own food sources. You are afraid that paying attention to the stirrings within will somehow harm them. This is a lie. You must heed the stirrings within in order to birth them, and in order to nurture them to their full potential.

Again I say, I did not give you this life to strip it from you How would you live each day differently if I told you that your nesting place would weather any storm and that you are destined for both wondrous migratory journeys and a stable home-base? That your calling is to combine word with image and bring hope and encouragement and healing to the broken-hearted, and encouraging vision to the newly emerging, and a sense of purpose to those seeking direction or lost in confusion? What if I said, beauty is your Bible? That your lens—your view of My world—is the Yes and Amen that I, the True Word, intend and need to speak through you?

Your eggs are hatching asynchronously: word gifts, visual gifts, and music gifts. And you have had earlier seasons of hatching, which you’ve assumed were to be your only times of bringing-forth. No, you have many seasons yet, many incubations to come. For now, pay attention to this season. Quit apologizing for what stirs within you, for those inner longings you keep trying to silence. They are trying to emerge—encourage them! They will soon have wings. Pay attention to every dream, every longing. If it is stirring within you, it is from Me. We are birthing together. Don’t let these become stillborn. Turn your eggs, feed yourself and incubate in joy.

Posted on

Follow the Stream

So, Lord, what would You say, to my tired body and my somewhat stressed mind?

You keep laying an axe to your own growth. I Am trying to grow you in a new direction. Think of your life path like a compass. Think of people relocating. They are not trying to re-create the same look, the same experience-otherwise, why move? But that is what you have been trying to do. I have been calling you into new and fresh and you have been trying to survive on leftovers, on stale and in some cases spoiled leftovers. You want fresh but you don’t want change. But you need change. You—especially—need change. You are like an octopus; you need new experiences. It is how you thrive. You want Time to stand still or flow backwards and I want Time to carry you as a river, around the bend to new and never-imagined vistas. Maybe you have flashed hot and gone cold because you can’t reconcile how to grow and have balance while you stretch into new directions.

What directions, Lord? I am seeing a sort of sprawling live oak, growing where the wind has sculpted its path from behind.

The force of the river can be said to be from behind but we think of rivers as flowing towards. Think of the wind as blowing towards.

Towards what? Towards where?

Towards a life of Adventure and Experience. Towards a path that opens before you as you walk it. Towards a trail that you blaze, with your words and your work. You need time for words—your own and others’—and you need music—your own and others’. And you need beauty. And you need serenity. And you need vibrancy. And you need customers, paying patrons, for all of it.

And my part is?

 Your part is to keep walking. To follow the stream. To let the River flow where it will. To listen for My Voice. I do not drive you in a wilderness, I lead you through pastures of plenty, pastures of green. Stay in Psalm 23 a while. Stay in Psalm 23 until you see it fresh, every day, in your own experience.