😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  I had to smile Monday morning when a coworker stopped by my office to say “Hi”.  She turned to leave, then came back and said “De Colores”.  If you are not familiar with greeting someone with “De Colores” then that tells me you’ve probably not experienced the Walk to Emmaus weekend experience.  But for all those of you that have, I would guess just hearing De Colores brought a smile to your face and some wonderful memories to mind.  It brings a feeling of family and can lighten a room.  I’ve known this coworker for about 1 ½ years and that simple greeting was like uncovering a precious stone that was just below the surface.  I took my Emmaus Walk in 2011 and she took her Walk just a couple years ago.  It’s amazing but not surprising how God will use a separate, but shared experience to draw us together.  I didn’t go into my Emmaus Walk weekend looking for friendships, but I would say that was my greatest take away, my friendship with the Lord.  Father, Son and Spirit.  I can only speak for myself, but you may have had the same experience.  Just like Monday, hearing her say De Colores brought an immediate feeling of friendship and I believe that was the Lord’s presence within her that brought forth that feeling.  De Colores…That was the Lord saying “I’m thinking of you Shelly.”  “I’m right here with you.”  “I love you Shelly.”  “We’ve got this.”  What a great feeling of comfort He brings when we least expect.  The Lord moves in mighty ways.  Sometimes those ways will be majestic, but the majority of the time He’s in the ordinary of everyday life.  We just need to open ourselves to be willing to accept Him.  If you’re interested in taking another step in your relationship with the Lord by experiencing your Walk to Emmaus weekend, contact me.  I’m more than happy to share with you what the weekend is all about and answer all of your questions.  By the way, De Colores is also a song, a Spanish song which means of color.  The words of the song are an expression of joy and a celebration of all creation with its many bright colors.  It expresses the joy of living and exalts the beauties of creation.  This song has a crazy amount of verses, so I’ll just give you a sample.  Also, I wasn’t able to find a video in English, so I hope you enjoy this song in its native language.

#JoanBaez – De Colores

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  In the fall of 2011 Brian and I woke up one morning and decided to drive to Michigan.  About 2 ½ hours into the drive, shortly after crossing the boarding from Ohio to Michigan, Brian received a call asking him if he would be interested in interviewing for a position that was located in Michigan.  That afternoon we purchased a dress shirt so that he would have something to wear to his interview the following day.  That interview turned into a job offer that in a matter of 6, maybe 7 weeks moved us from our home, family, and friends to an apartment in a city we didn’t know or know anyone.  It was just over two years of intense growth, some intense arguments, and what in the moment seemed not very enjoyable.  I’m someone that enjoys and I feel thrives in routine and comfort.  There’s a part of me that can be a risk taker, but for the most part I’m good with same old, same old.  Flash forward to last Wednesday.  We were on the road once again traveling to Michigan, when Brian once again receives a call offering him a job that will put a gap in our lives.  Currently Brian and I work at the same place, although we don’t work in the same areas, but we ride to work together and walk almost every day with each other at lunch.  We currently only have a 7 minute drive to work, but his will soon change.  I would have to say that probably my greatest pleasure is spending time with family and friends.  I know this will be a transition and another time of growth as was our time when we moved to Michigan, but there will surely be a part of me that misses my best friend.  I know I need to listen and be open to what the Lord is offering us and be willing to walk through the doors He opens.  Even when the opportunities He offers us seem to be a challenge and a bit scary at times, I know a few things for a fact: 1) His relationship with us is about loving us, not harming us.  2) He will never give us anything that we and Him couldn’t weather together.  3) If we don’t accept His gifts, we will never become all that He intends for us.  I also know that He is always that quiet whisper in the blowing storms of life, that will never leave you alone.  He is peace.  The peace we all long for.  Yes, even you, the one that’s saying “I’m good.  I’ve got this.”  He is the peace you long for.  Bless others and be blessed. 

#HopeDarst – Peace Be Still

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  Today Brian and I celebrate 19 years of marriage, but more importantly we celebrate 19 years of true friendship.  We celebrate a friendship that lasts the tests of time, changing interests, growing pains, struggles, etc.  It’s easy for a friendship to thrive in the good times, actually it doesn’t take much effort.  The question is, will you persevere through all that life carries with it?  I believe it all comes down to the rock we use to build our foundation.  Both Brian and I have said multiple times, “If we didn’t have the Lord as our foundation, we probably wouldn’t still be married.”  When the Lord is at our core, we know that we don’t/won’t walk this journey alone. 

I want to share something with you a quote that I feel directly relates to our ability to thrive in friendships.  I wrote it down many years ago, although I’m not sure where I read it, but it touched me enough that I wanted to save it.  I tried looking up the author, but found that many people have been credited with saying slightly different versions of this and the original author is not clearly known.

Watch your thoughts, they become words.

Watch your words, they become action.

Watch your actions, they become habits.

Watch your habits, they become character.

Friendship starts with a single thought that becomes a spoken word.  Your words lead to action, which then change your direction and forms new habits.  As your character forms from these habits, you are no longer growing alone, but together.  True friendships are worth every effort you have to put into them.  Friendship is not a solo journey.  

As much as Brian and I are friends, we know that our friendships with the Lord needs to come before our friendship with each other.  With this in mind ask yourself these questions:

What efforts will I make today to wrap my thoughts in the Lord? 

What words will I speak that can only come from the Lord?

What actions will I take to put His will before mine?

How will my habits be filled with the desire to walk with Him?

How will my daily character show Christ without having to speak a word?

Bless others and be blessed.

#TimMcGraw – My Best Friend

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  Tuesday morning I shared a quote from Mother Teresa with a couple of friends.  “July 28: We must know that we have been created for great things, not just to be a number in the world, not just to go for degrees and diplomas. Not just to work and accomplish.  We have been created to love and be loved.  This is easy to forget amidst the busyness of life.  You have been created to love and be loved.  Make love a priority.”  Michele responded back with some very wise words of her own.  “Every thing is merely a vehicle to move God’s Love.” 

Let this sink in for a minute…“Every thing is merely a vehicle to move God’s Love.”  How true is that?  Caring for a child.  Allowing someone to vent.  Sitting quietly with a friend.  Your job.  Praying for someone even when they don’t know it.  Allowing someone to walk out of your life.  Encouraging words.  A shoulder to cry on.  A voice of truth when it would be easier to just go along with the crowd.  Helping someone stand on their own two feet.  Offering wisdom and experience, but allowing someone to make their own mistakes.  Sharing an encouraging word.  How many times today will you climb aboard God’s love vehicle for someone else?  How many times today will someone else drive God’s love vehicle to you?  Every word, every look, every action is an opportunity for spreading God’s love.  That’s how we were created.  There is NEVER a day in which God’s love has not touched your life.  Don’t allow yourself to forget this one truth.  1 Corinthians 13:13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”  Bless others and be blessed.

#Switchfoot – Native Tongue

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  Last Friday as I was walking from my garage to the house, a tomato plant that was growing in my firepit caught my eye.  It was a good-looking plant.  I decided to move it to the flowerbed so it wouldn’t get burned up in a future fire we would have.  I headed back to the garage to get the proper tools to prepare the new ground and carefully removed the plant with as little damage as possible to it.  I placed it in the soil, gently packed the soil around the root, set the mulch in place, pruned it, and gave it a good drink.  It looked a little wilted, but that was to be expected.  I’m sure it will perk up after the cooler evening weather.  The next morning it was worse!  Seriously?  It was so drooped over and wilted, it looked like it wouldn’t survive.  I felt kind of bad.  I wanted to help it, but instead I was killing it.  Have you ever experienced life like that?  You seem to be in a good place just growing away, then God comes in and moves you to where you had no intention of going.  He prepared the ground for you, did a little pruning, and gave you a big drink of His living water, but you didn’t want to move.  You were happy where you were at!  Although you may never know the potential fire, He saved you from, you fight the move and wilt.  It may take a “few days”, but as you stretch and sink your roots into your new ground, flowers start to bloom and soon His fruit fills your life and you come to realize the blessings the Lord had planned for you all along.  It’s okay to question God, but know that ultimately, He only wants the best for you.  Stretch out your roots and get a strong hold on the Lord.  Soak up His living water and grow as only you can with the Lord.  Bless others and be blessed. 

#TimTimmons – Everywhere I Go

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  Life can be reckless.  At times we throw caution to the wind and find ourselves in the midst of situations we never even imagined.  Some of which we wish we never ventured into, but there may also be some that open us to new opportunities that we would have never really planned out for ourselves.  Where have you allowed your life to become reckless?  How recent has that been in your life?  How did that work out for you?  Would you do it again?  So, if you would do that reckless act again, it’s not so reckless this time, is it?  You’ve put more thought into your actions and you’ve considered some of the options and consequences.

This past weekend’s Gospel reading was from Matthew 13, The Parable of the Sower.  It introduces us to the farmer whose seeds landed on the path, rocky round, among thorns, and on good soil.  The Father is not reckless, although at times without knowing His plan, His actions can seem very reckless to us.  Why would He even bother throwing seed on the path?  He already knew the birds would eat it up.  Why would He let it fall on rocky ground where it could quickly take root and spring forth, but just as quickly be scorched by the hot sun and wither due to its lack of a deep root system?  Wouldn’t you think He really didn’t want the seed to land among the thorns, knowing that the plants would be choked out?  

So, when the Father first threw seeds in your direction, were you the path, the rocky ground, or amongst the thorns.  How about the second time He threw seeds in your direction?  What about the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh times He threw seeds in your direction?  Where were you?  How many times did the Father have to throw seeds in your direction before they landed in fertile soil?  Each of those times, the Father sent a farmer who sowed those seeds and I imagine about 95% of the time, you never even recognized the farmer’s actions in the moment.  But now that His seed finally landed on and took firm roots in your fertile soil, He has produced a beautiful harvest within you that is overflowing with His seeds.  You were the soil that grew the seeds, that produced a harvest, so that you now become the farmer with an abundance of seed that the Father has given you to recklessly scatter on ALL grounds in His name.  When we listen to Him, the Holy Spirit is a wind that guides the direction in which we are to allow the seeds to blow.  These seeds have such great potential for the next harvest, but if you don’t recklessly scatter them, they cannot grow to produce the next harvest.  Allow His “reckless” Spirit to fill you with His love, so that you may become His Farmer.  Bless others and be blessed.

#CoryAsbury – Reckless Love

07/08/2020

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  As it’s been said, it’s better to laugh at life than cry about it.  In the midst of frustration yesterday, God had me laughing.  Let’s see if you can relate.  I was trying to seek clarification and guidance at work from my supervisors in order to complete a task that I was told by my first level supervisor that I completed incorrectly.  One supervisor (the one that told me I did the task incorrectly) was on speaker phone and my second level supervisor was sitting in my office with me.  The first said do it this way.  And immediately the second said don’t do it like that, do it like this.  Okay….my first level supervisor is the one that will review my work and approve it or send it back to me for corrections.  This was when I started to laugh.  Who’s guidance do I accept and act upon, the one that reviews my work or the one that gives me my annual review?  Well I chose to act upon the guidance of the supervisor with more authority.  I guess later today I’ll find out what the repercussions are.  Yesterday, while replaying the day in my head on my drive home from work, that’s when it dawned on me what that whole interaction was about.  Who am I taking my guidance from?  We all certainly have our options and are generally pretty quick to offer guidance in all kinds of situations.  Unfortunately, more times than not, our human opinions don’t always offer the best guidance, which is why we are told time and again that we should first turn to the Father, our Savior, and the Holy Spirit.  Hey, check that out.  You actually get a Three in One group guidance session and the good news is, their guidance will always be the same.  They will keep you moving forward in one direction, not pulling you in three different directions.  And when you have consistent guidance and motion in one direction, you will travel a smoother road, at a steadier pace, with less trouble.  Notice I didn’t say NO troubles.  Keep focused on the light to prevent stumbling in the dark.  Take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it for good.  Bless others and be blessed.

#ElevationWorship – See A Victory

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  One of the daily devotionals I’m currently reading is “Do Something Beautiful for God – The Essential Teachings of Mother Teresa”.  I would like to share with you the reading for June 26^th.  “I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks.  God and silence are great friends.  We need to listen to God because it’s not what we say, but what He says to us and through us that matters.”

Last Thursday I received a text from a friend inviting me to a paint night with her on Saturday.  The friend that she originally planned that evening with had to cancel due to her husband being diagnosed with COVID.  When we talked through the details of paint night, she mentioned that another friend suggested that she ask me to go.  Out of curiosity I asked who suggested me.  There was a pause and then she mentioned one of our mutual friends.  My immediate thought was…”She paused because she didn’t want me to know that I wasn’t her first choice to ask.”  Well, I may not have been the first, but I was the one that said yes and we got to share a meal and have an enjoyable evening together. 

Seriously, I took no offense to not being the first one chosen, but that pause got me to thinking and having a conversation with God.  You know how that goes when God uses those extremely ordinary and potentially awkward moments to open our hearts and minds to Him.  He started off by asking me a question.  “Do you choose Me first?”  Well, I wish I could say yes, but Lord, the truth is no.  I don’t always choose you first.  “Why is that?”  I try to figure things out on my own and do things my way.  “Why?”  Well, sometimes you never even cross my mind.  Well, that was an arrow straight to my heart and very humbling.  Although that should have been more of an arrow straight to His heart.  I’m the one rejecting Him, so why does that make my heart hurt?  I believe it’s because I know deep down how much better life and interactions are when I first bring Him into the moment.  So why is it so easy to not include Him?  In one word…distraction.  And He just proved His point loud and clear.  As I was writing that last sentence, the 4 year old neighbor boy called me over to look at his chalk drawings and talk with me.  Okay, so it was a cute distraction, but a distraction none the less and goes to prove that life’s distractions come in many forms.  So the question I pose to you today is this…”How do you combat the distractions of life in order to keep Him front and center in your life and welcome Him to join you at every moment of your journey?”  Mother Teresa already shared one of her suggestions…Begin prayer in silence.  “It is in the silence of the heart that God speaks.”  Please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions.  You can even share one of your awkward moments.  You never know, God may be using you to help me and other readers, to allow Him into our days a little bit more.  Bless others and be blessed. 

#CastingCrowns – One Awkward Moment

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  Today I want to allow you some time to breath in Romans 8: 28-39.   

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Let this promise of incomparable, unfailing, never leaving love of Christ fill your every breath.  His love is life. Bless others and be blessed.

#GeorgeBenson – Nothing’s Going to Change My Love for You

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace be with you.  In my bathroom I have a coin shaped token that leans up against a statue of Christ and the token has Philippians 4:13 printed on it.  “I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me.”  I read that quiet often in hopes that God will prepare me for the next steps/journeys in my life. 

How often and how many of us are guilty of taking one line of scripture, place our interpretation on the line, and hold on to it for dear life.  Okay, you don’t have to admit to that, but I’m certainly guilty.  It’s a good thing God is patient and willing to remind me multiple times about lessons He’s already taught me, and willing to present them in different ways so that hopefully they stick this time.  I normally read the NIV Bible version, but a couple of days ago I read the HCSB Bible version of Philippians 4: 12-13 “In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content – whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.  I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me.”  Wait a minute…WHAT?  “I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me.” is about contentment?!  Being the best I am, where I am?  It’s not about the next greatest thing and what looks greener on the other side of the fence?  It’s about strengthening me for this moment, this challenge I’m now living.  It’s about the victory that’s within my reach, not some wish I could of, should of, would of moment.  Awakening moments like this with the Lord are great, although we don’t always want to hear them.  Wisdom does come at a price, which is more often than not, the price of pride which brings us back to humility.  Lord, I’m so thankful You are patient with me and willing to gently humble me in times like this.  Bless others and be blessed.

#ThirdDay – Show Me Your Glory