Sunday, February 24, 2008

Live Your Best Life

Live your
Best Life
End to End
to look at yourself with an awareness of
how the challenges of your life can
be the fuel that will enable you to swim
against the stream
against the cultural currents
The essential guide to plan your next journey
People Do Not Decide
To Become Extraordinary
They Decide to Accomplish
EXTRAORDINARY THINGS
The Ultimate Adventure
help your Superhero save the planet
SAVE LIVES
Go from street to summit
The view is endless
Live Your Best Life
words i cut out of a magazine put together for a friend in transit

Saturday, February 23, 2008

the Father's Hand

Let the Father's hand land heavy on me as I go through this season to shape me. Let His hands in the messiness of my life - in the brokenness - to make the wholeness of a vessel to be poured out for Him.
This was something I wrote after watching a teacher throw a clay pot and tell the story of the Potter's Process. I cried the whole time, cause I saw myself as that lump of clay.
The past few months of been intense for me and I have had to let the Father into the messiness and brokenness of my past and present. It has been a time of truly forgiving others, the easy part and a time of forgiving myself, the hard part. It has been a time of healing and wholeness. A time of freedom. He is not done yet and at times i feel as though He is still trying to center me so He can began the task of shaping me into the beautiful vessel He wants me to be.
All because He loves me.
the Potter's Process
1. He has a plan and He alone knows what He will give you the capacity to hold.
God's plan.
2. He prepares the clay by working out all the air pockets. If He does not work them all out you will explode in the heat of the firing.
God's grace.
3. He puts the lump of clay on the wheel and has to center it. His hands on the clay holding on applying pressure to center it.
God's presence.
4. He begins to open the clay.
God's emptying.
5. Once the clay is open He can start to form and shape it into a new vessel.
God's forming.
6. The first firing and most important, cause if there is still junk in it it will explode.
God's testing.
7. The second firing and the hottest firing where the process is completed. Now it can be used.
God's glory.

A beautiful mosaic?

"The Spirit said, "All the broken pieces of your life are nothing more than the beautiful mosaic of your future."
So, I shared my simile of our lives as clay tablets; works of art that we're improving upon daily. We each paint our own tablet. While some of our tablets are bright and beautiful, full of color and life, others are drab, with only beige and brown paint signifying an unfilled life. More important though is what happens once your precious clay tablet slips from your fingers one day and falls to pieces at your feet. No matter the color of your tablet, once it's shattered you will bow your knee to inspect the damage. Bowing down to the broken pieces of your life is an automatic reaction. One person bows down and picks up the pieces. Then, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he redesigns his picture, pasting the pieces to create a new mosaic. Because, "all the broken pieces of your life are nothing more than the beautiful mosaic of your future." Another person knells down among his destruction. He too collects the pieces, but then he sits in it - defeated. It cuts him and he bleeds. Every time you pass by, you see him still sitting there among the fragments of his life, bleeding. He cherishes his pain and bitterness flows from it. --Retha Mc Pherson a message from God

Something to think about!

Psalm 143

A Psalm of David.
Hear my prayer, O LORD,
Give ear to my supplications!
Answer me in Your faithfulness, in Your
righteousness!
And do not enter into judgement with
Your servant,
For in Your sight no man living is
righteous.
For the enemy has persecuted my
soul;
He has crushed my life to the ground;
He has mad me dwell in dark places,
like those who have long been dead.
Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed
within me;
I remember the day of old;
I meditate on the work of Your Hands.
I stretch out my hands to You;
My soul longs for You, as a parched
land.
Answer me quickly, O LORD, my spirit
fails;
Do not hide Your face from me,
Or I will become like those who go
down to the pit.
Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the
morning;
Teach me the way in which I should
walk;
For to You I lift up my soul.
Deliver me, O LORD, form my
enemies;
I take refuge in You.
Teach me to do Your will,
For you are my God;
Let Your good Spirit lead me on level
ground.
For the sake of Your name, O LORD,
revive me.
In Your righteousness bring my soul out
of trouble.
And in Your lovingkindness, cut off my
enemies
And destroy all those who afflict my
soul,
For I am Your servant.
This has been a Psalm that I have prayed for the last few months. It has been the prayer I have cried out to God with and I have found peace and comfort in it.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Every Can Counts!

Every Can Counts!


My nephew, Ty, watched a program about orphans in Africa. He decided to start collecting cans and recycle them to help feed the orphans.


He told me about his plan and I decided to help him. One day we put on our rubber gloves and took off on the quad with black trash bag in hand to collect cans. Our first stop was my cousin's house that is being built. We collected quiet a few cans and then took off for the ditches. Ty was ditch hopping and i was driving the quad. He would throw the cans up and I would empty them and smash them and put them in the bag. Team work!! He grabbed a real muddy dirty nasty can and I told him not to get that one. He told me with all seriousness, "NO, Aunt Kathy, Every can counts!" Man o man did that ever hit me hard. So, because he was right we collected a bucket full of muddy dirty nasty cans along with a half bag of other cans not so dirty. Mostly beer cans. I love that. I thought a lot about what he said. I even had a conversation with a dear friend about "every can counts".

What if we really lived each day like every can counted? Really think about that question!
Could we end poverty?
I think we could end poverty if we lived each day like every can counted. I think no person would ever go hungry.
I know we will always have the poor with us, cause Jesus tell us we will, but they do not have to go hungry.

I can not pass a can with out picking it up. I have even done some trash can diving and ditch diving. The enemy tried to stop me by speaking to my pride and saying what will people think of you, but I remember why and who I am picking up the cans. I pushed my pride aside and continued to dig in the trash, cause "Every Can Counts Aunt Kathy!"
What else might end if we lived like every can counted?
Think about it and let me know.