Category: Growth

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Full Circle

Oh, Father God! I just “randomly” — but actually I know I was led — picked up an old, old journal. Spring 2012. I’m thumbing through, and reading about writing. About writing more than dialog–which is exactly what You and I have been talking about, six years, six long years later. So on the page I brainstormed titles, I listed possible themes, and then I turned the page. And reading, I turn the page, and I suddenly feel as if I have stepped into a Time Tunnel (one of my favorite shows as a kid, I had a huge crush on James Darren) and I am somehow suspended there, or that my former self and my current self are meeting in these pages. I am reading back and it is as if I am reading what I wrote just days ago, not years ago.

Here it is: Lord, I’ve always wanted to write fantasy, I suddenly realize, because in fantasy things work out. (Current Note: Like Eden!!) You can envision a world where magic happens, and sets to rights. Where ordinary people receive gifts of power and purpose and use them to make a difference in their worlds. Since you’re the crafter of the world, you can make it “work.” You can make it beautiful. You aren’t “naive” — I hate, I admit it, that criticism of myself but what if I embrace it and instead call it was it is, which is Innocence. (The very thing You JUST asked me to write! Not even a week ago, in 2018!) And prophetic. And creative. And cathartic. Aha, a new and blessed way to think about naive. Aha. Thank You, Lord.

Right about then, six years ago, the dogs woke Pete and I stopped writing. The next day I journaled about an early named storm and the several days of rain to come. And then You answered my barely whispered fear, about the storm, about the economy, in words that, again, echo what You told me just yesterday, about Peace:

The world and its circumstances will try continually to pull you off-center. If you can stay in your center with Me, the tug and pull of that will become less and less. Re-magnetize yourself to My Promises and all this tugging and pulling will switch to pushing–to bringing you even more closely aligned with My Will for you life, which can be summed up in one word: blessing. My Will for your life is blessing. Blessing you and through you blessing others. O, little one, do not be afraid. Your path is peace and that means inner peace most of all. I want you to drink from My River of Peace, Deep Peace. Deep Peace of the Running Wave to you. Deep Peace of the Quiet Pool to you Remember the little shell dove on the path at Bodie Island? I Am not scolding you, I Am soothing you. I Am calming you. Maybe you could find something restful, something peaceful, to do today. You smile at that thought, but I mean it.

Lord, I look around and all that fills my thoughts are the need-to’s.

You need to take a deep breath. Maybe you need to journal. Why don’t you write down some things that bring you peace, that are restful and calming?

So good grief, God! Have I learned nothing in six years?!?  And this can’t be a coincidence, either. Six years ago, You talk to me about writing, and then about peace, deep peace, Inner Peace and Calm. And now, You talk to me about writing and then again, about deep peace. So the two are, they have to be connected.

You dialog with Me on the Page, you play and sing, you photograph, you speak, all from a deep inner spring that connects directly to the depth My Spirit provides. It is much like a spring in the natural, that taps into an underground aquifer of purest water. You need to write from this same depth, but you have spent literally years, decades, capping that well.

So, God, again I turn the page and it is all I can do not to cry, because I have been thinking lately about the music, and here come two full pages of dialog, in which I am asking you the exact same questions I have been asking You now. And then I used the word should, as in should I or shouldn’t I do this or that, and You said could, and You said confirmation and a sense of direction. And I didn’t. I didn’t do one single thing written there, in the list of I could. Not one. 

Now do you understand why I spoke the same words again? Gave you the same prompts again? Led you to this exact notebook and these exact pages, to re-affirm to you, once again, you COULD. Not you must. Not you should. But yes, still, you could.

The chance has not passed, passed me by?

Would I be leading you here again if that were so? I Am the God of many, many chances, of many, many coulds. In some ways you are in a stronger position now. You feel too much time has passed. I Who Am Timeless say, your Time is still Now. Always, still, Now. Even, Now. So you could begin. You could begin again.

Full Circle. You just brought me full circle.

Yes, that is what I do.

How many times, Lord?

As many times as it takes.

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Shine

In the shower this morning I was remembering that verse, which we used to sing, the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn; it shines brighter and brighter until the full day. I’ve lived that, as a photographer. Watching the light come. Watching it grow in intensity and reach. And I’ve lived the opposite, which is how a lot of us think about our lives, I think, especially as we age–like the light of dusk, shining dimmer and dimmer until the full dark. But that is not what You said. Like so much of what You say, it is the exact opposite of what I would think. I would think ending and dusk and dark, and here You are, saying beginning and dawn and light. Full Day. So when we do think Full Day, we think Heaven. What I want to know is, what part–or is there a part–of Full Day life, of shining brighter and brighter life, is meant for here and now?

It is all meant for here and for now. The whole idea is, brighter and brighter. The culmination is Full Day, yes–but most people miss the brighter and brighter part. So those people may still have some concept, some idea, some hope, of a hereafter Full Day, but you are correct in thinking that people expect their path to grow dimmer, not brighter, as their bodies and minds age. Imagine for a moment an opposite reality. Imagine as your physical strength begins to diminish, that your spiritual sensitivity and strength ramps up and goes into overdrive. Imagine an acute awareness, a heightened perception, of My Presence, of all that Light and Bright implies. Imagine living in More Love, More Joy, More Peace, day after day after day. Imagine your connection to My Presence with you and within you growing, not dimming. Imagine the reach of your influence as you live your life in such increasing brightness. What you share with others would change. You would, in fact, become what I called My Children to be, what I Named Myself to be–the Light of the World. So your word for today is Shine!

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Close Encounters of the Pelican Kind

Father God, I am having the best kind of deja vu. I am reading old journals, pouring over words we shared ten, eleven years ago, and two things are happening simultaneously. First, I am marveling at how what You said then, in advance, unfolded over the following months and years. How signposts You hinted at then came into full, glorious view later. And second, I seem to be reliving in real time now, what You said then, or what was happening then, but at a different level, like circling round a mountain coming around to the same view but different, because I am at a different plateau point now than I was then. I’m astonished, really.

Remember what I have told you: faith is the EVIDENCE of things not seen, or not seen as yet. The whole reason I speak in advance is to water and nurture your faith, so it can grow. Faith grows as a child grows, as a plant grows, with care and attention and the ideal conditions. I Am not interested in blasting your growth with blight or drought or pests to see if you persevere, if you are hardy enough. I Am interested in you bearing much fruit, and in creating the conditions where your fruitfulness flourishes. Above all, I Am interested in your growing into the self I see when I gaze deep inside you, the self that loves, that lives in peace, that exults in joy, that abounds in hope, that rejoices with others’ success as much as with your own. I see much growth in you, but the reality of living in eternity is that there is always room and opportunity for more growth. Your love can always expand. Your peace can reach wider, your joy can jump higher, your hope can cover more ground.

Ten years or so ago, I was rejoicing at my very first opportunity, in Ocracoke, to photograph pelicans at close range. Today, TODAY, after seeing a glimpse last fall, and hearing reports over the past couple of weeks, I had the chance to approach a lone pelican, on the dock in Duck, at close range. It was such deja vu, and made more so by what You said to me at that time. Lord, it was so key then, and I have the feeling that it is key again now. So here is what You said, what I felt, in those moments.

          “This morning I had this thought, this insight, about abundance, about living simply and doing with less, versus abundance. About being grateful for so many pelican pictures and thinking, that’s it, that’s too many, I can’t or shouldn’t have or want more. And the thought came, no. I am as grateful today for new pelican pictures as I was yesterday. I got to watch preening up close and at length. Wonderful. And the thought, to turn aside, not receive more, not look for more, was strong on one front, and its opposite was to receive, to celebrate, and to be grateful. Largess. Thank You Lord, for the time, the experiences, the photographs. This is expansive thinking. I have so much to understand here.

And then You said, You have so much to experience. You’ve relied too long on understanding, on others’ understanding. When you experience, you will know, and no one will take that knowing from you. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. The Bible word for intimacy is to know. You will become one with this truth. A depth of experience–this is how you will know.

So Lord, I have to ask, why now? What is it that You are trying to say to me, now? All over again, an encounter with a pelican and all over again, that infusion of joy, of such deep gladness. 

Your quest for meaning, to make meaning, is great. It is one thing I love about you. But like anything else, even a great thing can be carried to an extreme where it is out of balance, and hurts the whole. What if I just wanted to give you a gift of joy? What if I just wanted you to play a little (or a lot)? What if I Am delighted with your delight, and rejoicing in your joy, and intending to catch your attention so you once again pay attention to your intention (all those plays on words intended). What if I came to you today disguised as Coyote, the Gentle Teacher, and the “gotcha” is to tickle you into rest by showering you with joy? Jesus disguised Himself for one moment as a Gardener and for another moment as an Itinerant traveler even His close disciples did not recognize. Imagine the joy when the Aha! was revealed. What if your current Vision Quest is to reveal to you once again the joy you experience when you just let go and be yourself, outside. What happened, after you saw the pelicans, in 2007?

Well, You asked me what else I would like to experience. And I said dolphins. And then we saw jumping dolphins up close in the Sound and surfing dolphins in the ocean, incredible!

Then, I was trying to persuade you about an important truth about Myself, and about you, about your capacity to receive. Now, I Am trying to do the same thing. You have received so much, and are so grateful, that paradoxically you are beginning to do the same thing you did eleven years ago. You are beginning to shut down, beginning to entertain a belief that says there is a limit to what you can experience and enjoy here on planet Earth, and that you are dangerously close to that limit, so you better ration out your blessings, lest you run out of blessing before you run out of time. Absurd, isn’t it, when you hear it expressed in such plain words?

I’m sorry, Lord.

Don’t be sorry. Just believe. Just believe I Am with you, I have much to show you and teach you and give you, and just believe that for all you receive, you don’t diminish either your later blessings or the blessings I have to bestow on everyone else. You are already struggling with the idea of abundance and largesse. The truth is even larger, more staggering, and the truth is infinity. But for now, let’s just concentrate on abundance, and on your willingness to say yes to more.

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How does Your Garden grow?

Lord, I keep coming back to the third letter of John, in which he pray that his readers would be in good health and prosper, even as their souls prosper. I find so much depth in that thought! Our soul prospers when we are fully connected. Like a garden prospers in the right soil and in the right mix of light and water for whatever the particular plants require to thrive. So that brings up a question–since this is not a cookie-cutter planet, and we aren’t cookie-cutter people, and You aren’t a cookie-cutter God, You relate to us differently, don’t You? I’m hearing Ding-Ding-Ding in my head.

Yes! You understand! This could be the real gift of denominations, and “religious practices” — acknowledging that some humans are shade-loving while others need full sun and still others need a mixture. Some humans, like sea oats, thrive in what other humans would label drought, because those other humans require a lot of water. I Am certainly Big Enough to encompass within Myself every human need. It is only natural that like would gather with like. You don’t berate a hosta plant for wilting atop a sand dune! You plant it in the shady conditions that are most suitable for it to thrive.

But what do you humans do? You gather to yourselves others like you and then you make dogma. You decide that yours is the best–or only valid–location in the Garden. You discount others’ experiences as less-than, or flat-out wrong. Meanwhile, those others are harboring the same thoughts and judgements about your group! And all of you think you are the only ones growing to suit the Master Gardener!

So what are we to do, then?

Make room in your heart for all kinds of plants. Let Me be God over the whole Garden. Learn from one another and respect one another enough to allow those different from you to find their way, their perfect spot. Most of all, love one another. Love one another as I have loved each of you, all of you. Love seeks the other’s best. Love rejoices when the other thrives. Love sees the whole garden and each plant in it as beautiful and essential.

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Seedlings

Lord, thank You for growth. I just spent a few minutes reading this time of year from 15 years ago, and then 14 years ago. Fifteen years ago, I was still sick with pneumonia, gaining strength very slowly, and full of the same sorts of questions and drivenness I still sometimes am prey to. Fourteen years ago, Pete’s second sister, who had been ill for only a few weeks, died and that set off a whole storm of emotion, within and around us. What I realized, reading, is how my morning journaling times have changed. Now, I know to listen for Your Voice, Your input. Then, I craved it but I didn’t often stop long enough to hear You. But it was that practice, of taking that time in the morning, writing down everything I thought and felt for 30 minutes or so, that planted the seeds that eventually grew into the relationship I have with You now.

Yes, you were full then–full of grief, full of fatigue, full of fear about health in general, full of questions about your future. You needed to become emptier so that I could fill you with Myself.

I loved You then, as I love You now. But I think I had forgotten how much You love me, love us. And how personal Your Love is, how You really do enter into a relationship with us–if we will, with You. I had moved into focusing on social justice, on causes for peace in the human world and the natural world. I had zeal, and I had faith…but believing in something, even Someone, isn’t the same as nurturing a relationship with that person. 

You are a parent yourself. How do you feel when you hear from your son, or one of the grandkids, out of the blue, for no particular reason?

The feeling is joy, God. Big time joy.

You gladden My own heart with your attention, and with your commitment to staying open to My Presence. What would you say is your dominant emotion these days?

I guess I would have to say gratitude. Or maybe lovingkindness, although I can’t say I am always loving, especially when I am over-tired.

And what did you read as your dominant emotion in those journals from so long ago?

Gosh, God, sorrow, I guess. I was trying so hard to keep going, but there wasn’t any joy anywhere, really. I checked items off the must-get-done list, so there were flashes of satisfaction in tasks completed. There was genuine joy in the trip west to receive my college diploma, the degree Daddy’s life insurance paid for. His last gift.

So what do you think was the difference-maker?

I know gratitude as a practice helped, as I have shared over and over with folks. It really did change my life. But the real difference-maker, Lord, was You–this connection, like right now, knowing I can reach out with my mind, my thought, and You are here, right here. That changes everything in real time. Anytime I do get discouraged now, if I can just remember, I am not alone, You are here, God-with-us as a fact, it flips some switch in my consciousness. I mean, I can still be tired, or stiff and achy as I am tonight, or overloaded with more tasks than hours to do them, but I take just one breath thinking about You, about the immensity of the proposition that the God of the Universe is interested in us, in me, in this moment of what we call Time, and I smile, I can’t help it. It’s as if I am privy to the world’s greatest secret, only it is not a secret at all. It is hidden in plain sight, like the song says, Open the eyes of my heart. I just can’t get over all those pages from 2003 and 2004, and how different my journal reads now. Thank You.

I told you the other day, I want you to try to fast-forward in your thinking 20 or 25 years, as if you were as old as Pete is now, and what would be on your gratitude list from those years you have not lived yet. Why do you think I asked that?

I didn’t know–and I couldn’t come up with much. I mean, I couldn’t foresee anything in particular to add to a list. 

You just looked back at a snapshot of your life from 15 years ago. You are marveling most at your own growth in those years, your spiritual growth. Do you think your growing years are complete? What if I told you even more growth is coming, good growth, wonderful growth, and that you will look back at these conversations and marvel at how much closer You and I had grown during your 60’s and 70’s? What if you will look back with the same incredulity you are now experiencing, looking back, because our relationship will grow even stronger and deeper?

Lord, is that even possible? Is that what You are saying?

You are thinking of your life in Me now as a forest, in comparison with the tiny seedling it once was. I tell you, you will look back at these years and see a small grove in comparison to the mighty sequoias this connection, your connection with Me, your connection to this world you so love, will become. Mark My Words. So much growth awaits you. So rejoice in every day, every week, every month, and every year. Here is a little foretaste, a hint–this past summer, you were able to quit picking your fingers. No longer is that a stress response, after nearly 60 years. Now imagine no stress triggers, because you are essentially immune to them. Imagine no fear triggers, because they are no longer a part of your inner emotional or spiritual lexicon. You will grow into this life, just as you have grown into the woman you are now. And for every inch of growth, listen for Me saying, You are My daughter, I love You, and I Am so proud of you.

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Blue Moonrise

God, tonight I want to talk about the moonrise, the Super Blue Moon moonrise.  I’ve already posted some photos on Facebook. But I want to talk to You about it. Second full moon of January, the first month of the year…lunar eclipse earlier today, making this Super Blue Blood Moon truly unique. The last time we had a US total eclipse (even though we couldn’t see it here) of a Super Blue Moon was (thank you Google) on March 31, 1866. The Civil War had ended not quite a year before. Some folks look for portents in the moon; blood moons hearken back to Old Testament verses folks interpret as the end of the world. Various cultures find meaning in eclipses generally, and lots of folks look at new moons as times of beginning and full moons as times of fulfillment, or letting go. You often speak to me through nature. So…is there some meaning beyond “gee that was neat” that I should receive from tonight’s full moon?

How did you feel when the moon came up?

Joyful. Excited. Grateful. I wasn’t sure if the cloud layer to the north would obscure its rising, but there it was! And as it rose higher in the sky it began to light up the wisps of clouds around it, and it shone so bright that the clouds in front of its face just faded. It looked like they were behind the moon! 

I want you, I want My world to experience wonder. Wonder is not just for children. Much of the world’s current spiritual hunger and thirst stems from a mindset that has replaced wonder with logic. Science is wonderful, and necessary; you humans like to solve riddles, figure everything out, find tidy explanations, and categorize experience. Those traits have served humanity well but some experiences aren’t always explainable or understandable to the finite human mind. A mindset that requires precise explanations and measurable and consistent results leaves no room for the miraculous. The rise in popular culture of fantasy and science fiction–notice that term, science fiction–is an attempt by your artists to reconcile the logical, scientific side of grown-up humanity with the wonder and awe and openness of children.

I have asked you this before but I need to ask you again: do you think Heaven will be boring? Do you think your loved ones are bored in My Presence now? Do you think that your eternal existence will be described by words such as static, stagnant, frozen, unmoving, or sameness? You read, I Am the Lord, I change not and you think of these sorts of words, as if Heaven’s existence is like the click of your shutter, freezing a moment, a nanosecond, of experience. But what happened tonight in real time, as you reckon time? The moon Rose. It literally grew before your eyes, becoming bigger, brighter, and higher in your field of vision. I Am Risen. That is not a static fact, that is an ongoing, eternal reality of growth and expansion in your experience of Me and My Life, both within you and in the world around you and in the eternity you have yet to grasp.

When I say, I change not, or I Am the Same, yesterday, today, and forever, what I mean is, I Am Always Who I Am. My character does not change. I Am not Love today and Ambivalence or Hatred tomorrow. I Am not Peace now and War later. I Am not Mercy here and Unmerciful there. I Am Always and Fully Myself. But (this will be hard for you to grasp at first), I Grow. With every human born, My Love grows, My Mercy grows, My Heaven grows. Your astrophysicists tell you, the Universe is ever-expanding. Listen to them. They are close to the realm where science and wonder meet. That meeting place is the Door to My Kingdom, and you yourself are closer to the Door than you imagine, much closer than you were even five years ago.

You have heard, so-and-so is so heavenly minded that she is no earthly good. That is spoken as an indictment. You have heard, get your head out of the clouds. I tell you, you will be increasingly so heavenly minded that you will be of much earthly good, much greater good than you could have been otherwise. The same is true of every human being who seeks to connect more deeply with Me, to experience My Presence in fresh ways, and to embrace this seeming paradox, of science and wonder united.

This is the lesson of this full moon for you: embrace your life. Embrace your ever-larger, ever-brighter, ever-rising-higher life.

 

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Oh Very Young

Lord, I feel like I’m missing something, some lesson, some message. Young, transformation, over and over and over. Like a Native American message–look for new growth, give-away to the young so the young can grow. I sort of think it’s beyond that, even.  I mean, that all seems obvious. But what are You trying to say to me?

To the very young, everything is wonder. Every day, every experience is fresh and new. The very young are receptors–they take in everything and learn and grow from all of it. Everything has a lesson to teach. They have not yet learned to judge, to sort experience. They are curious but not yet wise. Their very openness and wonder are their gifts. True Wisdom retains this wonder. True Wisdom contains this enthusiasm. True Wisdom is not cynical, not jaded. True Wisdom retains the expectancy of Very Young. There is a big difference between “getting older” and “growing elder.”

The Very Young are wide-eyed. Some are timid by nature and some are bold, but all know they are in a larger world, full of possibilities.  Most adults reach a point where they stop. They settle. They stop growing, stop learning, stop expecting anything new or wonderful. Most adults assume, this is it, I’ve reached as high or as far as I can. And they quit there, and begin concentrating not on growing but on maintaining, on not-losing, on not-sliding-backwards. They may have an occasional moment or experience that is beyond the box they’ve constructed and labeled “real life” but those are few. I never asked My Children to “grow up” in this way. I never said, the day will come when I, your Father, will no longer have anything new to show you, give you, tell you, teach you.

Some–you call them visionaries, explorers, inventors–refuse to grow up into this settledness. If not for them, you would, all of you, still be living in the Stone Age.

You already know, which has shaped your believing, a little, a very little, about potential. Don’t stop here. That’s the message. Don’t stop now. Don’t stop, period. In many ways you are already an Elder. But in so many other ways you are a Beginner. You have received that word as a negative rather than as the positive it is, in Me. You are remembering emotions surrounding the phrase “starting over” as loss. Starting over–after losing a relationship, after losing a child, after losing a job…going backwards…you have tremendous sorrow, tremendous grief, tremendous energy of loss, of defeat, around the thought of beginning. That is the source of your mixed emotions right now.

There is a lot that no longer fits for you, a lot more than you’ve been willing to admit or acknowledge. I want you to explore that with Me. Be honest, here. What no longer fits? What relationships no longer fit? What beliefs? What patterns? If you were moving into “smaller to grow larger” emotional space, mental space, what thoughts and feelings do you not have room for? What programs do you want to purge from your hard drive so it will run faster?

If you knew you’d remain healthy, and have financial resources, what would you do then? What would change? What would you dare? What would you dream? What would you try? Your largest dreams, selling a few stock photos to an ad agency for a hospital, is so small, I could make that happen in one day! Then what? I Am saying to you, now what? Don’t become “older.” Don’t settle. Don’t “be adult about this.” Be Very Young. Be filled with wonder, be creative, let your imagination take wing. Be Bold.

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New Moon, New Year Wishes

It’s Winter. It’s New Moon. It’s Year End. Shouldn’t New Year wishes be in the realm of possibility? Otherwise isn’t it just wishful thinking?

First, “wishful thinking”—thinking full of positive wishes and longings—is how anything new gets done, how anything gets invented.

Oh! The shadow on the tree out back is an A-OK symbol! I haven’t seen that in months.

Second, wishes are precisely for things or circumstances that seem, either a little or a lot, impossible or improbable or so difficult as to be unachievable. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be wishes—they would be plans, or they would be goals.

The A –OK Symbol has what looks like an arrow up from the thumb, like flicking my forefinger, sending an arrow west. Lord, once upon a time I knew my fresh impact was west. Now? Flicking could also be sending it away, flicking something—a distraction—out of view, so I can concentrate.

That is what you have been doing, flicking your wishes out of the way. They keep resurfacing and you keep finding ways to say no, to ignore them, to deny their very existence.

Isn’t that what a Christian life is about? Denying yourself?

Not if what you are denying is what I’m trying to give you in the first place. Not if “denying yourself” means denying the Self I Am trying to bring forth in you and through your life.

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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.

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Expansion

A little glimmer, a little shimmer, a little puff of wind. The day stretches and yawns into itself. I am quiet. Kaylee is scratching, restless. Lord, what would You say?

People think of expansion in many different ways. Your crop could yield more seeds, that is one way. The size of your fields could increase. You could have more outlets for your crop, so you waste less and store less. You could be more efficient in both planting and harvest.

Yes?

Another way to think about expansion is to diversify. You have fields AND an orchard. And you raise sheep for wool, say. In order to diversify, where the land produces a year-round, expanded offering, you need more help—help which I will provide. You are close to the limit of what you can provide in terms of cranking out product. The next big piece is the writing piece, and the workshop/speaking/teaching piece. Each will have a different audience and a bit of a different purpose, but it is all your land, all your territory. I do want you to dream again, and dream on paper. Dream on the page.

Lord, I write that down and I lean back. I lift my pen off the page. Why? What’s up with that, what’s up with me?

You think the very idea of having dreams and expressing them is selfish, self-centered, prideful. You forget about my planting seeds in you, seeds that sprout as your gifts and talents, as your inclinations and preferences, as your longings. All of these are My planting within you. So let’s examine those seeds, shall we?