dailydatewithgod

Our minds are a miraculous place of connections and imagination.  Within each neuron is a multitude of possibilities and creations.  The networks embedded in our minds is baffling.  Yet how many of us appreciate the awesome nature of what is going on inside of our heads?  Do our thoughts focus on it or merely on what we perceive about our outside world as a result of those connections?  God has designed us with mechanisms for health and vitality that flows from the systems maintained in our heads.  We are tasked with maintaining not only our physical health but also the perspective of our perception.  What thoughts do we let run wild inside our heads?  Do they build us up or break us down?  Most of us would not speak as poorly to a stranger as we do to ourselves.  God invites us to resonate with God’s thoughts which come from the core of who we are.  Perhaps it is not a matter of simply changing the thoughts inside our head but a chance to pause and connect the energy of our heart to influence our mind.  When we pause and breathe we get the chance to make the connection. Our breath is a fundamental factor in the functioning of our hearts and our minds.  The re-spiriting of life through respiration is our chance to direct and influence our thought life if we allow it.

I have heard many times that the most powerful prayer is Thank you.  I know my life began to change immeasurably for the better when I learned how to practice gratitude on a daily basis.  It is a leap of faith to be thankful for everything.  It calls upon us to have a trust in the ultimate plan and design of God.  It invites the opportunity for a greater vision beyond this moment all the while being focused on what one is grateful for in this moment.  It is a suspension of what is right and true according to the world and appreciating the delicate nature of life.  In any moment I can be thankful for the breath I am able to take which keeps me alive.  I can notice from that thought that I am grateful to be alive.  From there I can connect to being grateful for what my life looks like today versus 10 years ago.  I am then led into thankfulness for being able to have perspective and the ability to reflect on growth.  Next I find myself grateful that I am able to grow and learn from life.  The snowball element of thankfulness becomes a fuel to open our hearts and be evermore present to the profound simplicity of Thank you being another word for love.

The gift of dating God every day is a sense of impression on my heart.  A connection that grows through learning about the multiple facets of love leaves a mark unlike any other.  If you were to ask me if I was open and willing to experience anger and frustration so my heart and mind would open up more to love, I would pause and want to think about it.  Everything we experience, good or bad, right or wrong, leaves an impression on our hearts.  We can choose whether we want the actual experience to leave its mark or the lessons in love cultivated from it.  We sometimes think we have no choice because we get triggered by the storm or feel the sense of loss so profoundly.  Yet each of the experiences we have God is ready to show us how it can grow us in love if we turn to God for an interpretation.  Left to my own thinking this world sucks and there are a lot of really cruel people.  Who really wants to stick around for that? I might as well go back into denial, check out or allow myself to get swallowed whole into the belief that I am just as bad and dark.  God continues to greet me on our dates with the perception of learning and growing in love.  It’s as though God says, “Yes, Colleen, you have been touched by this experience and it hurts or makes you angry.  I want you to feel it with all that you can and when you are ready, take my hand so I can show you the under side of the impression where the light is hiding. Trust me when I draw your hand to your heart you can choose to take on the impression of the light of love existing within those experiences. ”  So each day I do my best to trust and believe.  God has yet to cease amazing me or catching me by surprise.