dailydatewithgod

A couple of days ago the season of Lent started.  In the Catholic Christian tradition this is a simpler time of pulling away some of the excesses and taking some time to quietly spend with God.  People will often give things up, or take on things like prayer practices or service of some kind.  There are some days of fasting and abstinence from certain foods, churches everywhere will have stations of the cross activities or extra meditation sessions.  Again this is all designed to draw us closer to the heart of God.  Some might begrudge Lent as the dark time or the time when things are not fun.  But what could be more fun that a time dedicated to drawing closer in our hearts to the one who loves us more than anything?  What could be more joyous than stripping away the extra layers of our ego identity to draw closer to the Great Creator who wants us to know the Love that we are and were created from?  It is a time to rest closely in the experience and the knowledge of our hearts that God is who God says He is and we need not work so hard.  My prayer for us today is that we recognize a time in our day when we can rest in the heart knowledge of the love that we are and take a deep breath.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

In our mind’s eyes resides an understanding that what we are seeing with our physical eyes is not all there is.  It is as though the spirit communicates itself even through out thick skull.  The reality of our Creator is that what is now is all there is.  We like to hang out in the conversation of shoulds and wants.  It is called fighting reality.  When we get caught up in this cycle we find ourselves restless, irritable, and discontent because we are in a space of lack of acceptance.  If I am aligned with God and God’s love for me, then I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be and I am taken care of no matter what happens. This for me has been the maturity of my faith in God.  I am no longer looking for God to swoop in and rescue me (most of the time) from my current circumstances.  I only expect to not be experiencing them on my own.  I long to be shown where love is in this and what I can learn from it.  When I am not worried about my safety or protecting my heart, I can be open to being the messenger of love that is needed in the right here and now.  Acceptance is not always easy for me.  Sometimes I have to start smaller by accepting that I don’t accept whatever it is.  That buys me some time, so to speak, to get reconnected with who I truly am. Then I remember that what is happening outside of me does not change who I am from the inside out.  The only reality I need to be conscious of is that God is in charge and God loves me.  My prayer for us today is that we look to what we can accept about reality or accept that we don’t accept it and seek God.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There is a time of sound, there is a time of silence just like there is a time to inhale and a time to exhale.  The exhale is not less important , both are equally important even though they serve different functions.  In times of silence we can experience the beauty of the in between.  In a results oriented world this is often not valued but I have learned to look beyond the world’s expectations.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t fall under the spell of thinking that world the has to offer is all there is, I just spend a little less time in that frame of mind.  Spending time with God, a part of which is in silence, each day has taught me that all that I seek from a world full of sound actually resides in my own heart.  In a time of silence I am able to notice and become better acquainted with that heart.  My prayer for us today is that we ask God for the courage to be with silence for just a moment this day and each day so that we can become familiar with what God loves about us.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

When life is lived simply there is a clarity that exists.  There is a sense of peace and balance that envelopes one when they are clear on who they are and what their role is.  God is always clear and unwavering in knowing who God is.  When we are aligned with how God sees us we experience the freedom of being.  There is no one to please, nothing to fix, and no place to be but the moment.  Clarity is truth and it surpasses the physical experience because it is much more than that.  Some people talk about it as knowing one’s purpose in the world.  There are many ways to describe it but the space of being is one that is not easily shaken.  For so much of my life I thought I had to prove my existence, explain my behavior, and give justifications.  My mind was full of reasons and excuses that I thought for sure I needed to have ready because you were going to question me.  And to question me made me uncomfortable because it put me in touch with the fact that I questioned me all the time.  What I now understand is that God never asked me to explain myself.  God knows exactly who I am and why I am here because it is part of His design.  I am invited to take a look at things when I am off the mark.  Usually the explanation is that I lost sight of my purpose, or forgot that the purpose was love, or that love would be the answer in that particular situation.  Time with God brings that clarity because I am aligning myself with the truth of who I am from my Creator’s eyes.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to getting in touch with that clarity (God) and experiencing the peace of everything else falling away.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

God is magnificent and All That Is. Being in All and through All, God does not need to show up and make lots of noise.  God can be discovered in and through everything that we think, experience, feel, and create.  God is never to hard to find if love is what we are looking for.  This gentleness of being allows for the miraculous to occur effortlessly.  God’s answer to our troubles is always rest in me.  God brings a gentle reminder of who we truly are in the midst of the chaos of our lives.  God does not bang us over the head with it because God never stops recognizing and acknowledging that which God created.  We are the ones who forget and need to be reminded.  Being banged on the head seems to cause more forgetfulness than be gently whispered to in the ear.  We think because the world makes lots of noise in getting things done that God must work the same way.  But that would be making God only human.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to look for an experience of gentle reminders of who we are out coming out from the loud noise of our human experience today and see the face of God.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

When we open our eyes and take our first breath of the day we are saying yes to the gift of life.  Yes to the possibilities of God’s wonders to perform throughout the day. Yes to the viability of hope. Yes to the belief that Love wins even when it is the underdog.  If ever during the course of our day we forget any of these things, we need only to stop and take another breath and connect with Spirit.  We are not human beings who have spiritual experiences we are spiritual beings having a human experience.  This is why when we are aligned with God and our truest selves time and space seem to not exist.  We refer to those experiences as being high or being in the zone.  Many of us try to recreate that on strictly physical level.  As one who has suffered a physical addiction I know the dark side of where that can take one at an extreme.  I believe that our spirit so craves to be in union with God and experience the prosperity of the heavens that we will go to any lengths to get it.  Augustine in his confessions said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”   We think this restlessness will be consoled by something in the world when we forget that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. So we seek out the event, the possession, the person, the title, etc. to connect. It may work for a while but ultimately it will fall short because only God can fill that hole in our hearts.  Only our alignment with God allows us to be whole.  My prayer for us today is that we embrace the prosperity granted to us with our breath as many times throughout the day as we want to be awakened to it and feel that sense of wholeness.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There is so much that is an existence right in this moment to remind us that we are loved and cared for.  God not only creates us but invites us to be loved and taken care of by Him.  Sometimes we experience this through other people, sometimes we experience it through trials, and when we have the courage to just breathe in the moment, we can experience it in our own hearts.  These blessings exist at all times, they are not dependent upon outside circumstances because God is not dependent upon outside circumstances. When we open the eyes of our heart and spirit to see the gifts that are inherent in everything and every situation our ability to love grows.  As love grows we have less armor around us and can feel more vulnerable.  If we have experienced darkness in times of vulnerability in the past we can be reluctant to open ourselves up again.  But given that God will not cease being until we again return to the state of the truest love from which we were created we will continually be given chances to open up.  It takes courage to recognize the fear that comes up and be willing to move forward and be open despite the fear.  In the past, I have run when the fear (which is all in my mind) has been too great.  It seemed like the safest option.  I am not sure if all these years of dating have worn me down, but today I am willing to be in that space of vulnerability just a little past comfortable.  I have come to trust that God will show up in full force with the love that my spirit is seeking to reclaim.  It started in little ways and little by little grows with time.  God has never let me down.  It is only when I hold an expectation that God will show up in a specific way that I feel let down.  But that is simply because I have narrowed God’s options.  What was I thinking?  LOL!  My experiences of God grow and change as I do and while God is constant, God is not limited.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to the possibility that God will show up with blessings in ways beyond that which we can conceive and thus begin to see everything as a blessing for all can lead us to a process of greater love, no matter the content. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The Spirit of God lives within You!  The Light of the World is present in your heart.  We only do not believe it to be so because we have placed layers of other things on top of our hearts and spirits.  But just because we do not remember it does not make it any less true.  This is why the spiritual path is one of letting go. We are called upon to let go of anything that keeps us from our connection to God and to our truest selves.  It is easy to buy into the world’s definition of who we are or who we think we are supposed to be, but our Spirit’s calling is grander and more profound than that.  It transcends our mind’s possibilities.  So in my date time with God I ask that I be reminded of how God sees me and how God sees the world.  I want to be aligned with that which is truest of all of us.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to seek the unseen of who we are and all those we encounter so that we may see the boldness of our beings.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Our Great Creator designed All That Is in such a way that gives us hope of things to come.  There exists a constant renewal of everything that lives.  Something dies and something new is born.  An event ends, another one begins.  The day comes to a close and night starts.  The night ends and the day begins.  Around every ending corner is a new beginning just about to burst open.  It sets the stage for hope that at every down turn there is an up turn. It provides the confidence of understanding that with every breakdown is the opportunity for a breakthrough.  This anticipation lives within our hearts and our spirits.  It is the part that whispers for us to keep going just when we think we should give up.  It is the element within us that our angels latch on to and support us.  It is the piece of our being that others light up when they witness.  Hope is the ingredient of our being that inspires others to hope.  Being in this space of anticipation that God is exactly who God claims to be allows us to claim the joy of living in a life of love.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to seeing the experience of hope in an area of our lives that seem to lack it the most.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

In a world that is full of life and expressions of creativity it is hard to image that anything but benevolence occurs.  We are designed by and for love and when we own that birth right and live it fully, we extend ourselves to others in kindness.  I used to think that kindness was something one was required to do because it was the right thing to do. That was at a time in my life when I could not see the benevolence that existed within me.  As I began to spend more date time with God I saw that being kind is an extension of my fullness of being because that is how I am created.  We are all equipped with the ability to be kind because it is the truth of who we are in God.  When I think I am separate from God, it becomes an obligation.  I am not saying that I always “feel” like being kind.  But living is more than just feeling, it is being.  If I am in alignment with my truest self,  I cannot help extend that self of love to others and to myself.  When I am out of alignment, missing the mark (sin), it becomes some sort of moral obligation by which good girls abide.  My prayer for us today is that when we find ourselves wanting to withhold kindness that we stop and ask God for the willingness to be our true selves.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen