😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Happy Advent!  Welcome to your time of preparation.  But what are you preparing for?  Do you really know?  Are you actually preparing for something?  Depending on what you are preparing for, your needed actions will differ from my needed actions, and will ultimately determine our final outcomes.

I’ve noticed that when I set a 30 minute timer for my lunch break and start seeing the seconds count down, I put more focus on what I want to accomplish in those 30 minutes.  I tend to have my action plan for my lunch break set in the morning before I start work.  I have limited time with specific things I want to accomplish.  They typically include four things, eating, prayer, and reading, while walking.  I sit at a desk for 9 1/2 to 10 hours a day, so I try to walk as much as I can, when I can.  So, considering that 30 minute lunch break, that’s a small amount of time compared to the next 20 days you have to prepare for Christmas. 

Do yourself a favor.

1) Determine what your true goal is for this Advent season.

2) Make a daily plan.

3) Follow your plan with joy, excitement, and the attitude that you cannot fail.

When you approach a task with an I can’t fail attitude, you go after that task with confidence, and confidence empowers you.  May you be filled with the faith of a child, awe, and wonder, as you prepare for Christ’s return in your life. 

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

Fr.MikeSchmitz – The True Meaning of Advent

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Lately Satan has been showing up in almost all aspects of my life.  He has been pushing buttons.  There are some pretty big faith based events coming up for me in the next 10 months and I know Satan is doing his best to distract me and pull me away from God and the plans that are in motion.  He is attacking through my family, work, events, and one on one with me.  In the moment, I’m trying hard to focus on where the attacks are coming from, not who they are coming through.  Unfortunately, at times I allow my emotions to get the better of me and I lash out at who the attacks are coming through, instead of the actual attacker.  Let me tell you right now, this is not a good approach.  People get hurt.  Things can’t be unsaid.  And, apologies are needed to those we hurt in the process. 

You know, we are truly living in a time of spiritual warfare.  Satan and his demons against God and His heavenly hosts of angels.  It’s important to be on your guard at all times.  A perfect example of this was Monday night.  Before going to bed, I was walking around my house praying the Chaplet of St. Michael.  As I walk and pray, I like to look into the faces of the statues and pictures I have of Jesus and Mother Mary.  About half way through the chaplet, Satan started talking…no, attacking me, telling me that when I look into the face of Mary and Jesus, he was going to come through them, after me.  I have to say, that freaked me out a bit.  Seriously, I did not want to see him face to face and I certainly did not want to unleash Satan in my home.  Fear entered me.  The first few I approached, I wanted to keep my head down.  I didn’t want to look up and see Satan.  I kept telling myself, “Trust the Lord!  Trust the Lord!”  I would then slowly look into the face of Mary or Jesus.  It was like this for the rest of my prayer time.  It is by focusing on the light that we can and will dispel the dark.  I was a bit on edge as I tried to sleep that night.

This week, I want to share an incredible video with you.  It is 21 minutes and it is something you will need to watch, not just listen to.  I just have to say WOW!  God, the designer and creator is absolutely incredible!  There is so much to take in, you will probably want to watch this a few times. 

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#GabiAfterHours – Our Lady of Guadalupe

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  As soon as I read Proverbs Chapter 8, The Discourse of Wisdom, I knew I wanted to share it with you.

1 Does not Wisdom call, and Understanding raise her voice?

2 On the top of the heights along the road, at the crossroads she takes her stand;

3 By the gates at the approaches of the city, in the entryways she cries aloud:

4 “To you, O men, I call; my appeal is to the children of men.

5 You simple ones, gain resource, you fools, gain sense.

6 Give heed! for noble things I speak; honesty opens my lips.

7 Yes, the truth my mouth recounts, but wickedness my lips abhor.

8 Sincere are all the words of my mouth, no one of them is wily or crooked;

9 All of them are plain to the man of intelligence, and right to those who attain knowledge.

10 Receive my instruction in preference to silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold.

11 [For Wisdom is better than corals, and no choice possession can compare with her.]

12 I, Wisdom, dwell with experience, and judicious knowledge I attain.

13 [The fear of the LORD is to hate evil;] Pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverse mouth I hate.

14 Mine are counsel and advice; Mine is strength; I am understanding.

15 By me kings reign, and lawgivers establish justice;

16 By me princes govern, and nobles; all the rulers of earth.

17 Those who love me I also love, and those who seek me find me.

18 With me are riches and honor, enduring wealth and prosperity.

19 My fruit is better than gold, yes, than pure gold, and my revenue than choice silver.

20 On the way of duty I walk, along the paths of justice,

21 Granting wealth to those who love me, and filling their treasuries.

22 “The LORD begot me, the firstborn of His ways, the forerunner of His prodigies of long ago;

23 From of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth.

24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains or springs of water;

25 Before the mountains were settled into place, before the hills, I was brought forth;

26 While as yet the earth and the fields were not yet made, nor the first clods of the world.

27 When He established the heavens, I was there, when He marked out the vault over the face of the deep;

28 When He made firm the skies above, when He fixed fast the foundations of the earth;

29 When He set for the sea its limit, so that the waters should not transgress His command;

30 Then was I beside Him as His craftsman, I was His delight day by day, playing before Him all the while,

31 Playing on the surface of His earth; and I found delight in the sons of men.

32 “So now, O children, listen to me;

33 Instruction and wisdom, do not reject! Happy the man who obeys me, and happy those who keep my ways,

34 Happy the man watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts;

35 For he who finds me finds life, and wins favor from the LORD;

36 But he who misses me harms himself; all who hate me love death.”

I found verses 22-31 to be particularly interesting.  Wisdom that was with God at the creation of the heavens and the earth, and all that fill them, is the Holy Spirit of God.  We certainly don’t comprehend it all, but the Lord put His wisdom into every detail.  I’ve read through this chapter multiple times this past week.  There are so many good points to take in.  What caught your attention?

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Continuing my journey through Proverbs, it can be uncomfortable at times.  The truth can certainly hurt.  We don’t always think of our parents as wise people, but regardless of what we think: 

1) Parents have lived longer than their children have. 

2) Parents have made mistakes that they don’t want their children to experience.

3) Parents wish/pray that their children would take to heart the advice/wisdom they impart.

As a child, the older I get and the more I experience life, I more so see and appreciate the wisdom my parents have offered me through the years.

As a parent, I feel hurt for my children when I see them choose self over wisdom.   

Speaking as a parent, one of the most challenging things a parent has to do is watch their children make choices that lead down paths of destruction.  The destruction might be a gradual series of choices or it may be jumping straight into the deep-end, cannonball style.   

We can’t put our children in bubble wrap and protect them from every kind of evil in this world.  Satan is always seeking ways to entice and draw our children and us parents further away from God and closer to himself.  There is no wisdom of truth in Satan’s deceptive utterances, which cause people to feel shame, insecurity, unloved, belittled, unworthy of good gifts, etc.

God doesn’t instruct us to not to do things, just to lord them over us.  He provides instruction and imparts wisdom because He knows how we will feel the moment we do something He instructs us not to do.  It wasn’t very long into the history of the human race that this exact thing happened for the first time.  Queue the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis Chapter 3), their dinner with a serpent (aka Satan), and Adam and Eve playing hide and seek from God.  We are still doing the same thing today.  In our shame, we hide from the Lord.   

God cast Satan out of heaven and gave him dominion over the earth for a time, but God has not left us alone to fight this battle.  Every moment, of every day, God and His host of angels are with us, willing to fighting for us and on our behalf, but it is up to each of us to call them into action.  Ask, seek, knock.

Matthew 7:7-11

7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

8 For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

9 Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread,

10 or a snake when he asks for a fish?

11 If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#InfluenceMusic&MattGilman – Ask

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  The Book of Proverbs primary purpose is to provide instruction, but not just any instruction.  Proverbs provides instruction on the value of wisdom.  Proverbs 1:1-7 sums up the Purpose of the Proverbs of Solomon.

1 The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel:

2 That men may appreciate wisdom and discipline, may understand words of intelligence;

3 May receive training in wise conduct, in what is right, just and honest;

4 That resourcefulness may be imparted to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

5 A wise man by hearing will advance in learning, an intelligent man will gain sound guidance,

6 That he may comprehend proverb and parable, the words of the wise and their riddles.

7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; wisdom and instruction fools despise.

Granted, in this version of the Bible, it states men, but I think we can all agree that instruction in matters of wisdom is meant for all peoples.  In verse 2 it mentions appreciating discipline.  The word discipline may bring to mind different situations from your past, but in this context, discipline is referring to education and instruction that dispels ignorance.  We all need some of that.

In verse 4, simply references those that are immature or inexperienced, making them easily influenced for good or evil.  We’ve all been there at some point in our lives.  In some areas we may still fall into this category, which means we have great opportunity for growth. 

Fear of the Lord is mentioned in verse 7.  Fear of the Lord is something I’ve never really wrapped my head around.  I don’t see the Lord as someone to be feared.  In my mind, I always replace “fear of the Lord” with “respect for the Lord”.  It is absolutely, incredibly awesome, to say the least, what God has created.  The fact that He never gives up on me, even when I turn away from Him time and again…this is why I respect the Lord, not fear Him.

Wisdom it greater than any physical “treasure” you can poses.  It doesn’t matter what your level of understanding and knowledge is, we always have room for growth.  There are 31 chapters in the Book of Proverbs.  Read one chapter a day and draw from it the wisdom God is giving you at that moment.  Don’t read more than one a day.  You may have read the Book of Proverbs 10 or more times already, but as you read through and meditate on them this time, God will offer you new understanding on what is being said, and thereby imparting greater wisdom.

I pray that meditating on these proverbs, you gain the wisdom God desires you to have, so that you may be a greater representation of Him to those around you. 

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#SovereignGraceMusic – Christ Our Wisdom

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  I have something pretty cool to share with you this week.  We all have those conversion moments and turning points in our relationship and commitment with God.  They usually aren’t a one and done kind of moment.  God works in and through our lives and those great Ah Ha! moments we have are really a compounding and culmination of God’s many works.  I find conversion stories very interesting and really enjoy hearing how God finds His was into our hearts.  I’m interested in hearing your story.  If you’re interested and feel your story may touch another person’s life for the glory of the Lord, please share it.  If you don’t want to respond to this post, please contact me directly.

To read about one of my major conversion/turning points, checkout my blog post dated Wednesday, February 23, 2022.

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Okay, so the really cool thing I want to share with you this week is a story about Mario Enzler, one of the Papal Swiss Guard.  The video is titled “Pope John Paul II Converted Me!”.  It’s a 17 minute video and well worth the time.  He does have an accent, so you may want to click the CC button, so you don’t miss a word. 

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#MarioEnzler – Pope John Paul II Converted Me!

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Relationships and friendships seemed to have been the focus of this past week.  My brother came in town for the weekend, so I was able to share some time with him, my sister and her husband, and my parents on Thursday and Saturday.  One of my uncles passed away last Friday, which has prompted me to reflect on conversations and experiences we shared.  Saturday, I attended the Cursillo School of Leader gathering, in which the topic was the what, why, and who of friendship.  And next weekend there is a reunion scheduled with some of those that I served in the Air Force with.  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make that trip.

There are so many people that make up the journey of our lives.  Some last as quickly as a breeze.  Others may last a season, years, or a lifetime.  Proverbs 18:24 tells us, “Some friends bring ruin on us, but a true friend is more loyal than a brother.”  So, choose your relationships wisely.  If a “friend” is toxic, it’s okay to walk away.

Not all relationships are meant to go deep.  It’s scary putting yourself out there and opening yourself up to be vulnerable.  When we are our authentic self, we allow others to also be their authentic self, which enables us to stop talking about the weather, our jobs, and other such superficial subjects.  Without God’s involvement, friendships are very limited.  It was said at the Cursillo School of Leaders, when you are authentic, you become spiritually and emotionally naked. 

It is said that when Aristotle was asked “What is a friend?”  His response was, “A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”  To me, Aristotle’s quote describes a friendship that can only be attained with God, Father, Spirit, Jesus.  That kind of friendship is something that we have to work at.  So often we try to fit God’s love and friendship into our schedule, instead to allowing Him to be first.  “A new commandment I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34-35.

A few days ago, I woke up with today’s song in my head.  When you listen to it, imagine God singing it to you.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#PeteTownshend – Let My Love Open the Door

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  “A woman at a retreat shared how she had devoted her whole life to spiritual seeking.  She had traveled to sacred sites, attended countless retreats and workshops, sought teachers and guides.  It had, she confessed, been a time of much striving; it had been fruitful in someways, yet she felt tired, weary.  She was getting older. She wondered how much stamina she had left to continue her search.

“You have been a seeker for a long time,” I said.  “Why not become a finder?   At this stage in your life, what if you imagined you were ready to let go of seeking, and begin finding?”  She remains silent for a time, a look of deep confusion on her face, her head slightly tilted, as if she were trying to hear a sound far away.  Then, suddenly, a laugh exploded from deep in her belly.  A finder!  What a delight!  How could she have never imagined it before?  She had always been so focused on the search, she had never taken time to rejoice in the blessing, the gift of finding.

When we are trapped in seeking, nothing is enough. Everything we have mocks us; we see only what is missing, and all that is already here seems pale and unsatisfying.  In Sabbath time we bless what there is for being.  The time for seeking is over; the time for finding has begun.”

This exert is once again from the Wayne Muller book Sabbath.  There are quite a few good nuggets in this book. 

Like the woman mention above, how many years have you spent seeking, grasping for the next, then quickly dropping it to go after the next thing to grasp?  There is a huge pile of things we seek, grab ahold of, only to discard them, so we can start looking at the next best thing.  We usually don’t even take the time to breath, let alone discover what we sought to possess and explore it, now that we hold it in our hands.  This ongoing restlessness is due to our longing and desire to return to and be with the Lord. 

We need to ask, what are my mind, heart, and actions made for?  What am I made for and what gets in my way?  If we can at least determine what gets in our way, we can then work on eliminating those items from our path of temptations.  By eliminating temptations, you will free up time to speak with God more, about His desired plans for you.  The more you open your life to the Lord, the brighter His light will shine in you, for others to see and feel His presence.

Like the dawn, the reflective light of the sun, precedes the sun’s appearance.  The darkness dissipates and a glow fills the sky.  The same is true for dusk.  The sun has sunk into the horizon, yet it’s glow and the brilliance of the colors dance across the western sky.  Before others will see the Son, they will see a reflection of Him in you.  You will shine the light of His presence before He is fully visible. 

Stop seeking.  He is already within you.  Take the time to find Him where you are.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#WayneMuller – Sabbath

#BenFuller – Who I Am

😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you.  Monday night, this question was posed to me.  “Have you ever been disappointed in God?”  In reflecting on this question, I asked myself, “When do I feel disappointed?”  I answered, “I feel disappointed when I don’t see the desired outcome I was planning, hoping, or praying for.  So then, what is the source of my disappointment?  God?  No.  Selfishness is the source of my disappointments.” 

We make plans, and in our mind, our plans are the best and everyone else should think they are also…right?  Then something changes your perfect plan.  That perfect vacation you planned for two years…COVID hits.  That promotion you’ve been working toward for three years…Given to someone outside of your firm.  That marriage you’ve been trying to hold together…Your spouse decides it’s time to call it quits.  These and so many other situations that don’t have our desired outcome are not a reason to feel disappointed in God.  God desires love, peace, and relationship with us.  He is not to blame or be disappointed in, because of our choices.  One of His gifts to us was free will.  He doesn’t want us to be slaves to Him.  He wants us to freely choose to be with Him, to share our time and experiences, to have conversations and live with Him.  He wants to share His time with us.  He wants to offer us advice for things we are struggling with.  He wants to laugh and play with us.  He knows what’s best for us and wants us to live the best life possible. 

Matthew 28:16-20

‘The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.  When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.

Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  

And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”’

Jesus has placed His blessing and commission upon you.  He is with you always.  Don’t hesitate or think twice.  Let this be the moment you go to Him.

Bless others and be blessed.

Shelly  :0)

If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others.  Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.

#CastingCrowns – Already There