dailydatewithgod

When we are fully ourselves, we are powerful.  We often run from this because we do not see ourselves as God sees us.  Why would we be created for anything but greatness?  Why would God design us as something that would not create an impact on the world?  We are here to be love and to give love.  God needs us as messengers, his messengers, love messengers.  Before we can do that effectively we need to be cleared of the things that block us from our own heart.  What often happens is that we experience something that is the opposite of love and we create a story around it.  Then we go through life attached to the story and live that out.  If the story is grounded in anything but the truth of who we are–love, freedom, part of the Great Universe, then we are in dis-ease.  Our first step is to acknowledge who we are as separate from our experiences (our stories).  Yes, those things have happened.  It is not what happened, though, it is what we do with what happened.  When we are clear on that we can begin with God’s help to reconnect with who we are.  Then we have a clarity about our life’s mission.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to stop the tape of our story just long enough to question its truth.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

It is a the great myth that we think when we pretend we are something that we are not, others buy into it.  It may work for a while but ultimately, it either gets the best of us or others figure us out. Why does that happen?  Because we can only go against our true nature for so long without destroying ourselves. But even the process of that is beautiful.  We can only breakthrough once we breakdown.  In our striving to prove ourselves, we get lost in what we think the world expects of us.  This world is the same one that is driven by the mind story that says we are not good enough.  We must be do and have more.  This is a world that says that who we are at our core must be hidden and protected. But just because our world, culture or family buys into the story, does not mean that we have to.  In fact, we can be thankful that God does not think as the world thinks.  It is contrary to who God is.  If God created us out of love and whole, what in us is broken and in not enough?  It doesn’t even make sense for God to think that we don’t measure up. It would be like God being unsatisfied with his own creation.  There is a line from a song  by Sting that I love, “Sometimes we forget how fragile we are.”  In the world’s standard there is no room for our fragility because it doesn’t measure up.  But there is room for it in God’s world.  In fact, it is what makes us soft and relatable, and encourages us to connect to one another.  My prayer for us today is that we see value in the parts of our lives that “aren’t enough” and thank God for the gift of our fragility.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Life is a continuum of opportunities.  Each new day we get to start again.  The end will come soon enough and it will not be how long we had but what the quality of that time that we had.  I know that my heart and my soul have certain purposes. Each day is a chance to draw closer to love.  This is why we are here.  Many of us are not even aware that love is what we are after. The way we work to get to love takes many different roads.  Often when we witness the lives of others, we cannot see how what they are doing is ultimately driven by the deep desire for love because the path they are on seems anything but that.  However, we do not know their definition or experience of love.  Then there are those who are trying to run from it because their experience of love was so devastating that they want nothing to do with it.  Yet, they experience an inner turmoil because it is who they are at their core and we cannot truly run from ourselves.  In the end the love that we seek resides within us.  We will not find what we are looking for outside ourselves.  Not in a car, job, relationship, religious practice, or spiritual experience.  Those things may ignite a connection within us, but at the day’s end it is the one on one experience of the God of our hearts that fulfills us.  Each day we are given a breath is an opportunity to persist one more time to make that connection.  My prayer for us today is that we be opened to seeing how we can persist just a little more to draw closer within and experience true love.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Have you ever found yourself so drawn in and entranced by a thing of beauty?  Maybe it was an event, a person, a sculpture, a performance, an adventure, a mountain, or a sunset.  In that moment of captivation time stopped. It is as though you are one with that which you are witnessing.  It is in the captivating moments of life that we experience God.  Anytime that we are fully present God is there.  In fact, when we are completely present to the captivating experience we are one with God.  It sounds cliché’ but these are the moments that make life worth living.  Some of us pursue them to our own demise because we think life I supposed to be like that all the time.  Life is about the ebb and flow.  The entrancing moments balanced by the regular moments.  I have learned over time that the more time I spend with God, the more the “regular” moments can hold that captivating experience.  This is because it is not what is happening outside of us that causes the moment of presence and peace, it is what is happening inside of us.  It is because we are connected to all that is.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to invite God in to one of those “regular” moments and be awakened to how we are captivating in that moment. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

If I remember that I am uniquely created, then I must acknowledge that my life and my experience is not going to be exactly the same as everyone else’s experience.  This allows for endless possibilities of how life can unfold.  It engenders hope and creativity.  But my mind will often default to the opposite of that.  I will look upon my uniqueness as some sort of default because it doesn’t match “normal.”  What exactly is “normal” anyway?  Sometimes I think “normal” is a concept created by us humans to keep us in line.  We like to categorize things and find safety in “knowing” how things are going to be. When we experience something outside that safety zone, we label it as not “normal.” This label then gets thrown around so much that we lose sight of what we were grasping at in the first place.  This would explain the expression, “the new normal.”  But what is “normal” to God?  Nature screams a few ideas:  diversity, beauty, and application.  What would my world experience be if my gauge for who I am and what is happening was beauty (love and charity), diversity, and application?  Then my question would not be is this normal it would be does this bring me closer to love?  Does the beauty of it draw me more in love with what I am seeing?  Does its uniqueness cause me to see God and the world in a new way? And does it allow me to apply more love in my life?  My prayer for us today is that we have the courage to step outside of the question, “Is this normal?” and ask, “Is this love?”  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Because life doesn’t always turn out the way the way we want it to, we learn to adapt and develop flexibility.  Or we can shut down and try to control it more.  (Personally, I have found that the latter creates more disease in my life).  The other element that we might want to be open to considering is that because it is not turning out the way we want it to, it is turning out the exactly the way it is supposed to.  This notion we have that things are not as they “should” be comes from our limited mind.  But if we remember that there is a Greater Mind who knows all and cares for all, then there is nothing wrong here.  That is one of my stories–imbedded deep and strong in my ego–there is something wrong here or I did something wrong.  It pops up all over the place for me.  I am grateful that God has shown me that it is a story and I can choose to go along with it or create a new one.  God sees me as His beautiful creation and not something that needs to be fixed.  Who am I to argue with that?  (This does not stop me from doing so, but that would be my stubbornness).  If this notion of things not turning out the way we want was based on the present moment then it might have some merit in God’s view.  But God is all about this moment and when we are thinking that now is not as it should be, it is coming from some notion from the past of how we had hoped it would be.  God wants us to fully experience each moment as it is happening because then we will be ready to receive the gift.  If in that present moment our minds are cluttered by expectations then we lose the moment.  Being spontaneous isn’t about not having discipline in life or flying by the seat of our pants.  It is about being as fully present in the moment as we can to experience the gift that God has to give us in that moment.  My prayer for us today is that we have the willingness to let go of our own ideas and be open to what gifts God wants to present us in the moments of this new day.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

For those of us who have eyes to see we have ample opportunity to experience the gift and beauty of life from moment to moment.  We can witness life without words or sound.  Pictures including the moving ones right in front of our eyes tell us the story of love, passion, pain, heartbreak, courage, peace, strife, simplicity, and so much more.  We take what we see through our eyes and place a narrative of meaning on it.  That narrative of meaning comes not from what we are seeing but from our own internal dialog and current mind-set.  This is why “eyewitness accounts” are not the rock solid evidence they seem to be.  The time it takes what our eyes see visually to get to our brain and then attach language or meaning around what we are seeing is so fast that we don’t even notice that there is other information that goes into what we are “seeing”.  But we do have an opportunity to re-see things.  This is why hindsight is so valuable.  We can look back, recall something that we have seen, and reexamine it.  We can incorporate new ideas and place our visions in a greater context. This is where God comes in.  In the pause between eye-witness and mind-meaning, we can ask God to help us see things as God sees things.  My mind is limited by what it can conceive, but God’s  mind is not limited.  When I connect with the Great Creator, I can experience what I see from moment to moment in a whole new way.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to connect with God and ask that our eyes be opened to how the Creator of all that is sees things and experience the love in which our lives are drenched.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

People exude particular qualities.  It isn’t specific to the way they are behaving or what they are saying but when you describe them you are conveying who they are being.  In actuality, you are describing who they are being for you.  We all convey who we are in multiple ways to others.  You ever notice that some people receive who you are being while others cannot seem to?  It is because our experience of others isn’t them it is us.  We have a perception of others that colors how we see and experience them.  It is often because of an original interaction with them.  This is why students will give different descriptions of the same teacher or patients rate their doctors as having certain characteristics.  How we experience others is correlated to how we are experiencing ourselves and the world in that moment.  If we are in a space of love and understanding we come across people as being loving, understanding, kind, and compassionate.  If we are in a place of ingratitude and frustration we experience others as annoying and frustrating–even the ones who are behaving in an opposite manner.  In fact, we are more irritated by them.  This is why it is important for us to be who we are.  We cannot control how others experience us.  God calls us to be who we authentically are in the moment, regardless of the reaction we get from other people.  I used to think (not consciously, of course) that if I just didn’t say certain things or do certain things, others would be pleased with me.  Sometimes, they were, sometimes they weren’t.  So I determined that people were unstable.  I didn’t get that I am supposed to be who I am, not tailor it to what I think other people expect or want.  My prayer for us today is that we have the courage to stop and breathe and chose with enthusiasm who we are being today regardless of anyone else.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We are attracted to shiny things.  Things that sparkle and radiate capture the corner of our eyes, cause us to stop and take notice and be present.  What if our hearts are calling us to be shiny?  What if the reason that we are rubbed by people and situations is so that our hearts can be softened and shine for all to see?  That might be too vulnerable, right?  But what if being able to shine was backed by a power so grounded and unshakeable that nothing could tarnish it?  That is what God is.  A power so unimaginable that nothing can change the course of its existence.  That same power resides within our own hearts because it is where we come from.  The reason that shiny things and people capture our attention is because we recognize it. Our hearts sense the connection.  When someone shines through their personality or by sharing the gift of themselves our hearts are softened.  If we can manage to get quiet enough in those moments, we can acknowledge that our spirit rejoices when someone has the courage to shine.  And the funniest part of all, is most people shine when they have the courage to be authentically themselves.  Not when they are trying to put on a show.  My prayer for us today is to have the courage to celebrate when we see someone else shining.  Recognizing it is the first step in being with it in ourselves.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

When I look at the things of the world that hold great universal value they seem to have a gem-like quality.  Whether they be actual things or qualities, we know them when we see them and experience them.  Would you believe me if I told you that God sees great value in you?  You are God’s creation and the value that you are given was bestowed upon you before you were even born. During that original formation nothing took away from the fact that you are a gift to the world.  Your current formation and transformation is still a gift to the world.  We carry around this idea–well-worn in some of us–that we are not a contribution to the world, to God, or to ourselves unless we do so in a certain form.  We think that only when things are done “right” or “perfect” do they deserve any attention.  I can tell you from my own experience that when I began to recognize the value of my mistakes, I learned to appreciate the beauty of life.  It is a defined groove in my mind that I am only worth the perfection that I can bring, but given that I am never perfect I have begun to recognize the ridiculousness of that belief.  In fact, when I am willing to see the value of my imperfections , my heart softens and I am more open to love.  Isn’t love what we are all here for?  Perfection is the illusion of safety.  The greatest safety is the capacity for love.  My prayer for us today is that we have the courage to see our imperfect attempts at love are what determine our value and nothing else.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen