The Broken Beautiful~Day 16

We were broken before birth.

Before lungs swelled with air and little legs became wobbly, before tiny eyes could clearly see, we were all broken.

Nothing or no one made us break more than the beast who holds sin in His grasp, giving it to all, an aftermath of taste's defeat.

Sin wears a mask and we fall victim to its disguise.

Before anyone did anything. 

Before hearts were torn and perfect world's were shattered and lives were torn apart by actions and mishandled deeds we were broken.

Before we made mistakes; we were broken.

Maybe this..no one or nothing made us break more than the hold of Sin?

Maybe more than the people who hurt us, Sin ruined us all and it is Satan's sin who wears the victor's crown from our ruined relationships and broken failures.

It takes our eyes away from its deception and pins all the anger and hurt onto someone or something rather than on Sin.

Sin seeks to destroy everyone, every hope, every family, every friend, every eternity.

Maybe if we could see the true enemy as being not an earthly person but as Sin, forgiveness would reign as a mender of homes and relationships not just as a word but as an action.

We could live forgiveness like the Father.
We could live free and freely love all the wronged and mistaken people.
This is the will of the Father, "to forgive as He has forgiven us." {Eph. 4:32}
To be kind and compassionate to all people.

Maybe this is the broken beautiful.   

Fall Moves In~Day 15

Saturday's.

This day I'd rather un-awake and lay in bed fully covered in soft, heaping mounds and rest, not having to open the eyes till the roof caves in or a fire burns or until two hungry boys grab limbs and pull tight, ready for those morning pancakes.

These Saturday's are for looking forward to when the carpenter puts aside his saw and tool belt and willingly tends to the children, feeds them, then takes them off in his boat across shallow streams with fishing poles in hand. 

Then a choice is made. To move or not to move. 

The stillness is listened to.

The quiet is absorbed through silent thirsty veins.

And the body just sits and ponders soaking in all the oneness with flesh and home.

Fall moves in with cold rains and leaves changing and apples need peeling for pies and soups need dicing and dishing up.

Coffee warms the cold blood, soothing hymns play, and the mind waits for the movement to come.

Sitting and remembering flows through the mind and a good many an hour can waste by in a blink, but I know He is making a way through the deserts of my life and all the wastelands He is streaming alive with his watered words. (Is 43:19)

And so I move and not slumber it through and try to make home a haven against all the rashness and bitterness that can move like a thickening fog, concealing all the light.

But if this home is a light then it will be seen and it will be felt and it will be safe and so I move.

~This is one of  my favorite decorative sites to browse.
 Click here for the site...Hymns and Verses. Other sites for browsing. All things heart and home. and Magnolia 

{this post is part of the five munite free writes over at christina hubbard's creative and free and this post is also part of the write 31 days group.}

Mail At Rest~Day 14

{This post is part of the five minute friday writes with kate motaung where you have to write about one word in five minutes. 

Today the word is mail and the clock ticks..}

Mail.

I maybe one of the few, but one of the things I love about Sunday's is not having to open the black metaled box with a gold, cheesy emblem on the front of it. Even though I miss the sound of my boys shouting, "Mail's here Mom," the joy of not having to open its possible doom is a relief.

Usually it's a dusting of the late fall cobwebs and a shoving of the hands into its confounds only to pull out letters and bills and notices and all that's to be done is to add them to the stack and smile and move on.

Here and there I get a letter from far away home or a letter from a friend and it's tucked inside and read sometimes over and over again or taped to the refrigerator for comfort words at easy eye lengths.

When mail comes for Christmas, now that's a sight, boxes arrive in stacks on the front porch and little children heave and ho them through the screen door and all is bright.

Birthday's bring bundles from far away and for a moment there's a forgetfulness of all the other days and what the mail may bring.

But then Sunday comes and I awake and the mail is at rest and so am I. 

I'm Aware, An Amateur Poem of Sorts~Day 13

I'm holding on by a thread.

These #write31days & #5mfw are testing my strengths and I'm bone tired and want to throw in the rope, but I decided instead to do an amateur poem which was done very quickly and actually it was more entertaining than I thought. It kept me awake to the night and so it here goes: I'm Aware.

I'm aware that the sun will rise

no matter what I do it will always shine 

For the sun cannot be darkened

by a loud, unnerving request of mine.

I need more time, to think to sleep

I need more time for me to breathe.

Silent, slow and in good prose 

I'm aware because the sun tells me so.

They come in fast at lightning speed

Hungry bellies, laughing grins

little toes, little feet, 

I have no regrets; I am complete. 

I'm aware that before the days done

I will have lost all my patience and have none.

How it can go so fast?

I know I will not get another chance.

I'm aware of loud buzzing flies

that sneak in at me and may spill lies

The worlds aloud of them

it comes across the screen at all times.

Hush all the loud noises.

Hush all the shows unkind.

I'm aware because the sun tells me so;

Give ear to words that speak divine.

How to Awake to a Life that is Yours

(this post for me and for all those women who need to see how rare and wonderful we each are).

When the sun sets its orange and pink hues in the night sky, I get to thinking about the way back when all of the world seemed swollen with goodness and fearlessness and you could just about taste the drippings of downright glee.

Where life was young and you could stretch your neck to the sky with how high you wanted to fly.

Then there was no shame and only a relentless pursuit to be "you" and you could not be broken for the sky was the limit and you were born to fly.

Along the way many roads were traveled that turned into pages and pages of years gone by and somehow roads become tangled and shoulders start to slouch and the neck bends and the legs shuffle in uncertainty and doubt.

Maybe a heart was broken.
A family was torn.
A lie had been spilt.
Jeering remarks had been made.
Friends had betrayed you.
Feelings had been hurt.

After awhile the mind starts to believe the lie that you're not able to do great and mighty things and it replays itself over and over in the mind till the heart believes and only beats to its defeat.

The great and mighty things start to take on different looks, only the ones that outshine the outside.

But it never measures up.

And everyone eles's lives seem to glisten like gold in the sun while others are stuck in the quick sand of barely hanging on with no hope of every being pulled free.

Then the "I wishes" flow like a never ending fountain and years fly by stuck in a world that is not that of your own.

You can waste your life wishing you had someone else's that you never truly live yours.

You will never be her.

Stop wasting time and start living the life that only you can live no matter how messed up or crazy or against the flow a life it may seem, live it like only you can.

Awake to a life that is yours.

Only you hold the key to your heart that can unlock the life that you were meant to have.

Stop wishing and start doing.

Stop looking and comparing and contrasting all that "she" is and look to all that He is for only He can burn a hole in your heart that can set your feet ablaze on a path that matches no other.

Awake to a life that is yours.

Be content and if it needs changing, change it.

Rebuild it, shape it around the Word and dig deep to find the roots that will ground solid feet and reach the limbs to the sky and find that orange, pink hued sunset and remember her for she is always there, for that's where her heart breathes.

This-only God knows you better than anybody else and only He can fulfill your life the way you dream.
To find you, find God first.....

Giving Thanks in the Dark~Day 11

Thanks in the dark.

How do I give thanks if I can see nothing?

If all around me everything is dim and dark and circumstance are not as wished and trials keep coming and coming. 

How I can give thanks in the bleak and dimness?

Can I give thanks if there are no suns or blossoming flowers or flowing rivers or absolutely nothing? 

Could I?

Can I be a Paul who gives thanks in a dark, dingy jail famished and tormented and uncertain of his life or death destination?

Can I still find God there without seeing anything?

Because sometimes there's thoughts that God is not in the dark that you have to visibly see something to see or feel God who lavishly loves unceasingly to give thanks.

Alabaster moons and swaying sea breezes though they are the handiwork of God,  He has raised us up higher than them to see Him face to face.

The test of our faith is that we can give thanks in the dark and say "it is well with my soul."

Everyone has their own dark and looking to God we find the peace to pass through the dark into His light, giving thanks along the way when we do not know the outcome or can see the purpose or point.

Awake to the day and know that God is in the dark of our lives. 

For he will never leave us or forsake us.

He is there when we can see nothing, or know no one, or no end and the day seems long and lingering full of burdens and no blessings.

He is there hand held high in the dark of our lives, waiting and watching and whispering to us to push through and to follow Him no matter the color He paints our lives with.

We trust in His words and promises and lean not but on His understanding.

Thanking God for all things bright and beautiful and all the many ways He showers our lives with His goodness and mercy.

For the riches from God are unfathomable to the riches of man.

We serve a great God and we give thanks for all the ways, in the dark and in the light, that He loves us so and in return giving God our thanks is one way of giving God our love.

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2 Corinthians 4:15-16 "All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. 

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day."

"Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings." 

William Arthur Ward

The Unknown Road, Leaving Fear Behind~Day 10

Fear clasps its claws around the neck while short breaths come and panic prevails.

The pounding chest rises and pressures applied and I feel myself losing this battle ground here.

Fear. 

Satan silences us keeping our feet grounded and tearing apart the wings of our soul so that we can't fly.

The unknown stretches her dark path straight in front and I do not take it and let the fire of the light of His call never brighten.

Every voice that every said "you're not good enough," "nobody cares," "you'll never be like them," "you'll never make it," "they have what it takes and you don't," it plays over and over in the head like a well written sonnet singing its repetitious refrains.

Panic can be present in every situation, yet peace comes to those who believe that God is in control and everything is going to go as planned and my panic only makes the problem more powerful.

The day loses its delight, its song if fear and panic are preeminent.

If we awake and believe that we've already failed we will not be able to breathe life's joy into a day and we will become just another pawn practicing routine without a restful chest.

This life, this world, lose the fear and panic and spread open the arms and embrace the chances, the chases, the risks, take the steps to the unknown path and lighten the long roads with His love.

We cannot fail if we follow after the Father.

Plans don't always go perfect, but they go after a Purpose, a Point, a Person.

Awake believing that fear has no home here and panic has no place.

Awake knowing that the Father's love is enough, that you are enough as you are, that fear cannot replace the Father within you.

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Deuteronomy 31:6 "Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you."

Psalm 27:1 "The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?"

Awaking to a World That's Wounded~Day 9

Right now there is grief.

Right now there is a mother crying for a child she will never hold again.

There is a family homeless. 

A child starving and sickly.

Right now someone is holding the hand of another who is old and ailing.

Sickness runs rampart and hearts are torn by diseases and diagnosis.

Right now, there are people waking up scared and in the dark and all that they have and who they have has been torn away in rising flood waters and swirling, catastrophic winds.

Someone, right now, is alone and afraid.

We awake to this: to a world that's wounded and heartbroken.

And what we believe we can do right now may seem to us as small and insignificant, but prayer can repair hearts and build homes and heal the hurted and reunite the lost and give light to the dark and comfort the grieving.

Prayer is the power of God manifested here on earth.

And He's waiting to unlock it and all it takes is an opening of the mouth from His people who reveal sincere hearts and trust in His will that He will answer according to His purpose.

We awake and rest in His name.

That He is the Father who unconditionally loves His children and that His heart breaks with the broken and aches with the ailing and we pray for His peace to consume all the worried and wounded, that His strength will heal all the suffering and hurting.

We pray, Amen.   

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Here are some organizations who are doing diaster relief  for those affected by hurricane matthew:

Compassion International

World Vision

Samaritan's Purse

Matthew 5:4  “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Psalm 46:1-2  “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.”