Clean out those buckets

Where do you get your inspiration from?  I thought of this yesterday as I spoke with an office co-worker.  She was having a day of the blues and instantly without even thinking  I began to encourage her with words that were not of my own.  I know this because I am always at a loss for words.  But I have one thing that I am proud of. I have a heart that is bigger than my brain.  I have found that if someone is hurting I also hurt with them.  And from the moment I see someone in pain my only goal is to find a way to reach down and lift them up out of misery. Do I always achieve my goal.  Of course not.  It would be silly of me to think that I have a magic wand that I can just wave and make everything ok again.  But rather I hit the mark or miss it by a long shot I know that the person in need leaves the table feeling better than they did when they arrived.  Some times I think we need to crawl through the mud and get a little dirty before we can look back and see that a little dirt never hurt anyone.  No one likes to be sad or feel pain.  But I think that if we can’t climb the mountains we can’t appreciate the view from the top.  I have always said that you can’t have a testimony until we first have a test.  So that makes me think why then do we have to be put through the tests of life.  I know that God will not put any more on us than we can handle.  Very often I remind God of this when I feel like my bucket is full and running over, as if God does not know what is in there already.  And maybe my testimony is an essential key to someone else who’s bucket already over flowed and needs to know that there is a way to get through it.  Hey my bucket already broke but God sent me an even bigger bucket and he will do the same for you.  I think we often forget that we are all in this together, we all are dealing with the same problems.  No one is exempt from problems but isn’t it great to know that he sent his son to pay a debt that he didn’t owe for a debt we could never pay.  I don’t know about you, but just that alone makes me feel like all that junk I’m carrying around in my bucket isn’t that big a deal.  Lets all look through our buckets today because I’m most sure we are holding on to stuff that we can just toss out. 

 

Blessings till I post again.

Happy Saturday

I’m sitting here this morning with a cup of my favorite crème brulee coffee as my oldest cat is settling in for her nap. It’s a morning ritual that you can set a clock by.  My alarm goes off at 4am (yes even on the weekends) and I get up only to be greeted by our youngest cat who has only been awake for seconds, but that does not stop the warm reception that you receive.  She is always so happy to see you and she lets you know it too.  After I finally get settled in to my office chair Olivia takes her cue to finally go to bed and Ginger is ready to find out just how many adventures she can have, how many new games she can come up with.  Ginger has only been with us about a year and a half but this cat is always coming up with new games.  It’s funny how they both have such different personalities.  We call Olivia and old prude and let me tell you, it fits her well.  The only time Olivia will be lovey dovey is when she wants something from you, other than that you are pretty much in her way and not to be dealt with.  Ginger on the other hand Loves attention and just lives to make you smile.  Most days I like to think I am having a Ginger day, but lets be real here, we all know that we can have Olivia days too.  I try to be in a great mood 100% of the time, and I know that bar is set pretty high, but I have to give Thanks to God, because I have a very good track record for hitting that bar 90% of the time. 

 

This is the part of the day where I would be looking at weather.com to see how cold it’s gonna get today, but looking at my atomic clock its 72.2 in my office and 2.9 outside, I think I’m just gonna sip some more coffee, be thankful I am warm and motivate myself to get on with my day.

 

Blessings till I post again.

My first Blog of 2011 HAPPY NEW YEAR

With each new year people begin to make new year resolutions and according to the internet only 12% of resolutions are kept/met and here are some interesting facts from one website I visited.

Men achieved their goal 22% more often when they set small, measurable goals (lose a pound a week, rather than a vague "lose weight"). Women succeeded 10% more often when they made their goals public and enlisted help from friends.

 

Here are the top 5 New Years resolutions I found on the internet.  Most seem to be the same from year to year.

5. Be a Yes man (Based on some movie I have not seen)

4. Break the Habit

3. Spend more time with loved ones

2. Tame the bulge

1. Go Back to School.

 

Number one did surprise me, not that I am surprised that people want to go back to school, just that it was the number one resolution.  I have to think that this study was a bit skewed because at the end of the article there was a bunch of information and prices for going back to school. But I have to think that numbers 2 – 4 are very accurate because of all the websites I visited they were always on the list and mostly in the top 5. 

Here are the top 5 Children New Year resolutions.

5. Have Fun

4. Work Hard

3. Reach your Dream

2. Give Back

1. Appreciate Today

I am not sure if children really complied this list or not, but if so I think we can really learn a lot from them.  Instead of setting goals aimed mostly at ourselves they set goals that should be in our top 5 things to do not in a year but daily.  I really like number one Appreciate today.  I think I achieve that 90% of the time.  I am very positive and tend to see the glass as running over for most parts and this does tend to drive most people around me crazy because true there isn’t always gold at the end of that rainbow but that does not stop me from pointing out the good in the bad.  But yes like every body else in this crazy world I do have my days where that gold can be on both ends of the rainbow and I would not give a hoot.  But thank God those days are very FEW and FAAAAAAR Between.  Any day that I can get out of bed and kiss my beautiful wife and tell her I love her is the best day of my life.  No matter how good or bad things go I can always be grateful that the lord sent me the best gift that I have and will ever have.  The love and patient of my wife.  I’ve said it before and so I’ll say it again.  Life is good  (NAAA GREAT!!!!!)

Blessings till I post again.

Merry Christmas!!!

What a wonderful Morning,  The snow covered ground. My 2 cats have shared their love with me and have gone back to bed dreaming about who knows what.  I’m eager to see what Christmas 2010 has in store for me today.  I have already started my morning out with my usual routines. Exercise, Internet, Coffee.  So anything else that can be added to this day is just an added bonus.  I love days like that, Where you get that feeling of accomplishment out of the way before the rest of the world has a chance to even get their head’s off their pillows.  Then you find yourself sitting around saying now what?  Oh I see dust better get that cleaned up.  Opps I see a spot on the counter top I must have missed get out that wash cloth.  Wonder if there is any Laundry to be done?  Yep sure enough.  By the time you finally do something that is foreign to me and sit down you think ok so now it’s 7am, most of the world is up now and I’m still trying to find things to do.  So instead of looking for things to do I’ll just sit here and delete some old emails. Maybe, just maybe watch some TV and just think about how blessed my life is.  How lucky I am that God gave me such a wonder wife. Such a great job, and a family that thinks I’m just as weird as I think they are.  Life is so good, and just think after we reach that finish line IT GETS BETTER!

Blessings till I post again.

If that Isn’t Love

He left the splendor of Heaven, Knowing his destiny. Those 2 lines from probably my favorite gospel song always makes me ponder just how important my life is to God.  The Bible and many of my favorite Gospel songs are full of indications that God is just crazy in love with us.  Just to think that when he came to earth he knew his destiny was to give up his life to pave the way to salvation.  Paying the price for a guilty sinner like me.  I try to understand how anyone could love me that much that he would be willing to die for my sins.  How many times have we looked in the mirror and placed judgment on ourselves saying such hurtful things like you are ugly, you don’t deserve to be loved.  I’m sure the list goes on and on.  You could probably add more to my list I am sure we have all been there.  But the truth of the matter is that it does not matter what we think.  God the creator made you and me and he decides what we are worth.  We don’t get a vote.  I was listening to someone on TV last night and they said something to the fact that he is the potter and we are the clay.  The pot does not get to tell the potter what the pot is worth.  The potter tells the pot what it is worth.  How true is that and just think how many times we try to put a price on our life.  Sometimes we think we are the best thing since sliced bread and other times we are beating ourselves up.  I have never been a fan of New Year’s Resolutions, but I think I will make a New Life Resolution.  I want to stop putting worth on my life and accept that Jesus loves me so much and I am priceless.  How rude of me to try to insult what the Lord has made.  I know that God does not make Junk and he see’s more in me that I will ever see in myself.  So Today when you look in the mirror don’t insult the potter,  You compliment that clay and thank God that he picked that mud up and made someone in his own likeness. 

to end where I began… It Had to be Love.

 

Blessings till I post again.

What are you Thinking.

I never know what I am going to write about until I sit down and my fingers start hitting the keys.  Much like my ever day life.  I never know what I am thinking until I hear the words coming out of my mouth.  Many times Sheila will say to me what are you thinking about. And like many men I say oh nothing.  If only she knew how true that is.  Ok there may be a rare occasion where I actually have a thought running through my brain but that’s not very often.  The wheels are spinning but the hamster’s dead.  LOL.    But seriously, many times I don’t have anything on my mind.  I come from a long line of what I call speak thinkers.  My Mother suffers from this much worse than I.  Many times after I have said something, even I say to myself “wow that made no sense”.  But I guess that is just what makes me who I am.  I wish I were a lot more like my Dad. He runs a thought carefully through his brain, really giving it as much thought as any one person can.  Once he speaks his thoughts they actually make sense (most of the time). One thing I do get from my Dad is being quiet.  I love to listen to what people are saying.  Often times I say to myself what the heck?  Did that person just say that?  Did they mean it?  Do they have any idea what they are saying?  But then it occurs to me that maybe they are just speak thinking and right now they are saying to themselves, What the heck did I Just say?

 

But I guess I do possess another quality that the other speak thinkers out there may or may not do.  I go sailing down memory lane.  I think I do that when there is nothing good playing on my brain so my body goes into autopilot and plays and oldie but goodie memory.  Sure it may not be Lucy and Ethyl stuffing Chocolates in their mouth, Or Andy and Barney trying to catch someone running an illegal still. But memories are far more valuable than silver or gold.  They are not something you can buy or sell but they are priceless.

Grateful

I woke up this morning with an attitude of just being grateful.  Yes I woke up with a headache and a runny nose, But thank God I am alive.  Many times I forget to be grateful for all the blessings in my life.  And then you wake up feeling miserable and that’s when you sit down, get quiet and reflect on the more important things in life.  If I had woke up feeling fine this morning I would have just went about my normal morning routines and not given another thought about being grateful.  So I’m thankful this morning that I woke up feeling yucky.  I probably am the last person you would expect to be thankful to be feeling miserable. But I know that God sometimes has to hit me on the back of the head and say SIT DOWN, BE STILL and let me take the wheel.   See we all know that we have to have God in our life and we know that we can’t do anything without him.  But sometimes we get to comfortable and set in our ways that we slowly start doing it on our own and before you know it we are in over our head.  But the good news is that when we get in to deep and we know we can’t dig our way out.  God is standing on the side line with his arm stretched out towards us.  And he does not scold us for messing up.  He just wraps us in his arms and smothers us with his love.  So lord, I thank you this morning for my headache and stuffy nose.  We had a good morning.

 

Blessings till I post again.