Inspiration and Prayers – Page 3

Category: Inspiration and Prayers

Running with the Scissors

Sunshine MW quote with website

This week, I came across this poem from Marianne Williamson and every bit of my heart yelled out “TRUTH”. I read this poem some years ago, but the word TRUTH didn’t come to mind. Maybe the word was bullshit, or lie, or what a load of crap. Regardless, I was not in a place in my life when I could recognize that I had a light and what it would mean if I let it shine.

Even now, when I know that all of us are born with gifts, talents, and “lights”, I sometimes hold back. Why? I could point to many reasons why I hold back…fear that my gifts won’t measure up (to whom I’m not sure), fear that someone will demand something of my gifts and I will be obligated (commitment phob), fear that I will become stifled and unable to produce ( bored and trapped)…ugh! It really doesn’t matter what the fear is telling me because the job of this fear is simply to put out my light. To extinguish the excitement, the courage, the joy, the trust and hold me in a place of stagnation. This fear is the lie that holds us all captive and redirects us from the “Glory of God that is within us”.

So, the image I kept getting in my head all week as I meditated on this poem was a little girl running with scissors. The little girl doesn’t know how dangerous it is to run with scissors, she’s innocent, and she’s not even thinking about the scissors…she’s running ahead to the next paper doll, or snow flake, ready to do what she does…shine.

If you follow me on Facebook or you’re part of my Art and Soul Prompts group, you know that it’s been all about courage and slaying the fear monster this month. You may recognize the above image as our April Soul prompt. if you don’t, be part of the group. I would love to support you along the way.

One last thing, I want to give you a little gift, the above image titled Own Your Light graphic . Print it off and hang it in a place that you will see it first thing in the morning…the mirror, the coffeemaker, the shower door. But don’t just look at it, read the words and believe in Your Light.

Own your light, it’s who you are, a child of God.

Permission Granted

creative adult

I love teaching art workshops! The energy, the connection, the total vibe is just electric for me. Although it’s been over a year since I have taught art to children, they hold the biggest place in my teaching heart. Why? Because they don’t wait for permission to create, it’s just in them, it’s who they are and the world has not squashed that yet. The most challenging thing about teaching children is they don’t wait for instructions…they just begin and keep going until they have a completely different outcome then the project I am trying to demonstrate. And they’re fine with it! They are confident, passionate, and courageous explorers who conquer the canvas as if it were a piñata, ready to spill out with candy.

But then something happens, it seems around middle school, when the world gets hold of them and tells them they suck, or art is not a “boys” thing, or elephants aren’t purple! They start asking me questions like…”does this look ok?”. ” Should I paint it blue or pink?” Or they make comments like, ” His is better then mine!” We get our creative butts kicked.

We grow up and feel all insecure about being different or artsy. Standard is safe. We lose confidence and push away that creative lifestyle, that creative idea. I don’t mean a crafty life, although some people make Pinterest a lifestyle and it may spark a flame. I mean a life that draws outside the lines, lives outside the box, and believes that what we have to contribute is unique. You become the pioneer!

Living a creative life is special because when you are living in that zone of confidence, passion, and courage, you become a trail blazer. You blaze the way for others to truly live in their passion and purpose. Then you know what happens? World peace! Just kidding…kinda. What happens is we start giving ourselves and others permission to screw up. We understand that being true to ourselves means sometimes being misunderstood, making mistakes, and maybe being over looked. That’s good! Lot’s of opportunity to grow in courage, confidence, and forgiveness during those moments.

So who knew that your art journal, those funky and bright fingernails, or building that wooden igloo was making you a better lover? Just ask the people around you.

I think living a creative life empowers our hearts to love with more depth, understanding and courage .

Need Some Soul Sister Wisdom?

If you’re needing a little sisterly love…I got it for you!

And it FREE love…which makes it TRU love!

Download your issue of SOUL SISTER WISDOM.

I really respect and admire the mission behind this magazine so it is an honor for me to be part of the Dec./ Jan. issue. I hope that you enjoy my article on Intentional Love.

Looking back on 2015 I feel so blessed to have met many amazing women that have greatly enriched my life. God has led me to new friends, new business partners and He has led me to YOU. I am so grateful for the growth of this creative community of passionate and soulful women. You truly inspire me!

One lesson that I learned in 2015 is how to live with more intention and focus. I am learning how to align my values and convictions with my life’s purpose. There is a saying…”If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” For most of my life, I believed this. In 2015, I discovered it is simply not true. Prayerful passion is the spark, commitment is the flame, action is the fire.

God has lit a path light for me and my job is to walk in it. He Blesses each of us with our own unique journeys… are you doing the walking?

Join me in 2016 to walk in His light and purpose. Take the first step by making a Art and Soul Creative Vision Board on Jan. 16th and you’ll learn more about prayerful passion, true commitment and how fun walking in the light can be.

See you then!

TRU Creative Art Prompt #1 and New FB Group

I’m super excited to finally share my first TRU Creative Art Prompt with you! Totally FREE as my gift to you.

Creative Prompt Blessed PDF

**Download may take up to 5 minutes on some computers, this is a large file of deliciousness. Worth the wait!

Funny, it seems like I’m using the words SUPER EXCITED and FIRST a lot around here lately. Anytime you have a first in your life, for the most part your excited…no? Sometimes that ‘first’ is scary, other times it’s invigorating. For me, it’s honestly both! Scary in away, as I have to face the fear of rejection that I struggle with. Invigorating, because I do get to face that fear and move right past it. Eat that FEAR!

God has been generous with me and giving me lot’s of first to be excited about.

Another thing I say around here a lot is, “I’m glad you’re with me on this journey, we’re in this together!” When you see those words from me, do you believe them? Do you believe that I am invested in this journey? Do you trust that?

“A relationship without TRUST is like a car without gas, you can stay in it all you want but it won’t go anywhere.” ~Anonymous. This quote sums up my mission statement beautifully. When I say we are on a journey, we’re in this together, I mean a journey of life…a journey to Heaven. No man is an island, we are ALL connected and we are all called to love. But being called to LOVE can be hard work, even Jesus needed help carrying His cross. I need help on my journey too. Don’t we all need support? This takes mutual trust. I am learning to trust you by sharing my whole self in my blog posts, sharing the artwork that I create and offering FREE gifts of encouragement that you are NOT rejecting. I see your support and attendance on my Facebook Page and workshops. I recently created a close Facebook Group to share in the work you may do through the TRU Creative Prompts I send you. I want to see what you are making… to share in your life.

I want to challenge you, I want to show you how committed I am to you on this journey of life and faith. I want you to unfriend me on Facebook and unsubscribe to my Newsletter if you are not interested in growing along side this community of creative women. This is not a numbers game to me, and I have no desire to clutter up your inbox with information/ encouragement you are not reading or interested in. I promise, my feeling won’t be hurt. You see, I would rather have a an interactive, supportive community of 100 women than 1000 women who are on my list just because. No one wants to be a ‘just because’.

I said it and I mean it, we are in this together.

Enjoy the TRU Creative Prompt!

Pray.

We all know “those” people…the ones who are always talking about their Faith in God and seem to know exactly what God’s purpose is for their life. They are at peace, even though they may be in difficult situations, they don’t get sucked down that rabbit hole of negativity and obsessive thinking. Why are “those” people different from us?

They are different for one reason only. They. Pray. Often.

Having a abundant prayer life changes things. It changes our perspective, it changes our situations and it changes our outcomes. When we have an active and abundant prayer life, we start seeing “those” people as our people…our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Here are 5 ways to enrich your prayer life …

Say a prayer of offering, gratitude, and surrender each morning before you get out of bed. Before you even open your eyes, before your feet hit the floor say a prayer. Say Good Morning Lord! Your prayer could sound something like this…”Lord I love You and I need You. I am all Yours. Help me to surrender my life to Your will in all that I do, think, and say. Thank You for dying for me. Amen” This is a short and simple prayer that allows you to align yourself with Jesus. If this is the first thing you do to start your day, you are setting yourself up for good things.
Incorporate everyday activities into your prayer time. Some people have long commutes to work, this is an opportunity to spend with The Lord! House cleaning is a big one for me and I can offer up that time to really focus on why I’m serving my family and how to do it with more love and commitment. Sometimes this leads me to pray about how I can better serve my church and the world, and other times I’m just trying to clean the house with a loving heart. I also take a walk everyday, my dogs keep me on track here. During my daily walk I am really reflecting on the positive things going on in my life as well as thanking God for the abundant blessings.
Hang out with “those” people. Pray for people to come into your life that are on the same track as you, maybe even a little further along on the journey. These friendships and relationships are the people in your life who reflect God’s love and mercy, they are a living witness of Christ. Jesus needed help to carry His Cross, who are we to think we won’t need help carrying ours?
Find a Church! I am blessed to attend a Church that challenges me, supports me, and loves me. It’s filled with sinners, people who are trying to live a life directed towards God in Heaven. It may take attending a few different Churches to figure out where God is leading you, I know that it did for my family, but don’t give up. The Church is the Body of Christ so I highly encourage you to become a member of a Church. Knock and you will find. Don’t give up!
End the day with prayer. For me this is a time to reflect and repent. Where could I have been more charitable? Did I put God first today? Did I have unkind thoughts towards someone? Did I withhold forgiveness? The Holy Spirit really helps me to understand where I missed the mark and how my thoughts, words, and action affected others and offended The Lord. I then tell God that I’m sorry and ask His forgiveness. Since I am Catholic, I may have the need for confession and would take that opportunity as soon as possible.

Are these 5 things incorporated into your prayer life? Do any of these actions seem hard for you? If so, how can I support you?

Know that I am here to support you and I pray for you! The only purpose I have for writing this blog and making the art that I make is so that others would come to know the love of Christ.

In my next blog post, we will continue on with how to honor the reflection of your journey and do away with negativity. I will write a bit about how to identify where our thoughts are focused and how to get out of patterns of negative feelings.

We are in this together!

Honor the Reflection of Your Journey

In my last post, I shared with you that I had been struggling with negativity and how difficult it was to change my outlook and perspective…in other words, to kick that unwanted house guest in my head right on out the door! When we are struggling with low self esteem, negativity, and/or stress I believe the biggest challenge is to identify and reflect on how and why we are having these feelings, but not go into the rabbit hole of obsessing. Sounds easy, right? It is not easy but it sure is fruitful!

Is it easy to take responsibility for our choices and actions? To take over the plane when we have been flying on auto-pilot for so long. What if we crash? What if we can’t navigate through the storm ahead? What if we let our passengers down? We may not be playing the plane wreak scenarios in our heads, but maybe you’re asking these questions…

What if I fail? What if I’m rejected? What if they see my imperfections?

We all ask these questions! These questions can help us to logically navigate through the storm, right? The concern is when we can’t stop asking these questions after a storm and we are still feeling fear even when the storm has passed, we went down the rabbit hole. What then? Stress, low self esteem, anger, confusion, fear, negativity…you get it and this is where we become stuck on auto pilot again. Better to let that guy handle those things.

It’s easy to not identify or acknowledge our feelings in our world today. We are busy and with all the distractions we can check out on our feelings and check into the TV, internet, work, social media, drinking, eating, etc. and feel like we are accomplishing something. We choose to not honor our feelings and soon our feelings are manifesting themselves in other ways like addictions, overeating, complaining/ negativity, restlessness. obsessiveness, not able to sleep, depression, and fear or lack of peace.

I was in this dark place and I was dwelling on negativity, completely unaware of my feelings of hurt and rejection. So how did I get out of that dark hole? I am not an expert on feelings or anything for that matter, but I can tell you about 4 things that are working for me.

Set aside time for prayer and reflection everyday.
Identify my feelings and acknowledge why I’m feeling that way, then release them.
Intentional thinking.
Attitude of gratitude.

I am going to go into details about these 4 steps in the coming weeks posts. These are steps which you can apply to begin living a life that honors the reflection of your journey. I know that our journeys are hard sometimes, filled with struggles, sorrow, and pain. But know this, we are not defined by our circumstances we are defined by our response to those circumstances and we are defined by God’s love for us. We are ALL precious in the eyes of God, no matter our choices, no matter our mistakes, no matter our circumstances. So let’s honor each and every step on this life journey so that our soul reflects love and truth.

My next post will offer tips on how to make more time for prayer and reflection.

Be gentle on yourself this week!

It Begins with a Thought

Have you ever thought about how powerful our thoughts and words are? I hate to admit it, but most of the time I cruise around on auto pilot not really considering that I have control of the pilot. I react when the planes going down and wait for the breathing masks to dispense. This is something that I have given a great deal of time working on this past last year…about how I entertain worse case scenarios or dwell on feelings of hurt, rejection, and insecurity. The problem with entertaining negativity, taking a peek into our plane wreak scenarios, is that it invites negativity to reside in our head. Once that guy shows up, he is like a house guest. Fun times for a few days, wallowing in your hurt and pride, partying it up, but then what? It gets old and that house guest won’t leave. He likes the attention and you can’t leave your guest hungry. Did you intent to invite that guy over?? NO! So what now??

We all struggle with negative thoughts, we are human after all. I want to dedicate the next 5 posts on sharing what living a life of intention this past year has looked like for me. We can and should have control over our thoughts and who shows up as our auto pilot. I know what is working for me and ~~maybe it can~~ it will work for you too.

Just One Foot

Just one foot is sometimes all you need to get yourself through the door. That’s what this post is! Just one foot through the door to begin blogging again. Feels good to find my way around this new website template and blogging format. I had been DREADING that, intimidated by my lack of experience with WordPress, but as with most things, it’s just not that big of a deal. I spent most of this morning saying to myself, “you can do it”, “relax”. The impatience inside me wanted to scream and give up several times as I fumbled around. Just one step at a time, one click at a time. And here I am, posting! Yay! Would love to hear from some old friends on this little blog of mine. Honestly not sure if my move from Blogger to WordPress has allowed me to stay connected with followers, or previous blogs that I followed. Still finding my way around that. Seems like Im always beginning again. How bout you? Where’s your foot been lately? Leaving myself open for some great comments on that question!

Finding my way through the Dark

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Dear Heart,

Finding my way through the dark these days…or should I say the incredibly bright, can’t even bare to look, light. Yes…let’s call it that… TBL…the blinding light!

TBL is amazing, warm, soothing and nourishes my thirsty soul. The problem is, I’ve become so unfamiliar with TBL that is feels like dark…and I’m scrambling around. What do I do with all this love? Now don’t get me wrong…no pity party here, I’m loving it. But as a wife and mom, as the servant God has called me to be ( us all to be) …How am I the one being served? I even tried to read a magazine on the back porch last week and noticed how uncomfortable it felt. Not to be doing something, just sitting there. This is not ok, this discomfort. This is not who God made me, any mothers and wife’s, to be.

God has been speaking a lot to my heart about rest…so many passages about rest and restoration of the soul but here is one that really moves me…

“In repentance and rest you will be saved,
In quietness and trust is your strength.”

and then it goes on to say…
“But you were not willing.”

Isaiah 30:15

Ouch…it’s the “but you were not willing” part that stings. Oh Lord, I’m willing…might have to remind me how!! Of course it’s hard to rest right now with family in the background playing Aerosmith on 10! Feel like yelling out BE QUITE! Now the vacuum! Bad to complain about vacuuming, huh? Still feel like yelling!

This Mother’s Day…I hope you rest! I hope that every mom will find themselves resting in the arms of Jesus. Can you picture that? Sitting on the lap of our Jesus…resting. AWWWWWWWWW. Now that feels good! Bask in TBL!

Please stop over on Mother’s Day and visit Mixed Media May, where 30 international mixed media artist are offering interviews. My interview is scheduled for tomorrow…Mother’s Day! So very cool and it’s an honor to be part of this collaboration of talented artist.

Hey beautiful you…Happy Mother’s Day!!!