Kindness

“Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting. In the slums we are the light of God’s kindness to the poor. To children, to the poor, to all who suffer and are lonely, give always a happy smile. Give them not only your care, but also your heart.” -- Mother Teresa

This is an excerpt from the book I'm reading right now called "A Gift for God," which is a collection of quotes and meditations by and from Mother Teresa. It is my heartfelt prayer for myself, my family, and all of God's children that God would make these beautiful words true in our lives and hearts and innermost selves. The picture is a picture of tulips from our yard this spring.

My Favorite Scene from Moulin Rouge

I just posted this, but deleted it and am reposting it in an attempt to find a prettier part of the scene to be on the "front cover" (so to speak). Anyway, I could watch this part of the movie 1,000 time without growing weary of it. I hope others will enjoy it as well.

Trying to make it all fit

(I took this picture early this year while I was carpooling to and from work with my coworker. This is one of my favorite sights... Sunny trees against a backdrop of gray clouds. Maybe it's because of my inherent love for contrast and paradox...?)

Life is so amazingly, incredibly, breathtakingly full! I can't believe it's been like two weeks since my last post. Where in the world does the time go...??

Yesterday I finished the last of my continuing education classes, so I'll be able to renew my insurance license now. Whew! That's a load off my mind. I won't have to do that again for another two years. Yippee!!

When Fred was here visiting in Spokane, he brought me a lovely stack of books. I'm in the middle of reading three of them right now. I'm so glad to be able to have more time to read now that my insurance classes are done. I'm particularly enjoying a little book called "Abide in Me," which is based on the passage in John where Jesus uses the illustration of the vine and the branches to help us understand our relationship with Himself. The book is meant to be read slowly--one chapter per day. But I'm enjoying it so much that I'm having a hard time reading it at that pace. However, putting it down is made easier because the other book I have in my bag is a book of prayers and meditations from Mother Teresa, and I'm enjoying that one very much also. Mother Teresa is definitely one of my heroes, and her words are like a healing balm to my very weary soul. Thank you, Fred, so much, for your graciousness... :)

I've also been spending some time recently utilizing the wonderous modern-day internet miracle that is Facebook. It's made it possible for me to re-connect with friends from school that I haven't seen or had any contact with at all since the early 90's. It's also a great way to stay in touch with a lot of people on a daily basis. I'm loving it!

God is so good. I pray that He will help me to abide in Him fully, even in the midst of hectic, chaotic situations, and that He will be glorified in all I say and do.

My New Old Mantra -- "Simplify!"

(My daughter Lisa took this really cute picture of Rebecca while we were visiting my in-laws over the 4th of July weekend. I think she should go in to photography... She has a gift!)

I feel a desperate need to eliminate clutter and restore order in my life. You should see my craft room... I would post a picture of it, but it would only serve to clutter up my blog and scare the daylights out of everyone who saw it. I know I've said this before, but I hope I really mean it this time.

Good grief! Is there a pill a person can take to cure double-mindedness? The Bible says that a double-minded person is unstable in all of their ways. I've been praying against this as long as I've known that it was a bad thing. But I'm still double-minded and wishy-washy. It's sickening. Most of the problems in my life are problems of my own making that stem from indecisiveness and a lack of discipline. I disgust myself sometimes.

Another thing I want to do is to teach my kids and myself the 8 habits (discovered and unveiled by Dr. Stephen Covey) until they're so deeply ingrained in our hearts that they'll never be able to be removed. Here they are in a nutshell:

Be Proactive
Begin with the End in Mind
Keep First things First
Think Win-Win
Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood
Synergize
Sharpen the Saw
Find Your Voice and Help Others Find Theirs

These principles, if applied faithfully and in the right spirit, cannot help but to enhance individual lives, and, in turn, make the world a better place.

Words To Live By

This is from the book The Secret Message of Jesus. It's on my fridge at home and on my desk at work. I try to live by these words every day of my life.

The Kingdom Manifesto of Christ:

Be poor in spirit, mourn, be meek, hunger and thirst for true righteousness, be merciful, be pure in heart, be a peacemaker, be willing to joyfully suffer persecution and insult for doing what is right.

Be salt and light in the world—by doing good works. Do not hate or indulge in anger, but instead seek to reconcile. Do not lust or be sexually unfaithful in your heart. Do not presume to make vows, but have simple speech, where yes means yes and no [means] no.

Do not get revenge, but find creative and nonviolent ways to overcome evil done to you.

Love your enemies, as God does, and be generous to everyone, as God is.

Give to the poor, pray, and fast secretly.

Don't let greed cloud your outlook, but store up treasure in heaven through generosity.

Don't worry about your own daily needs, but instead trust yourself to God's care, and seek God's kingdom first and foremost.

Don't judge others, but instead first work on your own blindness.

Go to God with all your needs, knowing that God is a caring Father.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Don't be misled by religious talk--what counts is actually living by Jesus' teaching.

Jesus reinforces this last point—that he's looking for action, not just agreement—in the final words of the manifesto:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall! (Matthew 7:24-27 NRSV)

(The photo is of a lighthouse Keith and I visited while in Florida in May)

Saint Francis

I am reading a book called "Heroic Lives," (by Rafael Sabatini, published in 1934) and one of the sections of the book is dedicated to St. Francis. I was climbing stairs today and reading, when one of my knees suddenly gave a painful twinge of warning. So I decided to go do some low-impact stretching instead, and to try to find a free computer somewhere in order to post several paragraphs from the book that really touched me. Here we go (from pgs 72 and 73):

"He was greeted first in his native Assisi with mockery and insult. Scorned as a madman, he was derided, pelted with filth, even beaten, all of which he bore as so many favours bestowed upon him.

"He preached a simple gospel of love that could be understood by all, and presently, before the inspired fervour of his words, supported by the example of humility, charity and self-denial which his life was become, mockery was gradually silenced, and the Assisians came in ever-increasing numbers to listen to his message. Passionately sincere in his please that men should give up ill-gotten gains, renounce all enmities and prevail by gentleness and love, he bewildered his audiences by no exegitical subtleties, propounded no doctrines. He spoke to them in their own simple language of simple things which they could understand and which were concerned with their own simple lives. He stripped Christianity naked of all theology in which it was swaddled, lost, and stifling, and held it up to them in its pure irresistable loveliness.

"Little by little, the people came to discover in his words that spiritual nourishment for which all men crave, but which there had been practically no one to dispense to them. He touched the hearts and awakened the souls of his audiences. A people brutalized by ignorance or corrupted by false culture, a people who knew not where to seek happiness save in the will-o'-the-wisp of pleasure, were made to realize the joys that may irradiate lives lived for others, the peace and tranquillity that may so be won."

(I find this excerpt so amazingly lovely, humbling, and inspiring, that I know I'll be reading and re-reading it for some time to come.)

(Photo from the Internet)

A Near-Death Experience

Everyone needs to have one from time to time, I think. Yesterday we were up north visiting my husband's family. We went tubing down the Kettle River with many of our extended family, plus Linnea, Megan, Stephen and Rebecca. Most of our tubes or rafts were roped together so we wouldn't get separated. We floated about 4 miles down the river, and just as we were approaching the end of the route, the "get-out-spot," one of our ropes ended up getting caught on a rock. The rapids wanted to carry us all away. They flipped my son, Stephen's, raft, just before they flipped me out of my tube. I literrally thought I was going to die. The first thing I remember upon emerging from the water was hearing all of my kids screaming "Mommy!" at the top of their lungs. With herculean strength, Keith managed to get the rope unstuck, and his brother, Eulas (pronounced You-less), helped get the whole miserable group over to the edge. When we finally got our feet on solid ground, I thought my heart was going to burst straight out of my chest. But I honestly think everyone should face death every once in a while... It's a great wake up call, and a reminder about what's important in life. Like the importance of relationships, and not sweating the small stuff. God is good!

(Photo from Katrena)