Happy New Year

I have some thoughts to share with you heading into this new year 2011, and some great quotes. I think it's going to be a wonderful year, yet the unknown sometimes scares us. We want to know, and we don't. "No one knows what the next year will bring, but one thing is sure. He will be with us and He is enough" (Amy Carmichael).

Whatever losses we may have experienced already or are anxious about in our future, it's time to let go. It's always time to let go! We have a hard time with this, and so we have to do it over and over again. We can't change anything by clutching at things or people, but it doesn't stop us from trying! My favorite quote on letting go: "If you lose your reason, lose it into the hands of God. It's the only place where anything is safe" (Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water). I have often made substitutions: If you lose your children, lose them into the hands of God. If you lose your joy, lose it into the hands of God. For me, this act of letting go produces peace, as I re-orient myself once again to the fact that God can be trusted when all else cannot. There is tremendous comfort and power in letting go purposefully, letting go--not that what you love will be released untethered into the vast darkness of endless space, but rather--into the safety of God's love and wisdom and timing.

And finally: "I said to the man at the gate of the year, 'Give me a light that I may go forth into the unknown.' And the man replied, 'Put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light, safer than a known way.'" (King George)

We are on a sort of safari into the wilds of our own lives. The crucial thing is to stay close to our Guide, and follow His map. He is the one that gets us through safely. He is the one who can be trusted.

Christmas

I woke up too early this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. So I got up, and eventually was rewarded with a beautiful, quiet Christmas sunrise pinking the sky. It was my first grateful moment of the day, welcome after a very emotionally difficult Christmas Eve. As unbearable as yesterday was, knowing I would not see my daughters this Christmas, today has been peaceful. My point is that our negative feelings can be overpowering, but they aren't forever. If we can wait it out, joy is very near. There is joy to be had, in spite of grief and disaster. Reach out for it. Joy to the world.

NEWS BULLETIN!

As Real As Apples, Brynn's new volume of poetry, will be available in 6-8 weeks at major online retailers. The story of her love affair with the Lord, the book should come out just in time for Valentine's Day!

What God Says

Whatever is in your past, whatever challenges or disasters have plagued you in this past year or years, as we close out 2010, stop listening to despairing thoughts and fearful refrains. Listen instead to what God says:

"But this is a people plundered and looted; they are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons; they have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to say,

'Restore!'"

Isa. 42:22

"But forget all that...It is nothing compared to what I am going to do.

For I am about to do something new.

See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?

I will make a pathway through the wilderness.

I will create rivers in the dry wasteland."

Isa. 43:18,19

"Nothing is impossible with God."

Lk. 1:37

Nothing!

Give What Matters

As we enter the season of gift-giving, it's so easy to get caught up in the material aspect of it all. Here it is: the time of year we celebrate the greatest Gift we've ever been given, freedom from trying to find peace and happiness through acquiring more and more things so that we can find deep joy and healing in Christ--and what do we do? Stampede into stores at 3 a.m., elbowing each other out of the way; cut each other off in parking lots; get depressed because we have gone into debt to get the newest latest things.

George Macdonald had it right when he wrote, "If instead of a gem or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give." The presents and parties are nice, and I hope you have plenty of them, but the greatest gift you have to give your family and friends is the gift of your time. The best present is your presence. Give what matters this year!

Oh, the Roses!

It's Thanksgiving. Our President and his family have a tradition of going around the holiday table and, one by one, sharing the rose and the thorn in the previous year. We all have thorns, and it's important to acknowledge them, yet we can get so wrapped up in our pain that we fail to open our eyes to the roses. Like you, I can list some thorns from the past year, but oh the roses! I am so grateful to God for the roses! How about you?

If I Could Just Understand!

Not understanding what's happening, and why, is one of the hardest challenges we face in life. When something goes wrong, we immediately want to know, "Why?" If we can't figure it out, it can be hard to recover, and it can be hard to let go of pain and sadness.

The thing is, God doesn't always tell us why; in fact, he usually doesn't. His thinking is so different from ours. He says, "Trust in me with all your heart, and don't depend on your own understanding." (Pr. 3:5)

When we finally manage to relinquish control of our lives, when we relax into him with trust and faith, we can also give up the quest to understand everything. "Since the Lord is directing our steps, why try to understand everything that happens along the way?" (Pr. 20:24)

"What will become of any of us? I mean, tell me honestly, Dora. Did you ever imagine that this would be your life?" (Caroline in The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards.

Have you ever felt like that, shell-shocked by life, wondering how some tornado had been able to swoop down, pick you up and set you stunned and reeling in the Land of Oz? I have.

Look around, even here, for the Tree of Life. Pick its fruit, for from it comes fresh-squeezed Life. There is nothing like it. Sometimes it tastes like lemon juice, I'll admit, but you can trust it, for the One who puts it before you here in this alien land is eminently trustworthy.

This is the One of whom is said, "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory; like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. John pointed him out and called, "This is the One!" (from John 1, THE MESSAGE)

This is the one I call "As Real As Apples."

New Book: Welcome to the Fresh-Squeezed Life Cafe

If you are looking for the book, Welcome to the Fresh-Squeezed Life Cafe, by Brynn Taylor Ashford, put in the author's name as a search term, and check out the online bookstores listed; you will find the best current price for the book.

If you have read the book and you liked it, please take the time to leave a review on the site where you purchased it!

Fresh-Squeezed Life

Life springs full tilt and joyous; with astonishing speed and verve, the new lambs fly upward.

Life, in all its juicy sweetness, life, full of promises, bursting green and luscious.

You can't have oil without the crushing, the pressing. Out of all that squeezing comes LIFE.

Speak Life. You can never have too much.

(Above quotes taken from As Real As Apples, a book of Brynn Taylor Ashford's poetry due out soon. c. 2010 First Poet Press)

Courage

"Whatever you do, you need courage. There is always someone to tell you, you are wrong. To map out a course of action, and follow it to an end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Latest Fresh-Squeezed Life News!

Welcome to the Fresh-Squeezed Life Cafe is now available on Amazon, at less than the retail price. Check it out!

What's Going On?

When some life event takes us by surprise, and we ask ourselves, What's going on?, what we answer back can say a lot about our perspective on ourselves and on life. We might interpret many things that happen to us in the same way, and feel defeated or victimized by this pattern we see. But the pattern of events in our lives might be nothing more than our seeing what we expect to see--our interpretations, and nothing more. That's one reason it's a good idea to talk about our perspective with someone we respect, someone who will tell us what they really think. Life is too short to get stuck! Let's talk.

Are You An Anomaly?

anomaly, n. -- Syn. peculiarity, aberration, exception, oddity; irregularity

We've all felt like we didn't belong, or that we were somehow different, at some point in our lives. What we usually don't realize is that, 1) everyone feels like that, and 2) everyone is different! It's the way God created us, to be so unusual, that there is no one else like us.

So celebrate anomalousness! It's the grand design of things.

Becoming Strong

I had a favorite coffee cup that exploded in my hands one day when I poured hot coffee into it. Quite literally couldn't take the heat. It was beautiful. It was comfortable to hold. But it fell apart under the very conditions it had been created for. The problem was that it was created from a mold, not by hand. It failed along the seam. You and I are not patched together, and there are not a hundred or a thousand others just like us out there. Each one of us is created to be a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, and each of us is created for an individual purpose. God continues to make and shape us, and sometimes the process doesn't feel so great. But he's got something in mind for you! Do you believe it?

Honor Your Own Heart

When disaster strikes, the damage can be far-reaching. We look around and count one loss after another, until it feels as if we have lost everything. We have a tendency to tell each other "chin up" messages at these times. If you've ever been in the middle of complete devastation, you know what it feels like to be told some variation of, "It's probably for the best," or "It could be worse." It's interesting to me that God doesn't respond to us this way. In Joel 1:8, when swarms of locusts had destroyed every crop, God told his people to mourn as if someone had died. We are expected to grieve when bad things happen to us. We need to grieve. Grieving is painful, and when you're in the middle of it, it seems to go on forever. In order to stop grieving, though, we have to go ahead and admit how horrible things are, how hurt we are: grieve. Don't let anyone tell you anything different. Honor your own heart by admitting how much you've lost. Your pain matters to God, and it will matter to those who know how to be true friends.

PUBLICATION UPDATE:

Today I will contact my publishing consultant and give the go-ahead for Welcome to the Fresh-Squeezed Life Cafe! to go into print and become available for purchase. The review copy looks good (except for a few typos that no one caught), so we are in business!

Drink Life!

Whatever your occupation may be and however crowded your hours with affairs, do not fail to secure at least a few minutes every day for refreshment of your inner life.

(Charles Eliot Norton)

Drink Life!

Fresh-Squeezed Life is just around the corner

Actually, fresh-squeezed life is right here, right now, whenever you take the time to drink it in. But Welcome to the Fresh-Squeezed Life Cafe! has been typeset and is back from the printer. I am waiting for my comp copy for review, so I can give the go-ahead for more copies to be printed.

Have you had your fresh-squeezed life yet today?

When Things Go Terribly Wrong

When things go terribly wrong in our lives, we have some predictable questions we ask ourselves: "What did I ever do to deserve this?" "Why me?" "Why does this always happen to me?" and complaints: "This isn't fair!" "But I'm a good person!" I know there have been times when I thought to myself, "I'm throwing a raging tantrum in my head, and it's been a long time since I was two!"

What do you do when you find yourself in this situation?

Welcome to the Cafe!

Hey, traveler, turn in here. This is a virtual meeting place for anyone on the journey who needs to sit down, listen, think and talk. Stop in often. Here you can slow down, reflect, share. We all need that. So take some time to notice the simple beauty of the breeze waving the leaves on a tree, or the music of a child's laughter. Think a kind thought about someone. Find something to be grateful for. These moments feed the health of our souls and spirits, widen our hearts and allow our bodies to repair themselves. Then take another moment to post your comments here. Hoping to hear from you.

The Book Goes to the Printer!

Today a few last-minute revisions were handled over the phone, and I faxed the galley and cover approvals to the publisher. The book should go to the printer by the end of this week, and within 2-3 weeks Welcome to the Fresh-Squeezed Life Cafe will be available.

Somehow I managed to do my part to make this happen, despite my design consultant leaving my publisher as of today, my car battery going dead, prevailing on two different neighbors to buy and use jumper cables to get me started, the office store Staples for the second time in a row being unable to successfully fax my forms to the publisher, my neighbor letting me use her home office fax machine to get the forms in today, driving around and leaving my car running while I ran into various auto parts stores to see if they would replace my battery, and a family member having emergency surgery. All this happened today: We just never know what kind of a day we're going to have, do we? (Surgery went well.)

Life has probably squeezed you, today, too, in small ways--and for some of you, in big ways. Maybe nothing was tied up and brought to a nice close, and your mind is not at ease. Maybe you're unhappy with the way you handled things. Take a deep breath. And another. Close your eyes and imagine God's hand reaching down to you, to pick you up, to stroke your hair, whatever you need. You are imagining the real, not the imaginary; He really loves you. He wants to give you beauty where you've had only ashes. There is good stuff ahead. Wait for it!

This just in! REVISED PROOFS RECEIVED FROM PUBLISHER!

The revised proofs of Welcome to the Fresh-Squeezed Life Cafe are now in my possession. Hopefully, no further revisions will be necessary, and I can officially approve them--which means that the book could be in my hands within the month! And it needs to be, as I am scheduled to be available to sign copies at the Women's Retreat in Laguna mid-September. Yay!!!!

Fill in the Blanks! How would you finish this sentence?

You know you're being squeezed by life when

About the Book

The publisher, Thomas Nelson, WestBow Press division, now has the first round of corrections on the manuscript of Welcome to the Fresh-Squeezed Life Cafe! by Brynn Ashford. The book could be in print in about a month. Stay tuned for further developments!

What is Fresh-Squeezed?

I want to know what you think of when you hear the term, "Fresh-Squeezed Life." Send me your definitions. Be as creative as you can. Make it funny or thoughtful, long or short, just make it yours. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. I'm going to put all the ideas posted between now and date of publication into a juice glass. When the book (same title as this blog) comes out (some time in the next month or two), the definition I pull out at random wins a free book. Come on, give it a try!