Category: Positivity

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Life Practices

Lord, I need, I want, to establish some working, sustainable pattern of affirmations. My mind is always telling myself, telling my body some version of reality. It is never really quiet. So why not make sure what it is saying, the story it’s choosing, is positive rather than negative. Right?

 

You do choose to a large extent what to read, what to watch, what to listen to, what to absorb and assimilate. And what you choose to bring in directly affects what comes out. It is not that reciting affirmations guarantees you a life free from challenge or difficulty or change. But reminding yourself of My Truths and Promises, and reminding yourself of your own strengths and capabilities can ease difficulties and make sure challenges and changes transform into positive possibilities.

The truth is, you would very quickly get bored if every single was same-same, with no growth–particularly if same-same narrowed your opportunities to both connect and be creative.

Some of my friends pooh-pooh affirmations. Others live by them.

Don’t look to your friends. Look within yourself. What has been the fruit in your life, both using them and ignoring them: You aren’t trying to replicate your friends’ experiences, no matter how wonderful. You need to craft your own. So I would ask you, what has worked best for you in your life.

Community gathering began to not work–I think maybe because by the time it didn’t work, I had abandoned some of my own private replenishing practices, and in each of the community gathering venues, I was expected to pour out, in greater or lesser amount, and my well was dry by then. Each of these had ceased to be places or times that replenished me, and eventually I had nothing left to give.

So don’t start there. Start where you are. Start here. Work with the truths you know and let more occur to you.

Ok, Lord, well, here is what I know. What I know for sure. I know “Thou art with me.” I know I can move through my day with ease and grace, and I can accomplish every task with ease. I lived that before; I know it is true. I know I have been, and can be again, in the right place at the right time. Led by You.

I know my life blesses others and that I am a magnet for peace and lovingkindness, from critters and birds to people. I know Your world is beautiful at its core, and abundant, with more than enough for everyone to thrive, including me. I know You have a fountain of creative ideas and inspirations. 

I know You are Jehovah-Rapha and I know You are Jehovah-Jireh. Lord My Healer, Lord My Provider. I know I can trust the ones I love to Your Love.

What part of any of that feels false? What part provokes stress or anxiety.

None of it, Lord.

So here is a Template of Truth for your days. Why don’t you print it out where you can see it? We shall add to it as we go. And do an Art Page around these themes. And write some lyrics to help you remember these truths. And come back and let’s talk some more tomorrow.

 

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Positive Choices

Lord, I decided years ago, I have a finite amount of concentrated prayer time. Rather than spend it rebuking evil, I decided to spend it talking to You. I am trying so hard to turn away from malevolence, not give it more power by my attention to it.

Your every choice for good, for love, or for peace helps tip the balance in favor of good in your world. You keep making positive choices and so you keep having an increasingly positive life. Those who keep making negative choices keep having an increasingly negative life—until they switch. Until they begin to choose differently. Those who give themselves over deliberately to what you call evil, to choices intended to hurt or harm another, increasingly become the choices they make. They—and you—take on the persona and lifestyle and character of the choices made.

You are not safe because there is no evil, no malice. You are safe precisely because, despite the reality of evil and malice, you continually choose Me and My ways, and so you are surrounded by that which you have chosen to embody. It is My Spirit that protects you even when you don’t realize you are being protected.

But Lord, what about children? What about animals? Who protects them, the vulnerable?

You do. By your every choice for Love, you—and everyone like you—tip the balance in your world. That’s why I said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” You create and extend My Kingdom with every choice for good. You co-create with Me. If every single person on the planet did this at the same instant, the Kingdom would be fully realized.

Oh! As it is in heaven—right?

Exactly. You see?

 

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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.

 

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The Color Of Love

Lord, my painter friend says, convince me, the viewer, that this is a boat. Or a bird. Whatever. It is the essence. So what is the essence of my life with You? Now, this is. This deliberate time. Lord, living as if You were literally present to all my senses. That’s what I’m doing. I’m living—trying to, anyway, as if You were right at my elbow. “Pleasing God” doesn’t even come close. You are not my boss; You’re so much more. You’re my love. It’s like, in these moments, I am Your love, too. These are all imperfect, incomplete analogies, and sometimes I feel self-centered, that You take this interest in me (why me?). But I know, first, it’s true, and more, that You, being God, have this mysterious capacity to be like this, intimately involved at the same time with all of us, the whole planet of us, maybe the whole universe of creations.

So that insight, that understanding, changes everything for me, and on a daily basis. Every day I wake up and I am so glad I am married to Pete. I am so glad for the fur-babies in my life. And I am so glad that I know I am Yours. I found a piece of blue seaglass! It’s butterfly blue. What is this blue a symbol of? I think, “nothing but blue skies…”

 Isn’t that kind of like me, and isn’t that kind of like PollyAnna?

I need some PollyAnnas. I have a world filled with Doom-N-Gloomers. Some are driving that train and some are on board believing there’s no other ride. If you can believe this, I Am PollyAnna Myself. I need some Believers. I need some Dreamers. I need some Co-creators. That is where you and others like you come in. I need some Weavers of Magic. I need some Painters of Possibility. I need some Happily-Ever-After Storytellers. Won’t you join with me in My work of making New?

Everything old is new again—that’s My work.

Think of your breath like blue mist. Think of every out-breath as calming, soothing, healing, as Peace. Blue is the color of Peace, My Peace. Breath in Yellow, the energizing sun of Yes, of Joy, and breath out the gentle calm soothing breeze yes of Peace. Yellow and Blue make green, the green growth of beauty. You associate red with love in your culture because you’ve emphasized sacrifice. Green is a love-color too, which emphasizes growth. Love Grows. Love Expands. Love makes room, always, for one more at the Table. Evergreen is a symbol of My Love, Love in every season.

 

 

 

 

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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.