“You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true.” This is a quote by Richard Bach, author of Jonathon Livingston Seagull, a great weekend read. May all your weekend wishes come true. Happy Saturday.
Tag Archives: books
It’s All In Your Mind
How many of us have had this sentence pronounced on us after disclosing a thought or ailment. Well, it turns out it is true, whatever it is is all in our mind.
Many books convey information on the subconscious mind and I, for one, find it fascinating. More than once I have read that the subconscious mind is an obedient servant and whatever we tell it, it obeys. I gleaned this from a book in 1984 “…the subconscious mind has no sense of humor. It cannot take a joke. It does not chuckle in amusement if we make such statements as , ‘That’s a real pain in the neck!’ On the contrary, to the subconscious mind, an order has been given and, like any good servant, it goes about its business to achieve the goal to which it has been assigned…in this case, a pain in the neck.”
My late husband constantly complained about everything being a pain in the neck and he suffered from chronic neck pain. I read the above passage to him one evening and suggested he try to stop telling himself that everything was a pain in the neck.
Well, he really tried to heed this advice and it took some time but his neck pain was gone.
Someone else constantly complained that everything was a pain in the — (backside). This person died of painful colorectal cancer.
Our minds are truly an amazing part of our being, and learning more about our subconscious mind can be extremely helpful in living life to a fuller extent.
Loud and Clear
It never ceases to amaze me how God speaks to us when we are open to hearing. I’m reading The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren for the umpteenth time. Although there are a couple of things in the book I can’t come to terms with, for the most part it is a “handbook for life”. The book was given to me in 2003 at a time when my life was so stressed that I just wanted to pack up and move away to the country and become a hermit. My almost daily mantra was, I’ve got to get out of here! That was not a good idea nor a good option but it was how I felt…and then I read this on page 263 of The Purpose Driven Life...
You may be serving in obscurity in some small place, feeling unknown and unappreciated. Listen: God put you where you are for a purpose! He has every hair on your head numbered, and he knows your address. You had better stay put until he chooses to move you. He will let you know if he wants you somewhere else.
Let me tell you, I got that message loud and clear! I never again felt the desire to move and I’m still here fifteen years later.
Sharing the Blessings
Yesterday we shared the grief of the residents of Humboldt and surrounding areas. People around the world have poured out their support in many various ways and continue to do so.
Likewise, there are many ways of sharing our spiritual blessings and I believe my blog and my book, both titled My Precious Life, are the ways God has provided me with this kind of sharing. I don’t know about you, but I appreciate the ways people share their blessings with me and I’m thankful to all of you who do so.
Rev. Matthew Ruttan of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Barrie, Ontario is responsible for this new life lesson this morning. He can be found at https://matthewruttan.com/
It’s Supernatural
So what does supernatural mean? Here’s one on-line dictionary’s explanation:
su·per·nat·u·ral
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1.(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.“a supernatural being”
Today I read this in one of my spiritual journals: Faith – the supernatural ability to trust God.
In his book, Twelve Gifts from God, William Warch wrote: Everyone has the gift of faith but not everyone has an active faith.
So then I looked up the word activate, simply put by Wikipedia …
Activate is a verb meaning to make operative or active.
Makes sense, right? We have the gift of speech (or most of us do) but we can’t use it until we activate it by opening our mouths and putting our tongue, lips, and vocal cords to work. So with faith…we must activate our mind, heart, intellect, and whatever it takes to lay hold of this gift and put it to phenomenal use.
I’m not going to be so brash as to try to tell anyone how to activate their gift of faith. When one feels the need, one seeks the deed. That in itself is supernatural.
Happy Sunday
Optimism vs Pessimism
In Tune With the Infinite is a wonderful go-to book written by Ralph Waldo Trine and for the next few days or so I am going to offer excerpts of his wisdom starting today with the Prelude of this great book.
The optimist is right. The pessimist is right. The one differs from the other as the light from the dark. Yet both are right. Each is right from his own particular point of view, and this point of view is the determining factor in the life of each. It determines as to whether it is a life of power or of impotence, of peace or of pain, of success or of failure.
The optimist has the power of seeing things in their entirety and in their right relations. The pessimist looks from a limited and one-sided point of view. The one has his understanding illumined by wisdom, the understanding of the other is darkened by ignorance. Each is building his world from within, and the result of the building is determined b the point of view of each. The optimist, by his superior wisdom and insight, is making his own heaven, and in the degree that he makes his own heaven is he helping to make one for all the world beside. The pessimist, by virtue of his limitations, is making his own hell, and in the degree that he makes his own hell is he helping to make one for all mankind.
You and I have the predominating characteristics of an optimist or the predominating characteristics of a pessimist. We then are making, hour by hour, our own heaven or our own hell; and in the degree that we are making the one or the other for ourselves are we helping make it for all the world beside.
The word heaven means harmony. The word hell is from the old English hell, meaning to build a wall around, to separate; to be helled was to be shut off from. Now if there is such a thing as harmony there must be that something one can be in right relations with; for to be in right relations with anything is to be in harmony with it. Again, if there is such a thing as being helled, shut off, separated from, there must be that something from which one is held, shut off or separated.
Now, we all know people who are either or optimists or pessimists, including ourselves. As for me, I am always pessimistically optimistic; meaning that that which I desire to materialize will do so with a hint that it also may not.
Fruit of Love
Dr. Wayne Dyer has been one of my favorite authors for many years. Here is a tiny excerpt from his book, Real Magic, where he quotes Mother Theresa from her book, For the Love of God.
“The fruit of love is service, which is compassion in action. Religion has nothing to do with compassion, it is our love for God that is the main thing because we have all been created for the sole purpose to love and be loved.” (Bold italics, mine.)
To love and be loved…how many of us know this, and better still, practice it? It’s something the world needs now.
How blessed are those who experience the fruit of love.
Oh That You Would Bless Me Indeed!
These words are from the book, “The Prayer of Jabez” by Bruce Wilkinson, taken from 1 Chronicles 4:10 (NKJV).
“Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.
Let me tell you what happened to me within a nine year period of repeating that prayer:
Two grandsons were added to my twelve grandchildren, seven girls and five boys, evening up the genders. Five of these granddaughters blessed me with nine great-grandchildren with a tenth due in November.
I became an Elder in my church and have fifteen families in my territory, and am available for prayer, information, or help in some way. As a member of our Pastoral Care team there are many opportunities to be of service to those who experience some of life’s difficulties as shut-ins, hospital patients and long-term care residents.
In between times I survived lung cancer, a heart attack, and the death of a spouse. Several other health issues have assailed me over the years and I’m still here.
As you can see, my territory has been enlarged, His hand has been with me, and I have been blessed indeed.
An Excellent Book to Read
Sometimes we need to read something out of our comfort zone and when we do we may see ourselves and our lives in a whole new way. We may learn to think in a different way and open our minds to topics we would rather ignore. It is all a part of growing.
This is what The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren offers. This is a book that must be read with a highlighter and a pen or pencil in hand because there is too much to absorb at one time.
Subconsciously this book spurred me on to write my own book. I realize this in hindsight, after recently reading it for the umpteenth time. Here are a few examples of the passages I had highlighted, and even made notes to write about them:
Page 247 – If you really desire to be used by God, you must understand a powerful truth. The very experiences that you resented or regretted most in life –the ones you’ve wanted to hide and forget–are the experiences God wants to use to help others…For God to use your experiences, you must be willing to share them. (I did this in my book, My Precious Life.)
Page 289 – God has given you a Life Message to share…You have a storehouse of experiences that God wants to use to bring others into his family…
Page 290 – He wants you to share your story with others…If you don’t share it, it will be lost forever…
Page 291 – Sadly, we never learn from a lot that happens to us.
Page 28 – We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners…Many people are driven by resentment and anger. They hold on to hurts and never get over them. Instead of releasing their pain through forgiveness, they rehearse it over and over in their minds…Resentment always hurts you more than it does the person you resent.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough, and remember to use a highlighter; it is absolutely necessary. I truly hope you will read and savor this excellent book.
Stretch the Imagination
Wm. P. Young wrote a book, “The Shack”, in 2007 and this year it was made into a movie. I read the book twice in that ten year span and just watched the movie this week.
What a test for the faith concept and the depiction of God himself…not only God but his counterparts, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They all come together in “the shack” to show the protagonist Mackenzie Phillips that the pain he is suffering over the loss of his five-year-old daughter, Missy, is mostly of his own making.
Mack relives his own painful childhood, including the murder of his father which he himself committed. He dwells on the guilt he feels about leaving Missy alone while he ran to rescue his two other children from a capsized boat. He blames God for it all.
The unfolding tale shows Mack coming to grips with his beliefs, his doubts, and most of all his faith.
This story has a way of opening the mind to new concepts of how we perceive the triune and how we can relate Mack’s pain to the pain in our own lives and how we deal with it. This story is a real eye opener, but it is the way God is portrayed that stretches the imagination.
My Precious Life 