a tickle of words to create smiles

Posts tagged ‘Faith’

“Don’t worry about telling God how big your storm is…..”

“Don’t worry about telling God how big your storm is…..tell the storm how big your God is!”

My sister shared this quote with me, which came from her co-worker, Randy who can’t remember from where he heard it. You know, Jesus Christ has our backs. He will get us through any storm. We just need to remember how powerful our God is! And, it is awesome to know that God is within us!

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16 NIV)

It is empowering to know that God is with us always. “Come close to God, and God will come close to you…(James 4:8) Faith and love sustains us, as it is the God in us that gives us the fortitude to get through the largest of storms in our lives. It is God and the Love in our hearts that allows us to see the blessings in those storms. Happiness and joy need not be elusive. We just need to remember we are not alone and that happiness has never left us.

Another thought that has crossed my mind today, “Why is it that sometimes we wish to be something we are not instead of wishing to be who we already are?” We are exactly who and where we need to be. The thoughts in our hearts become reality. It is only when we believe we are exactly the person we want to be that we are joyful. What are you telling yourself and your storm today?

A Challenge is a Gift

All day I have been getting the message  from various sources that challenges are blessings in disguise. Challenges are a gift and an opportunity to learn. Hard experiences leave lingering memories and prepare us for opportunities we could not even begin to comprehend or grasp. 

One e-mail I received today stated (paraphrased), “If you understood the extraordinary gifts every single challenge in your life makes possible, even inevitable, you’d celebrate your challenges as the foresight that they are of new beginnings, spectacular change, and enhanced superpowers. ” The radio station I have listened to on and off all day, also relayed a very similar message, not just once, and not the same disc jockey!

In another e-mail I was told, “…that nothing has to happen immediately, this minute, or right now. It’s okay to pause for just a moment. Just take a breath. Then go quietly inside (to reflect and meditate). Ask Life Itself (God) to lead you to your best outcome. There is nothing you have to do, really, except to get out of your own way.”

Challenges remind us that we need to let go of our own self-reliance and ask for help. It is beautiful when hardship is met with care and kind people who truly wish to give love and support. Challenges remind us that we are not alone and that we can lean on God and people with whom Jesus and the Holy Spirit work through to help us in our time of sorrows and challenges.  All we need to do is ask. 

Faith and Love

Faith makes all things possible… love makes all things easy.
Dwight L. Moody

All we need is faith and love to fuel our hearts. The hardest part is having faith in ourselves and loving ourselves. It is often easier to love and have faith in others. Why is that? Is it a feeling of unworthiness? Is it fear that we will disappoint ourselves?

How can we love others and have faith in others if we do not have love and faith in ourselves? How do we start? Love and faith in ourselves starts with gratitude and counting blessings. It is reflecting upon who we are and cherishing everything about ourselves, how we live, how we interact, who we are and what we have accomplished.

It is also not discounting anything. Smiling at strangers, saying hello, complimenting others, acting in compassion and with kindness, holding one’s intentions, saying prayers for others and sending good wishes and blessings are all seemingly small acts but add up to be something quite amazing. For we do not know how much of an effect a smile or hello may have on the hearts of others.  

One of the best and most loving actions we can do is listen. Listen with all your heart to what others have to say. When you are completely present for someone, it feels amazing for both the giver and the recipient. How do you feel when you know others are completely present for you? When you know you are being heard and valued, how do you feel? How does it feel to have someone’s faith and trust? It feels wonderful! All we need is faith and love.

  • Faith (erniereppe.wordpress.com)

IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD.. LOVE A WOMAN

Below is a poem written by Lisa Citore that was shared on Facebook by one of my friends. I felt compelled to post it here in my blog because it fits with my desire to change the world one heart at a time. Above is an art piece I painted inspired by her words. Tomorrow, I will share my latest update on my Gifts of Love campaign, which is progressing and unfolding in its own Divine timing, one heart at a time bring love and joy to each person who has received one so far. 

IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD.. LOVE A WOMAN – by Lisa Citore

“If you want to change the world… love a woman-really love her.

Find the one who calls to your soul, who doesn’t make sense.

Throw away your check list and put your ear to her heart and listen.

Hear the names, the prayers, the songs of every living thing-
every winged one, every furry and scaled one,
every underground and underwater one, every green and flowering one,
every not yet born and dying one…
Hear their melancholy praises back to the One who gave them life.

If you haven’t heard your own name yet, you haven’t listened long enough.

If your eyes aren’t filled with tears, if you aren’t bowing at her feet,
you haven’t ever grieved having almost lost her.

If you want to change the world… love a woman-one woman

beyond yourself, beyond desire and reason,
beyond your male preferences for youth, beauty and variety
and all your superficial concepts of freedom.

We have given ourselves so many choices
we have forgotten that true liberation
comes from standing in the middle of the soul’s fire
and burning through our resistance to Love.

There is only one Goddess.

Look into Her eyes and see-really see
if she is the one to bring the axe to your head.
If not, walk away. Right now.
Don’t waste time “trying.”

Know that your decision has nothing to do with her

because ultimately it’s not with who,
but when we choose to surrender.

If you want to change the world… love a woman.

Love her for life-beyond your fear of death,
beyond your fear of being manipulated
by the Mother inside your head.

Don’t tell her you’re willing to die for her.

Say you’re willing to LIVE with her,
plant trees with her and watch them grow.

Be her hero by telling her how beautiful she is in her vulnerable majesty,
by helping her to remember every day that she IS Goddess
through your adoration and devotion.

If you want to change the world… love a woman

in all her faces, through all her seasons
and she will heal you of your schizophrenia-
your double-mindedness and half-heartedness
which keeps your Spirit and body separate-
which keeps you alone and always looking outside your Self
for something to make your life worth living.

There will always be another woman.
Soon the new shiny one will become the old dull one
and you’ll grow restless again, trading in women like cars,
trading in the Goddess for the latest object of your desire.

Man doesn’t need any more choices.

What man needs is Woman, the Way of the Feminine,
of Patience and Compassion, non-seeking, non-doing,
of breathing in one place and sinking deep intertwining roots
strong enough to hold the Earth together
while she shakes off the cement and steel from her skin.

If you want to change the world… love a woman, just one woman .

Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.

Love her through her fear of abandonment
which she has been holding for all of humanity.

No, the wound is not hers to heal alone.
No, she is not weak in her codependence.

If you want to change the world… love a woman

all the way through
until she believes you,
until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion,
her wildness have returned to her-
until she is a force of love more powerful
than all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.

If you want to change the world,
lay down your causes, your guns and protest signs.
Lay down your inner war, your righteous anger

and love a woman…

beyond all of your striving for greatness,
beyond your tenacious quest for enlightenment.

The holy grail stands before you
if you would only take her in your arms
and let go of searching for something beyond this intimacy.

What if peace is a dream which can only be re-membered
through the heart of Woman?
What if a man’s love for Woman, the Way of the Feminine
is the key to opening Her heart?

If you want to change the world…love a woman

to the depths of your shadow,
to the highest reaches of your Being,
back to the Garden where you first met her,
to the gateway of the rainbow realm
where you walk through together as Light as One,
to the point of no return,
to the ends and the beginning of a New Earth.”

by Lisa Citore

…With tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Colossians 3:12 NLT

It is with a heart that is filled with love in which one is able to shower others with mercy, kindness, compassion, gentleness, and patience. In order to have a heart filled with love (and joy), one must let go of past hurt, anger, worry, jealousy, envy, pride and all those negative emotions that stand in the way of allowing a person to be merciful and kind. I have discovered that when I am able to let go of my hurt and worry, it is liberating! I feel relief and I am able to breathe easier. All the pent-up anger or hurt in people’s lives simply fester and hurt them in the long run. Why keep it all bottled up?

Can you visualize your worries, hurts and other negative emotions as large soap bubbles floating away in a springtime breeze? Sit with that for a long moment… pause… and breathe in deeply. Meditate or pray on it. “Lord, lift my worries, anger and hurts away, I do not need them. They are weighing me down. Allow me to be filled with love and the Holy Spirit so I may go out and serve others with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Lord God, I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen” Can you feel the positive energy as your heart fills up with love? That is God’s love you are feeling. Amazing isn’t it.

Faith

 

Faith, what is it really? According to the dictionary faith is confidence or trust in a person, entity or thing, for example, faith in another’s ability. Faith is belief that is not based on proof.

C.S. Lewis expressed that faith is merely the virtue by which we hold to our reasoned ideas, despite our moods to the contrary.

In some scopes of thinking, faith is a conviction that something is; a determination to accomplish one’s goals; and/or a sense of joy deriving from both.

So, what is faith to me?

I perceive, comprehend and grasp the nature of faith to be a deep trust, a profound confidence and a relentless belief without the benefit of any proof.

I have faith in myself to carry out everything I plan to do to fulfill my new year goals, resolutions and intentions. I have faith in my family and friends, who will support my goals, resolutions and intentions. Faith is needed and desired to develop and nurture any relationship including and most importantly the relationship with our own selves. Faith is such a positive word and positive feeling.  As such, I humbly perceive faith to be closely related to love. Love and faith go together like milk and cookies.

Perhaps you could have one without the other but it would be a shallow experience; like having cookies without milk. Milk adds so much more to the cookie experience. Yes, I seem to have food on the brain, but that is because it makes a good illustration of love and faith; and, how the two go together.

I profoundly believe and trust my spouse. I have faith in him. I love him. Could I love my spouse without trusting him? It would only be a shallow form of love. Profound, unconditional love requires faith. Anyone who has been in more than one significant relationship knows when you do NOT have faith in your partner, your relationship is doomed.

So, along this line of thinking: if we do NOT have faith in ourselves, then our relationship with ourselves is in trouble. How can we repair that profound belief in ourselves? I propose that one great way is to KEEP those promises we make to ourselves, especially those promises that involve self-love and self-care like our new year resolutions, intentions and goals. Keep the faith and Happy New Year! 

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