dailydatewithgod

Gods stays.  God is here to stay.  Love cannot go anywhere, it is all that is. It is all that ever was.  It is all that will ever be.  In an ever-changing world that is always coming up with the next and the greatest, it is hard for our minds to imagine what it means to just be still and stay in the moment.  We struggle with this not because is foreign to our truest sense of self but because we lack experience.  Sitting with God each morning on our date has taught me the discipline of just staying.  There is no where else to be, nothing to be done, nothing to get away from or get to.  What I have come to experience over the years of having this time with God each morning is that there is no where else I would rather be.  God shows up every day, no matter what.  Regardless of what I did the day before, whether or not my mind is going a mile a minute, or if I even want to be here, God is here with open arms.  Just like that day in the chapel that I described before. God is glad when we show up.  God is even more delighted when we stay a while.  This continues to teach me the value of presence.  I have learned how to be with me, to stay with me, when I want to throw me away.  It teaches me to stay with others when I want to walk away or am bothered by something they do that wasn’t what I expected.  God invites me to be as God is.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to staying just one more moment with ourselves then we think we can handle.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

Deep down in the recesses of our hearts we are searching for asense of comfort and peace.  It is our drive to this sense of wholeness and feeling of being at home that drives us.  In the awareness that we are missing that sense of wholeness and comfort in ourselves the moves us to search for it.  St. Augustine speak of a restlessness of heart.  Every person who has had a longing knows of this experience.  The difficulty we encounter is that we search for it relentlessly but often in the wrong places.  We often look for it outside of ourselves.  The sense of peace and coziness we seek actually resides within us.  It is found in the touching of the God within us.  We sense it when we see it displayed in others and in experiences in the world outside of us.  But it touches and awakens the place inside of us.  We will be ultimately disappointed if we continue to only seek it outside of ourselves.  Our salvation is to be found when we recognize that what we are experiencing has awakened something from inside of us and we must return to that to experience it more fully again and again.  My prayer for us today is that when we notice an experience or a person that causes us to feel that sense of coziness or peace or wholeness we recognize that the feeling or sense is coming from within us, the outside experience is simply a conduit to awaken us.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

One of thewisdoms that comes with time is the value of it.  We begin to recognize that the days, the months, and the years pass more and more quickly.  I still remember as a kid in 6th grade looking at the calendar thinking, oh my goodness it is forever until June when school gets out.  As we step into this wrap of the 2014 year we often hear a conversation about the opposite: “I can’t believe Thanksgiving is here already.  Where did the year go?”  Good question.  I suppose it came one day at a time the way it normally does.  What I want to look at is what did I spend that year doing.  It matters little in the end if it moved fast or slow, I want to know that I spent the time doing something of value.  When I look at the day yesterday or the past week, did my time consist of being and doing in ways that are in alignment with my greater purpose of growing in love.  Did I face the challenges to love that came my way with a sense of surrender, an openness to learn or a willingness to let go of thinking that wasn’t working for me?  Or did I close off my heart and think I had to figure it out on my own?  Did the value of last month’s heart growth show in my courage to take in all the good that came my way or did I brush it off because it didn’t show up the way I wanted?  My prayer for us today is that we ask God for the courage to be and do that which emanates our value and the value of others in love.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The world is full and complete.  When the Great Creator put the design in place all the energy that was to be was created.  All life comes down to energy and an exchange of energy.  Even Einstein determined that energy is neither created nor destroyed, it simply switches form and shape.  Therefore how we use, harvest, release, put attention on, or preserve energy creates our life experience.  A lot of focus is often put on money. Therefore wealth is often determined as the having of money.  Wealth is more about the use of energy including the stuff that is green paper and coins.  Wealth is about a state of mind.  A perspective of abundance and allowing.  If we look at it as based just on the amount of green paper and coins we possess in the moment then we are restricting it to that form of energy specifically.  When I expand my perspective and see that wealth is about a state of being.  It is about an acknowledgment that the Being the Created me did so out of abundance.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to shifting our perspective of wealth to more than just the physical manifestation of money.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The Great Creator has come up with so many grand designs.  We see them throughout nature and value them. We are suspended by the beauty of the moon, the mountains, ocean, sunsets, and so much more.  We feel a oneness with creation when we spend time in nature.  We too are a manifestation of God.  We are the light of the world in the physical presence.  Our beauty is as precious as a flower or a wave in the ocean. When we are still and let the light shine from within us people are awestruck by our presence.  When we engage and live out our talents and creations others are blown away by the majesty and the elegance of the design of our way of being.  It is easy in the hum drum of the day-to-day life to forget to stop and notice this manifestation of God.  Sometimes when I am in a place waiting in line I will look around at the people in line or near by me and really notice the design of the human beings around me in the same way that I notice how the wind moves through the trees.  We are exquisite designs.  Not just in our physical form but in the energy we carry and the way we function.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to seeing ourselves and others as a manifestation of All That Is.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There is so much to experience and so much to be a part of in this world.  God has gifted us with an abundance of options at any given moment.  Sometimes our viewpoint as human beings however becomes so limited that we can no longer see the options before us.  We become enclosed by our ideas that we are so fixed upon that we lose sight of All That Is.  I know that when I fear that I am not able to make a decision or am frozen by the limits that I have placed on myself and others, I need to reach out and ask God for a different point of view.  God how do you see this?  Remove from me what is causing my sight to be blinded. God does not condemn us for having a clouded perspective or going off and running with what we think we “know”. God simply invites us to ask if how we are viewing things is working for us.  Does my view-point enable me to give love freely?  Does my view-point encourage me to grow and learn a step at a time?  Does my point of view allow me to be open to being touched by all that I am experiencing?  Having spent a weekend with four of my favorite people in the world, I am amazed at how the power of friendship can transform lives.  I am so blessed to have these women in my life and am continually touched by their willingness to grow in friendship even after 30 years of knowing each other.  With all our imperfections, mistakes, some times being closer than others, we come together to be in each other’s presence once a year to bear witness to love by spending time together.  They have always taught me the value of acceptance even when maybe they couldn’t practice it for themselves.  They have shown me the power of committment and the willingness to keep going even when things don’t look so bright.  I am eternally grateful to God for these living angels and for my openness to receive the love that resides within us all. They have helped shape my view of the world.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to view things differently when we find that our viewpoint isn’t working.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We have the gift of a beautiful mind.  We have the gift of a beautiful body.  We have the gift of a beautiful heart.  We have the gift of a beautiful soul.  All that we are is a gift.  A gift to us.  A gift to the world.  As children we know exactly what to do with gifts when we get them–we receive them, we are excited, we open them up and explore them.  We do so because we are in the moment of being given that gift.  There is nothing for us to do except accept it.  We may not know what is in the gifts or how our lives might change as a result of them but we accept them nonetheless.  As time passes we learn how to ask for more specific things and create expectations of what we will get.  Then we learn disappointment at not getting what we want and it alters how we receive any of the gifts we are given.  Before we know it we find ourselves not as able to receive gifts because we have specific expectations and requirements.  We lose the experience and block our hearts from the gift of receiving.  The good news is that we can be restored to joy of receiving if we invite the Giver of All Gifts to open us up to the everyday gifts that are being showered upon us all the time.  The Greatness of God is that even when we have forgotten how to receive gifts, the do not stop being given by the Giver.  Like all things, we simply need to be open to letting go of our ideas of what it means to accept gifts.  When God gives, it is not with conditions or expectations.  The simplest way that we can re-engage in the receiving process is through two words: Thank You. Thank you for the sunset. Thank you for the breath that I just took in.  Thank you for the eyes through which to see my challenges today. Thank you for the compassion to forgive myself and others. My prayer for us today is that we be willing to renew our gift of receiving by saying thank you as many times as we can remember.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

One of the most amazing creatures that we have on this planet are birds.  I remember as a child simply marveling at how they could go from place to place by defying gravity and just jumping up and flying away.  I so wanted to fly away. If I had thought to ask God to change myform, a bird would have been it.  To be free to, to soar, to explore from above.  One of my favorite gospel songs is “His Eye Is On the Sparrow” about how God watches over us.  Jesus even referenced how the birds do not worry themselves about whether they will be provided for.  If I trust in a God that created All That Is, then I can soar to new heights of understanding and being by stepping into and claiming that inheritance.  If I am willing to let go of my perspective that holds me down, then my eyes are opened to a whole new world in which I am free to be.  With God we can soar. Our hearts, our spirits long to be as close to God as possible and we are restless until we rest in Him.  I noticed that when I let go of an idea that I am familiar with that has grounded me and keeps me from looking up, I feel lighter.  I am no longer weighted down by my fixed perspective because I have asked God to enlighten my mind.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to offer up an idea that keeps us grounded and offer it up to be lightened up by God.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Amid this vast and brilliant human experience that seems overwhelming and complicated exists a deeper experience that is deep within us of simplicity and love.  This deeper experience invites us to slow down long enough to hear its voice and heed its call to return home. Our home is within our spirit that is united with The Great Spirit.  I am able to see it when I slow down from the ever spinning wheel of the world and its circumstances.  It is then that I notice a glance of acknowledgment from one human being to another.  I see the warmth of a smile, feel the gentle kiss of the wind, and sense the embrace of the joy when I hear someone laugh.  It sounds like a hallmark card but it is true.  When I slow down long enough to be present in the moment, even if for just a moment I can see and experience all these joyful and precious exchanges.  It is when I stop to breathe that I am aware of them.  It is not about being Pollyanna (although, one must admit she did help shift the energy of that town so beautifully through her simple ways of love), it is about embracing the truth of who I am and with whom I am truly connected.  The pause gets me there, the breath helps me take it in.  There are no doubt, millions of reasons to keep pushing and doing and making and happening.  These are how my ego justifies its existence.  But in that sacred invitation of the breath my spirit quietly whispers–that is not all there is, take a look.  My prayer for us today is that we seize the opportunity with one of our breaths to ask God to help us notice what else is happening from our spirit’s perspective.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen