Walking by faith…

Daily writing prompt
What fears have you overcome and how?

It seems like wherever we look these days, there are plenty of things to fill us with fear. Wars, famine, worldwide environmental changes, and constant political battles that carry unavoidable fallout!

My point here, is not to cause you more fear or discomfort than the prompt has already done, but to reflect on how easy it can be for one to choose a fear to write about, talk about, or simply obsess over.

Forget that! I don’t know about anybody else, but I have a whole lot of other things to put my energies toward… other than to sit and think about things I have no control over. Fear is a nasty beast to battle with and trust me, I’ve had some real doozies!

Honestly, I quite trying to use my own strength to fight my fears, and instead, began walking by the strength of another… One much stronger than I!

For some, trusting in another can bring any number of fears to the table. This world is filled with dangers, pitfalls, and paths we wish we didn’t have to travel along. One life, one chance to walk through it, and with no guarantees! It’s like a recipe for disaster just waiting to be created, right?!

I don’t know about any of you but I don’t plan on spending my remaining years hiding in fear over things… no thanks! Besides, I can’t begin to recount all of the times that I showed up to a fight with faith on my side, only to find out that fear was nothing more than a bully… and never even showed up to the battle… what a coward!

From the place in life that I’m currently at, I’ve come to adopt an old fashioned saying,

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. we have only today, let us begin.” Mother Teresa

I can learn from what has come from my yesterdays but I cannot undo them…

I can think on tomorrow, plan for tomorrow, and expect for tomorrow, but it isn’t here yet. No amount of fear about any of the possible outcomes will do me any good, really. Yes, fear can have it’s place in keeping us from common dangers, accidents, and/or hairbrained ideas about drinking the acid out of a car battery… just sayin! I think today’s prompt is referring to obsessing about something that frightens us, whether it’s founded or unfounded. At least that’s my understanding, but I could be wrong.

Whatever your fear might be, everyone has to choose a method for dealing with, overcoming, and letting go of that which does not bear good fruit. Personally, I have chosen to walk by faith in God. That’s how I choose to live!

No, I haven’t come to a magical place where I don’t experience fears or doubts, just in case you were at all wondering. I’ve just been working towards giving my fears to God, trusting that I am in his capable hands. The giving of those fears is the easy part. The part that’s not so easy? Well, that would be NOT taking them back just to worry over them some more… I fall for that more times than I care to admit!

I guess that’s why I say that it’s a walk of faith… a walk, a journey, or lifelong adventure, if that sounds better. We all know that Life changes, and our fears will change from one day to the next. Success is determined, not by the obstacles one encounters along the way, but by the way in which one overcomes said obstacles!

Overcomer is a powerful word! The actual definition on Google is as follows,

someone who prevails despite facing opposition, difficulties, or weakness. Essentially, it’s a person who successfully overcomes challenges and emerges victorious. This can be seen in various contexts, including personal struggles, spiritual battles, and overcoming societal obstacles

I went a bit further and looked up what scripture says, according to Google:

In the Bible, an “overcomer” refers to a believer who, through faith and perseverance, successfully withstands trials and temptations, ultimately achieving victory. This victory is not just a one-time event, but a continuous process of resisting the world’s influence and living a life aligned with God’s will. 

As everyone knows, you should not only cite your sources but also check at least three differing sources for comparison, confirmation, and clarification… so I did just that!

Above, there are two offered from the internet, and below is from my own bible. I use an NIV translation but you can use any you wish. There are a number of references in scripture using this word but my favorite is in the book of John:

“In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

I shall do just that! I will walk by faith in the words spoken by my lord, so long ago!

Cookies?

Not Mine…

Daily writing prompt
What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

Being a light in the darkest of places requires a powerful source… and it ain’t mine!

Walking in shadows to find the lost calls for strength and courage that only comes from my creator!

My own light is quite weak when I try to fuel it without the proper oil… Holy oil, that is!

I, myself, have gotten lost repeatedly when trying to traverse the shadows by my own strength… and my courage always failed me when I sought to do things on my own.

The only legacy that should remain in my absence? It was never mine to begin with, as I am merely His vessel!

When I was given grace, it blossomed into something much more than I shall ever be… true forgiveness, purpose, mercy, love, and a desire to further His kingdom!

You want a legacy? Here’s one that should last into eternity…

“With what shall I come before the lord

and bow down before the exalted God?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousand rivers of oil?

Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has showed you, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Micah 6:6-8

Cookies?

Scales…

Daily writing prompt
How do you balance work and home life?

The answer is in the question, silly WordPress! Balance is the answer, in and of itself. What’s in the baskets will depend on the one doing the balancing. The key to the balancing is to choose the correct set of scales!

Look for quality, longevity, and any and all perks available with your purchase. Watch out for companies that cut corners with cheap product and shoddy manufacturing. They will look pretty, but will break after the first couple of uses.

Remember, if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is!

Go with a reputable company, preferably one that’s been around for a good long while. And do your research! Ask around for testimonials from those who previously purchased quality scales. This way, you are sure to find the set of scales that were meant just for you.

I found mine, and I promise that you will too. And I’ll stand on their quality til my last breath! I’ve had mine for as long as I can remember. At times, I’ve abused them, misplaced them, or downright put them away so I could try to do things my way. But I’ve still got them… and they look as good as they did when I first received them. If you’d like to, you can use my testimony and referral to where I got mine if you’re in the market to buy a quality set of scales. I’d be happy to tell you where I got them from… you know, who the manufacturer is, and all.

Until such time, we shall bake cookies…

Thursday Thoughts…

Have you ever wanted something so much that you can’t stop thinking about it? It consumes your thoughts, your dreams, and gives you a motivation that you didn’t know you had. You scrimp and save, make numerous sacrifices to afford the time, money, and anything else required to prepare for said thing. It might be anything from a vacation, a new car, or even a baby!

Unless you are very wealthy and/or were born with a big ENTITLED badge sewn on the left cheek your bum… there’s usually a vast distance from start to finish! I think sometimes we watch too much television, where they make it look like a walk in the park to become ALL THAT!

The last time I checked, there weren’t any badges on my bum nor do I carry a purse full of cash, so I’m looking across a vast canyon that’s deep and wide. In our particular situation, it’s somewhat like looking up from a very deep well. There’s a sensation of being slowly pulled upward, while sitting in a bucket that’s still half full of murky water.

Discovering such a great distance between that first rescue bucket and the really solid dry land needed has been a bit of a shock. Truly, it was ignorant of me to assume that we could get from homeless to successful overnight, just because we have keys to an apartment. When they hand you that so-called GOLDEN TICKET… you’re on your own!

When we were circling the drain, all I could think about was getting my books published and quickly leaving all the bad memories behind. Pipe dreams, I know, but it helped. Not only is it NOT so easy, but now that I’m here in this moment, I’m not even sure if it’s in God’s purpose… at least, not right now!

The program we are in does NOT allow for my husband or I to make any money while he is going to school. If any money is made, we stand to lose much or all of our housing money. No one tells you what to do for any actual dollars needed for things, outside of food stamps that only cover food. It makes me wonder how many people fail to ever recover, due to this little flaw in the system. We’ve actually found just about every flaw, crack, or hole in the system to fall into, which is why it took us nearly two years to get housing (the last six months was the homeless, homeless part.

In the end, I don’t care what president holds office… the system just needs to be fixed… for the people! That’s us, the feet on the ground, the workers, the farmers, the builders, the caregivers… the human souls that keep this country afloat with our hard work, our bloody and dirty hands, and our truly beautiful hearts!

This is the very reason that I rely on GOD alone, above any and all government! The only reason we are here, in this very apartment, had God stamped all over it! No government policy or case worker made that one person change their heart and allow us in… that was GOD!

With that being said, I still find myself wondering what now? Why did God put us here, and what is the next step? What if I step out in faith and start throwing manuscripts out there, only to find that I was the only one who believed in their value, you know? Yep! This loudmouthed frog, Chatty Cathy, Wiwohka Wonka, and redeemed woman of faith has doubt, just like everybody else. My journey toward eternity is just that… a journey! It’s how I intend to get there that will count. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to see God as our father. He faithfully carries us through our entire life, teaching and loving us through good, bad, right, wrong, darkness, and light.

It doesn’t matter if my steps go off track, if my faith is weak, or if I simply feel unsure about my next choice…

GOD IS WITH US!

GOD IS ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, FAITHFUL!

GOD WILL ALWAYS LIGHT THE WAY FOR US!

It’s not about whether our choices are the right ones, the wrong ones, or even the refusal to decide… it’s about looking up, getting up, and continuing forward in faith, hope and love!

If I’m to be fully honest about why any of this is even being written down and shared with others, it’s to remind myself!

Thanks for listening… hugs

Love is a powerful thing…

Tilly is something else! The young mouse is quite the adept navigator, so it seems. Well, at least she is when it comes to her heart!

I can’t say whether it was Tilly’s sharp memory, incredible sense of smell, or her natural way of seeing the forest that navigated us to proper spot, but she got us there! In the search for young Henry, I don’t know why I ever thought that a map would be needed, what with a love sick mouse onboard.

Love is a funny thing… and powerful, too!

So often, love enables us to do things we didn’t think were possible. In Tilly’s case, it was locating young Henry without any maps. Somehow, within hours of landing upon the banks of a familiar river, we found what had once been lost to us… or more specifically, what had been lost to our miss Tilly!

Climbing onto the tiny river boat we’d brought with us, we set to work paddling upstream, in search of clues. After only an hour of paddling, we managed to get ourselves stuck on a sandbar, right in the middle of the river.

There I was, hip deep in the river, trying to dislodge the boat from where it was stuck in the sand, when shouts broke out in the boat. Shouting, and jumping up and down, which rocked the boat so hard that it broke free from the sand. Luckily, I caught hold of the boat and gave it a good push toward the riverbank, where it once again became lodged in the sand. At least we were no longer in the middle of the river.

Amidst all the squeals of delight among my crew, I noticed a very emotional little mouse onboard. Tilly was crying her eyes out and waving at someone behind me, on the opposite river bank.

And just like that, there he was…

What are those odds?

Love really is a powerful thing, wouldn’t you agree?! When one experiences it, whether in the giving or the receiving, the world is so much brighter!

Onboard Navigation System…

Daily writing prompt
What gives you direction in life?

Once upon a time, long long ago, we navigated with pencil drawings of whomever had traveled on the road we were on. It’s all we had to go on for directions…

Thank goodness we don’t have to rely on the old way of getting information, right?! Advanced technology now allows us to navigate, via global satellite telemetry, on our handy dandy cell phones… or even our car’s onboard navigation system.

Consider our personal journeys in life like navigating a map, of sorts. We start at point A (birth) and are given a map of life with a bunch of confusing scribbles on it. It seems like we’re trying to follow a map we can hardly read, in the hope that our directions will get us to our destination, safely and successfully.

When you choose what you consider to be your destination, then you’re able to choose your directions. You can decide to attempt travel, only using those maps that time can destroy…

Or…

Download an Onboard Navigation System… that’s what I did, and I haven’t gotten lost since!

Cookie?

Monday Musings…

As I sit staring at my screen, the desire to offer up a list of my usual Monday Messages is there, but beyond that? Well,I got nuthin.. nada!

Thankfully, the daily prompt kicked me in the bloomers, what with the whole productivity thing.

Fortunately, we’re settling into our apartment nicely, after such a long time in the wilderness, so to speak. One would thing that I’d have a list that’s longer than my arm of all the things I can, and probably should be doing now. I do… but it makes my stomach hurt when I begin reading it.

Perhaps it would have been better to keep a shorter list. Maybe I should have made a rolodex of things during our ordeal, so that my thoughts would be more organized now. I didn’t! Does anybody do that when they’re in the middle of lifechanging events? Unless one is naturally OCD, I highly doubt many would keep such lists.

Besides, once we get to the other side of something difficult, the list wouldn’t really help us as much as one would think. You’re far different than you were before it began, so the list isn’t for you anymore… it was for the person you used to be.

So, now what do I do? No list! No DIY how-to video is going help! Ya, ya, ya… I can easily slip back into the rhythm of a clean house, cooking, baking, and errands, no problem. But, beyond those things, I guess I feel sort of lost at sea, so to speak!

When I saw this mornings prompt it made me laugh. I laughed because the answer I’d been searching for has been staring me right in the face, all along. Just last night I prayed that God would give me a purpose!

It took so long to get here, I truly don’t have a clue what I should be doing now! Sure, I could write the second volume of my fiction series, but haven’t yet started. I aught to do more with all of my little Barnyard shorts, but as most of you are full grown adults, it’s not really meant for WordPress anymore. That would mean going to YouTube with all the babes, but I’d be doing it by myself… alone. I want to write, not produce… I’m a storyteller, not a publisher! Besides, at the end of the day, is it what God desires?

I’m not saying that God is disapproving of anything I write, but am I putting it before His purpose for my life? I can still write stories, as I’m confident that God blesses the work of my hands. My dilemma is that right now, I can’t tell what I should be doing, which is making me feel very nonproductive in every direction.

Don’t worry though, for God has me firmly placed within his hand! In the deepest part of my soul, I hear God remind me that faith calls each of us to walk forward in His calling, even if we don’t know all the details.

Also, I do believe that I’m well established in His purpose, whether I know it or not! Even when I feel lost, or adrift within His purpose… He promises me that I’m in it!

While I may currently be at the don’t have any details part of my journey, I walk in faith, believing that when God asks a thing of me… He always, always, always provides what is needed to be of service!

Til I know more of what God desires for my path, I’m gonna just wing it with the writing. If I write too much about all the babes, the barnyard, or high seas adventures, so be it!

Besides, when have I ever done anything plain or ordinary? That would be boring…

Dreamin…

I think that dreams say a great deal about who we are… on the inside. Before you start preparing for some kind of mental health episode of some sort, I’ll leave that to the professionals, thank you very much! My thoughts and considerations will be looking at our character, our personality, or we can label as our true self, if you will. As I always tend to do, let me explain what I meant by my initial statement.

First off, I want to break dreaming into two categories here, one being a waking daydream, while the other is a sleeping dream. Waking daydreams are the ones in which we control the dream in its entirety. Obviously, the sleeping dreams are when we’re not awake, therefore we have no conscious control of what goes on in our dream, nor any control of the outcome… we just gotta ride it out, so to speak.

When I write these thoughts out, I’ve no intention of trying to figure others out, based on their dreams! I guess I’m writing out something that I’ve discovered about my own personality and tendencies, that’s all. Some say that they don’t really dream much, while others dream often and deeply… people like me.

Being a child from trauma, I sought fantasies and daydreams from a very early age, as a way of safety or escape, if you will. To this day, I can vividly remember things from those years, most especially the dreams and recurring nightmares that I experienced. Weird, right?!

Anyway, I had one of my re-run daydreams from when I was small, just the other day. As I was thinking on the memory of my dream, I noticed something sort of funny about myself, or, the way that I saw myself in the daydream. It made me want to look back through some of the other dreams, just to see if I did that in all of them. Guess what I discovered? I did, in fact, see myself in a particular way, when it was a sleeping dream and another way when it was a daydream… just two starring roles… two!

In every waking dream that I created, I cast myself as the assistant, the helper, the heroin through heavy lifting! I was either Charlie instead of Willie Wonka, or the Mad Hatter instead of Alice, or the child who helped Dr. Doolittle. Even to this day, I never see myself as the heroin or hero in anything… always, always, always, I dream myself behind the scenes. In my stories, it feels better to focus on my desires for the cast members in the tale. I think that’s why I prefer you to see me through Tilly, Eustace, or any of this site’s characters when I write. They seem to capture who I am, there within the pages of their stories.

The sleeping dreams are a far different representation of how I saw myself back then, and even now, today. That little girl only experienced the nightmare portion of the dreams, for many, many years. I was a frequent bed wetter, and struggled with severe anxiety. I had no one to talk to, no one to comfort or rescue me from my hell. I’m sure that this is why my waking dreams were so intense and real to me. I even learned how to wake myself out of my night terrors. I actually began to flip myself from my bed and onto the floor, so as to force myself awake. That child was always running, fighting and/or in pain during those dreams. Over the years, I changed in appearance as I grew into a woman, wife, and mother, but I still continued to be the victim… or the villain. Yes, I even saw myself become the villain, but what could I do? I had no control, there in the depths of my darkness.

Ok, no more of that part, as it’s not who I am now! Now? God holds my dreams in the palm of his hand, shielding and comforting me through anything I may experience during my sleep, which is now rarely more than a goofy recap of what I’d watched on television the night before. It’s funny, because the transformation within this wild child has been miraculous, to say the least!

Waking daydreams are now filled with a purpose, not my own, but of one who is so much greater!

Night dreaming is no longer a place of fear, but of peace, protection, and security!

I’ll not forget the child of my past, no no, as she is the one who survived!

I’ll not forget the lost wild one, for she is full of fiery spirit, and tenacity!

While I may not ever be a hero of anything special, Charlie did end up with the factory, so that children would hold onto their dreams!

That child who followed Dr. Doolittle… they carried on the doctor’s work to care for others, whether it was a Push-Me-Pull-Me or the captive sea lion… always the less fortunate!

What do I daydream about now? I dream that everywhere I go… I smell like cookie dough, pulling children’s imaginations along with me, just like the pied piper! For all the rest of you… I pray that I leave a trail of cookie crumbs in my wake… get it, wake… hehehe!

No Regrets Here!!!!

Daily writing prompt
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

Surrender…

Release…

Trust…

No more shame…

No more judgement…

Freedom!

Grace!

Peace!

Eternity with my King!!!

I don’t know, what do you think? I pray I’ve never reflected any regret, because there is none…

Just sayin!

Here, take a cookie…

I know that they look sort of messy, but sometimes those are the best ones… seriously!