What a good way to start the week: with a blessing. A prayer for protection. For sustenance. For joy. For love. For dreams fulfilled. So after I uploaded the blessing, I did two things: 1. I prayed for each one for you to be blessed today … and this coming week. 2. And I wondered what kind of blessing you …
In Others’ Words: Planting Seeds
So was it a week where you harvested … or a week where you planted seeds? I’m curious: What seeds did you plant this week? In Your Words: Would you rather harvest or plant seeds? What seeds did you plant this week? Are you a virtual gardener or a real one — or both? Judge the …
In Others’ Words: Waste Not
I have CJ, my youngest daughter, to thank for this post. Her volleyball coach asked each girl to list five things they bring to the team. As we talked about it this morning on the way to school, I told CJ to include resilience on her list of attributes. For a 13-year-old, CJ has an amazing ability to shake things …
In Others’ Words: Inner Grace
The first time I read Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s quote about achieving a state of inner spiritual grace, I thought “Yes. I want that too.” I just didn’t know the journey I would need to take to “function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God” was going to be so arduous. Inner spiritual grace sounded so …
In Others’ Words: Choosing You
The best of friends call us out on things. There was the day my friend Faith saw me caught up in a swirl of expectations — my expectations for myself, as well as all the imaginary and real expectations that other people had for me. I allowed the unspoken should’s and ought’s to overwhelm me and distort me into some …
In Others’ Words: A Bit of Advice
Ah, advice. We love giving others advice — often with a “take it or leave it” qualifier. But when it comes to hearing and accepting advice from someone else? That’s not always so easy, is it? Maybe I’m the only one with the virtual deflector shields of “I know what I’m doing” and “I can figure this out on my …
In Others’ Words: A Choice of Colors
I see words in color. Not every word … names, mostly. And certain other ones. No rhyme or reason to why or why not a word appears in my head in color or basic black. My name? Beth My husband’s name? Rob Home family friendship laughter celebrate sorrow tears And yes, I have my favorite color: …
In Others’ Words: Celebrating More
Got anything to celebrate today? Is it something you’d like to celebrate again … and again … and again? I’m celebrating sending off a novella manuscript — and hoping to celebrate that more in the future. I’m celebrating how my daughters and sons-in-love and daughter-in-love create a heart-expanding vision of family. And I’m anticipating the celebrations that will happen once …
In Others’ Words: Old Nonsense
How many yesterdays are you dragging around with you? Such weighty invisibles … slowing us down, holding us back. If I’m looking in the rear view mirror, how can I be aware of what’s happening up ahead? How can I be prepared for the future if I’m mired in the past? The question that has lingered with me all weekend …
In Others’ Words: Only You
There are some things only I can do. Being me, for example. Nobody else can be me. Brilliant deduction, I know. I spent some time — too much time, to be honest — doubting myself. (Yes, yes, I’ve admitted this before, so I won’t belabor it again.) Lesson learned: Spend too much time doubting yourself and you spend too little …