HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY?

It's amazing how much difference perspective can make. People who visit for the first time look out over my back yard and exclaim, "How peaceful! Aren't you just out here all the time?" While I can enjoy the peace and beauty of my back yard, with its flowers in bloom, winding stream, waterfall, and tree-studded hills, when I look out, my first thought is, "I need to clean the pond filter," or "I need to do some weeding." It's all a matter of perspective.

By shifting my perspective, setting aside all the "need to do"'s, I am able to feel the serenity of the moment. It changes everything. What's in your life that could do with a change in perspective?

LAUGH

When we are desperate or frantic or out of control in the way we have fun, it's a problem, but healthy fun is a great way to get in touch with our childlike selves. In that state we can find ourselves more open to God and others, and more in love with life. I recommend it! Have some fun today: Blow some bubbles; turn on the music full-blast and dance; feed the birds; ride your bike; skip rope; share a joke with a friend. LAUGH. It will do your soul good.

What God Wants for You

It has been said that a life watered by the tears of tragedy and suffering often becomes the most fertile soil for spiritual growth. Decades after his own brothers sold him into slavery, Joseph was able to say to them, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done." (Gen. 50:20)

Can you say that? If not, I encourage you to press in closer to the One who intends only good toward you, and has the power to redeem and restore and transform anything. As we pray more, immerse ourselves further in prayer, seek out others who have emerged from tragedy and disaster stronger and wiser and happier, we can grow out of feeling victimized and into triumph by His Spirit. I've been there, and I know.

So if you are not there yet, and despair of ever getting there, be encouraged. There is life, full and lovely, on the other side of whatever you've been through. Believe it!

(For more on recovering from trauma, you might want to check out Welcome to the Fresh-Squeezed Life Cafe. You can find it on Amazon. It is a guide to journal your way to wellness, both emotional and spiritual.)

As Real As Apples

Brynn's new book of poetry has come out, and is available on Amazon for 14.95. Check it out!

Hang on. Look up!

"Shattered dreams," writes Dr. Larry Crabb, "are never random. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story." When we go through terrible things, it can be impossible to believe that there could be a purpose in all that suffering. There have been times I've said to God, "I don't know what this is about, but whatever you're trying to do in me, it can't be worth all this pain!" Yet God is the restorer of what has been broken, the redeemer of that which is lost, the one who transforms what is useless into something worthwhile. This is what God says: "I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out--plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." (Jer. 29:11) Hang on. Look up! God has it all planned out.

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!