dailydatewithgod

 Each day we are given by God is a day to begin anew.  A completely clean slate from which to live our lives.  A new opportunity to trust in God and to see the world through the eyes of love.  Each new day break which comes right after the darkest part of the morning gives life and breath to a new beginning.  There is something so refreshing about watching the sun come up.  There is almost a sense of relief when the light of the sun begins to break upon the dark night.  I imagine that the same thing happens within our hearts.  Unfortunately, our minds often wake up with what happened yesterday and fear of what will happen tomorrow and all of a sudden the new day’s fresh moment is dirtied or colored or lost, so to speak.  The only way I know to get back to that new moment is to spend time at the beginning of this new day connecting with my Creator.  To focus on my breath and experience that newness in my body.  God does not spend time in yesterday or tomorrow, God is the moment, God is the gift.  The beauty of all this is in the simplicity of just stopping and taking a breath to connect.  And even better, at any point during my day when I feel my mind and my experience become cluttered, I can do the same thing and I experience that sense of cleansing of my heart.  My part is being willing to let go of whatever I have latched on to in that moment.  Most of all, it requires being willing to believe that God alway sees the good in me and is always ready to show it to me.  My prayer for you today is that you know in your heart that at any moment you choose you can have a clean slate, you can experience a cleansing of love (touch by God) and start anew.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

 There is something about the word mercy that extends beyond forgiveness.  I rarely use the term except maybe as a kid when I was playing with my sister and we were seeing who could go the longest when twisting the others arm–who cried mercy first. (an interesting torture game we played as children).  I have definitely seen mercy in terms of God in scripture–that term gets used a lot.  But when I heard the message of merciful this morning I began to think of it as forgiveness 2.0.  Not only to be forgiving but forgiveness that comes from a place of empathy, of understanding because I have been in the same or similar situation.  It is a grander experience than forgiving, or having compassion for someone or something or even myself.  It is an acknowledgement of my own failings or weaknesses as well as that to whom I am being merciful.  A recognition that we are all in this together.  I can be merciful because I realized that I need the mercy of God.  Not only do I need it for myself but in order to be truly merciful towards another I need the power of God.  Mercy is forgiveness not simply because I can be forgiving, but because I need God’s help.  That includes how I am towards me.  I can be forgiving of myself but I need God’s help to be merciful towards me.  Sometimes the harshness with which I judge myself is way past reasoning and it takes a power greater than me to right that, to show mercy to myself.  When I recognize that I need God’s help to be forgiving of me, then I can reach to God to help me to be forgiving of others.  As I go through this day, I will ask for the gift of mercy so that I can extend that to myself and through that experience in my heart give it to others. My prayer for you today is that you may experience the mercy of God towards you in some small way that you condemn yourself.  I pray that it becomes an opening in your heart to share with the world.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There is something so precious about watching the wonder of children.  I remember it as a teacher when I would substitute for elementary students.  I see it in my niece who is about 14 months old–how fascinated she can be by the simplest of items.  Children hold this sense of awe with everything the see and do because it is all new.  We seem to lose that over time because we have already experienced it.  But have we?  We have never been in this very moment, with these thoughts at this time ever before.  Sure there are elements that are familiar but if we are to be completely honest, we have never been here before.  I need to connect with God who created all things to see what is new in this creative moment.  That is when I am able to be in a place of awe. When I see things in a childlike way (one of awe, mystery, excitement, joy) not a childish way (what’s in it for me, what am I going to get out of this, I want my way) then I am connected to all of creation because I am creating in that moment.  I find it much easier to already think I have been here because then I can sort of check out on some level.  Our minds are shaped in those early years of our life because our brain needs to know which patterns to create so that it can function automatically.  This is a fascinating function of the brain and I am grateful for it–it is the part that takes care of telling the body to pump oxygenated blood cells from the right to left side of the heart, etc.  However, I am not so sure I want to continue with the unconscious thought because those are based in experiences that I had as a child–good and bad.  To be open to seeing things new I need to take a space, a breath, from my programming and be open to what is new in this moment.  Then it is like I become a child again–seeing things for the first time.  How do you feel when you are filled with awe in the moment?  My prayer for you today is that you are open to seeing a similar situation with the eyes of a child (God).  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

One of the funny things of life as far as I can tell is the balance of our thinking and our emotions.  Intellectuality is often seen as superior to feeling because it is based in thinking and functionality and truth.  Emotionality is often cased as some sort of nicety or mostly feminine quality which adds to life’s sparkle but is not as necessary as functional thinking.  The irony of course is that without emotion our thoughts would not carry such weight.  Our thinking (our making things mean something) causes a feeling which stirs us into action.  To be aroused is defined as to bring forth as in emotion.  To stir something from within us. I think God is aroused all the time.  He is always stirring something within us.  God is this life force that is moved and inspired and calls us to be the same.  Yes, we are functional and have tasks to complete and we do not live in fantasy but that is not to say that connecting to feelings inside of us isn’t just as important.  I don’t know too many people who are as moved by thought as they are by emotion.  When I see or hear something express their thinking, what touches my heart is not what they are actually saying or doing it is the feeling they are conveying through that thought.  That is what pierces my heart.  When I see a baseball player hit a home run I am aroused not by the calculations of the angle at which his shoulder was that allowed him to place the bat at such an angle and with appropriate force  hit the ball so hard that it was knocked out of the park.  I am aroused by the passion behind what caused him to focus and give his all.  I remember a few years ago I went rock climbing for the very first time.  Now, for someone who spent most of her adult life obese, to be climbing anything but a step-ladder was pretty miraculous.  Even though I had been at a healthy body weight for over 5 years at that point, I wondered if I could do it.  As per my usual, I was not going to let my fear stop me.  So I strapped in the ropes and proceeded to climb this wall in Joshua tree.  The man who was my anchor (or whatever they are called) was very encouraging, but to say that it was easy would be a lie.  There was little to grab onto and I don’t have the greatest arm strength, but I just had to keep breathing and focus and hold on for dear life.  Not to mention the constant conversation with God.  In the 20-30 minutes that it took to scale the side of this one wall I wanted to give up more times that I could count, but I didn’t.  I cannot express in words the feeling when I finally made it to the top.  Woohoo!  Such a feeling of exhilaration and triumph was aroused in me not only because I had accomplished this feat, but because of where I had come from.  I was so moved that when I got back down I broke into tears.  I knew in my heart of hearts that God and I had crossed over into a new realm.  Being aroused by life doesn’t always happen in climbing big rocks, to me it is about being open to being touched by life.  My thinking will want to rationalize everything but sometimes I just have to give in and be pleased by life.  What arouses you?  My prayer for you today is that you may be aroused by something to see the good that is inside of you and all those around you.  Make it a good one!  Peace~Colleen

No doubt you have heard or read the quote from the Hebrew scriptures, “Be still and know that I AM God.”  I have seen it everywhere from bumper stickers to bus benches.  It is one of those phrases that have become cliché’.  Yet, like most cliché’s they are true for a reason.  I would love to tell you that my experience has been the more I do in my life, the more I make happen, the busier I get the more connected I feel to God, but that is not the truth.  I am a firm believer that life is meant to be lived and it is a spiritual life in action where the rubber meets the road.  Where I see if this faith that I have actually works in rough going.  However, I need those times of stillness to reconnect, to be filled up.  That time for me comes in my morning meditation time (my date with God) but also when I am given opportunities to do a little less in my day.  I sometimes become so preoccupied by all the things on my to do list, that I forget to slow down and appreciate the life that is happening around me.  I need stillness for that.  When I look at the life of Jesus, I have always been struck by how he often took time to step away and reconnect with God, his father. Sometimes it describes him being in front of a large crowd and stepping away.  It is like he knew that he needed moments of stillness so that he could return to the crowd of people so he could better be of service.  Stillness can be an element of self-care.  I still remember years ago when I was on a retreat in the mountains.  It was so quiet one night I could hear the blood pumping through my body.  To be honest it kind of freaked me out.  Sometimes I think I welcome the business because it keeps me from the chatter of my mind.  However, I found with a little discipline that if I am still long enough even the chatter of my mind passes.  Sometimes it takes a while, so I have to ask God for the patience to continue to sit.  That is why when I started out daily meditating, I could only do it for two minutes.  For me, I don’t judge the time of silence.  Sometimes I feel very connected, sometimes my mind will not quiet down, and sometimes I fall asleep.  What I have found most important is the consistency of showing up everyday, no matter what, and giving that time of stillness to listen for God.  I know that he appreciates it and I have come to cherish it.  What have you learned in times of stillness that escaped you during your busy times?  My prayer for you today is that you may have a moment or two of stillness to listen for God tell you how much he loves you.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

 One of the things in dating that happens is the wait for the call.  As a woman or a man you make a connection and then you either wait to call or you wait to be called.  It is the thought that then is where things begin.  Then the next move is determined.  Did we really connect that first time or two we met before more information was exchanged?  Are they really interested in me enough to call or to call me back.  It is in that waiting time that we have to connect with ourselves.  Ultimately it is not about whether that person deems you worthy to call or call back, but rather do you think you are worthy.  Would you call you or call you back.  Do you appreciate all you have to offer.  We often put so much on that other person but it is not up to them.  It is up to us, to know in our hearts that we want to be with us.  I know for a long time in my life I didn’t date and I used to think it was because I wasn’t attractive and no one was interested in me.  The reality was that I didn’t think I was attractive and I wasn’t interested in me.  I was in a dark time of my life when I was headed on a slow path of death.  The only thing I thought that I ultimately deserved was just to make it through.  I mean I had dreams of being in a relationship but had no real means of making that happen because my head and my heart were not in the right space for it.  I was so into my food addiction that the only voice I heard was that of my negative mind telling me what a piece of s*%! I was.  Once in a while I might hear faintly the voice of a loving God or have a spiritual experience but my head was so clouded that I could not hear God calling me.  I could not hear the love with which God called me.  There was no space for me to embrace the notion that God was enchanted with me and longed to be with me more closely.  It wasn’t until I put down the sugar and the excess food that I made space for God.  They say you cannot serve two masters and that is my experience.  But not getting the call can often be because of little things, it is not always so big. Sometimes I am just distracted by life and my thinking and I stop listening for the call.  When I do tune back in, I see it in nature, hear it on the radio, see in the smiles of faces of people I encounter.  God is calling me everywhere.  Do I have the courage to answer the call and take a chance on what comes next?  My prayer for you today is that you see how God is calling you to share with you the love of you.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

I love flowers! Their beauty is so gentle.  It seems at times that flowers are like a soft kiss to the world.  The way that the fragile petals reach out to the world and the variety of colors and shapes and sizes–amazing!  I love roses, probably one of my favorites, perhaps because they speak to me of classic beauty.  Like one of those actresses from the 1940s–Hepburn, Stanwyck, Garbo, etc.  All they had to do was just stand their and their beauty and strength filled a room.  The best thing about flowers though is their variety!  The funny part is that I do not translate that into my life. I am sure I am not alone in this but I have spent a fair amount of time comparing myself to others.  You name it and I am either less than or occasionally better than any woman on the planet.  I compare my body size and shape, the color and style of my hair, clothing, attitude, attraction of men, job, family, car, laughter. . .the list is endless.  I forget that if God wanted me to be her, whomever she is, I would be her.  Wanting to not be my variety and demonstration of God is a bit like a slap in the face to God. As though I were a consultant hired by God and I am advising him that actually, he really should have done this part of me differently so it would be more like her part.  Yes, I can be bold, even when I don’t intend to be.  As much as I love roses, I would never look at an Easter lily with its gentle perfume and gracious open petals and say, “You need to curl up more like a rose and grow some thorns.” That would be ridiculous, right?  So why do I look at another woman’s body and tell myself that I should have a body more like hers?  It doesn’ t make any more sense.  The beauty that I am is the beauty that God wished to bestow upon the world.  If he wanted to duplicate one that was already there, he would have.  I have to trust that I am a unique expression of God in every way.  In my physicality, attitude, actions, emotions; every cell in my body is designed with perfection and love.  It speaks to the variety and the vastness of the greatness of God.  How do you see who you are as part of the variety of the world?  My prayer for you today is that you may truly recognize in your heart that you (all of you–warts and all, as they say) are part of the variety of the world.  The Creator of all creations created you out of love, every part of you.  For when you know that in your heart you will begin to see the beauty of the variety of the world that surrounds you.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

I think the funniest part of my human experience is when I think I am hiding something from God.  As if that were possible.  How could the all-knowing, omnipotent and loving creator not be aware of something?  Just because I think God is not in tune with something does not make it so.  Just because God isn’t acting or doing things the way I would like does not mean he/she/it is not aware of what is happening.  It just means that God is not acting the way I would like God to act.  In other words, God is not being me.  Rather arrogant of me, huh?  Yes, my ego can be a bit big for its bridges. Not that any of this thinking is conscious, which makes it all the more difficult at times to discover.  The real gift comes in recognizing it and then exposing it to God.  When I can say, “By the way, I have been a little disappointed because this is happening or not happening,  can you show me how You see this?”  Then I need to get quiet and listen for God’s wisdom, God’s caring, and God’s reiteration that He has got it.  I am convinced that God gets a real good laugh out of watching me spin my wheels.  Not in a vindictive way, but rather like a loving parent who gets joy out of seeing their child strive for something.  It is when I am experiencing suffering over it, I am certain that God’s heart is breaking and he is hoping before long that I will bring it to Him so he can give me peace.  How does God bring me peace?  By letting me know that I am not alone, that it is not as bad and my mind is making it out to be.  He reminds me that even though I am frustrated with myself, with life and perhaps with His plan that He is still completely enamored of me.  The beauty of being willing to be exposed to God is that I can be shown where there is beauty in a place of darkness, discomfort and pain.  I am convinced that God only sees what is good and I need to be reminded that all things can be turned for the good.  Because God is good and there is no place that God is not.  How have you seen good (God) in places of darkness in your life?  My prayer for you today is that you have the courage to go to God and expose to him that which you might even be hiding from yourself .  That you receive the peace that surpasses all peace and the the beauty of whatever you are experiencing can be revealed.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

 At rest in your heart.  This means knowing I am loved and cared for. There is nowhere to rush to be or to get done because my heart is at peace.  In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is quoted as saying, “Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).  This world can surely beat us up from time to time.  If not the world itself, then our thinking can be a burden.  To me to be at rest means to trust that all is happening for my greater good.  I dont’ remember where it says it but there is a saying that God can turn all things to our greater good.  In my limited vision, often all I see is what is right in front of me and it seems like too much.  But God will not simply take it from me. He is not that imposing.  Only when I turn to Him and say, I have had enough.  I no longer want to continue to see things this way, be this way, feel this way–please take it from me.  Sometimes it is immediately removed, other times I am given insight as to how I am still getting some use out of that way of thinking or being.  Either way, until I bring it to God, I am trying to solve it in my own limited mind.  I heard once that the head that got me intro trouble cannot be the one to get me out.  (I think Einstein was credited with that kind of thinking.)  I need to be connected to a source greater than me to solve my problems, whatever they are.  I also am reminded that not matter how big or how small a situation it is neither too big or to little for God. He created every little itty bitty cell and atom, etc. why wouldn’t he want to be involved with the care of it all?  God is only limited by the ways that I limit God.  This week I have come to an awareness of a way of thinking that I have held onto for a long time.  It is a thought of something that I am doing wrong.  And while I got present to how it is not helpful to me anymore, it kept me feeling safe for a very long time.  That is what I find about many beliefs that I have still lingering in my brain.  I am grateful to see how it is not useful and have a little hope that by resting and trusting in God, I can experience a new thought and a new way of being because my ultimate safety comes from being at rest in God.  What is a thought or belief or way of being that you are still holding on to?  How can God relieve you of that burden? My prayer for you today is that you may experience the rest (love) of God in some small way that relieves you of a burden.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

 In one of my favorite movies, “Ever After”, one of the main characters declares that he used to think that if cared about anything he would have to care about everything.  What he realized however, is that he could focus more on one thing than another.  Find his passion and go with it.  He is inspired by his newfound love of the Cinderella character because she is very passionate and speaks her mind.  From that he is able to identify how he wants to make an impact on the world.  I used to think very much the same way.  That if I let anyone in to my heart, I would have to let everyone into my heart.  With maturity and some recovery from my black and white thinking, I am able to see that I can have different levels of closeness with people.  I can also choose those things that are most important to me and those determine the places where I put the most time and energy.  Other things will get done and happen, but will not take center stage.  Life is full of passion and excitement and sometimes when I connect with what stirs that in me, I have an inkling of what direction God may want me to go in.  It is my responsibility to take the action in that direction and see what happens.  The hard part is not looking for the result, but just to stay in today.  How does the pursuance of this in this moment bring me closer to God, connect me to the world at large and allow me to make a contribution?  It is not about the end result it is about the journey.  My ego so wants it to be about the end result.  In fact, it doesn’t want to dare to take any action unless I can be certain of the results.  This is that everything or nothing thinking.  In the past, this has led to a very small life.  It is only when I dare to take a step in the direction of my passions and interests and leave the results to God that I begin to fully live.  What drives you to dare to take action?  My prayer for you today is that you are able to connect with your passion and dare to take some small action in that direction knowing that God is right there with you.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen