Category: Abundant Gifts from a loving God

Spring is such a wonderful time, isn’t it?

This spring, somehow the phrase “the leaping greenly spirits of trees” from the E. E. Cummings’ poem, “i thank You God for most this amazing” has come to mind every time I take my daily walk.

So, in celebration of spring, and a poet who “got it,” I post this poem, and below, a video recording of the poet himself reading it.

 

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

 

“i thank You God for most this amazing” by E.E. Cummings, from 100 Selected Poems. © Grove Press, 1994.

I love this time between Christmas and New Year’s Day, when everything slows down and there’s time for reflection.

I’ve seen some excellent suggestions for reviewing the past year/decade and welcoming the new, such as this “Simple Guide to Reviewing 2019 and Creating Your Dream 2020.”

But as I was thinking through my own answers, I realized that one of the things I want to focus on this next year is simplifying my life.

One of the ways I feel led to do that is to seek God in everything, big or little. I want to align myself with His plan, His purposes. I can discern that in my own spirit, as informed by prayer and His Word, as well as my past experiences with God. I can also ask my body, through the subtle energy testing I’ve learned to do.  The spirit and the body tap into an intelligence that goes beyond consciousness, I believe.

So, this year I’ll not only be asking myself questions like “what am I most proud of?” but also, “God, what are you most pleased with from what I did this year?”

Not only, “What have I learned?” but “what lessons do you think were most important, Lord, for me to carry into the new year?”

Not only, “What do I want to create?” but “What do you, Jesus, want to create and do through me?”

These questions excite me. I plan to spend New Year’s Eve and/or Day reflecting in my journal on these, and talking to my husband about them.

I think I already have hints of what God intends for me.

Once in Immanuel Prayer, I got the image of Jesus and me sitting on a potter’s bench. He was behind me, his arms around me, his hands on mine guiding my hands on the lump of clay. I know nothing about making pottery, which is just where Jesus wanted me: totally dependent on his guiding me. At the time, I had no idea what we were making. I was to just yield to the process, to his guiding me. Yield to the intimacy of his closeness, arms around me, hands on mine.

A few days later, he did reveal what we were making: “A vase for flowers (beauty). Two mugs–one for just being present and enjoying a hot drink, one for holding your pencils and pens, because you are a writer. And a bowl for fruit–I intend you to be fruitful. Finally, a pitcher for water–to offer a cool drink to those who are thirsty.”

I look forward to finding out in the coming year all the ways these symbols will be manifested.

Yesterday, I wrote about how God restored my joy through giving our family Perfect Dog, Chester.

Chester had a trauma on the day I published that, and I thought you’d like a little update.

Our Perfect Dog was bitten by a Rottweiler. He is on the mend now, after getting two staples put into the wound in his back. I am spritzing Halo water on it, as well as the warm Espom Salt compresses (when he’ll let me).

Interestingly, though he was very touchy and in obvious pain, once I did a custom Healing Code for him he was much better. We even went for a walk and he was fine. I was concerned that the collar was so near his wound, but he seemed fine on our walk.

I think the trauma of being bitten and then going to the vet is also what needs to be healed, besides the physical wound itself. When I approach him with the warm compress, he shies away, as if remembering the vet or some other trauma. When I actually put the compress on, he’s OK. I think The Healing Code is addressing the main problem–whatever trauma he harbors.

I’m trusting God to heal Chester quickly. Taking care of him, and watching my son tenderly care for him, is yet another joy through a painful experience.

The gifts keep coming … if we are open to them. What God is showing me again and again is this: Painful things happen in this world where the kingdom is already here, yet not yet fully realized.

The sure hope is that God can bring good out of any evil.

A few weeks ago, in one weekend, two terrible blows came upon me.

The first one had to do with my business, and I was very distressed about it. It was about the worst thing that could happen to a business like mine. It happened on a Friday night, it was a tech issue, and I knew I wouldn’t get any answers until Monday morning.

I said to God sometime Saturday, after I’d done all I could do to salvage the situation, “Lord, I’m giving this to you. But I have lost my joy and my peace over the past three years, and I don’t know how to get them back.”

God knew how.

That weekend, God brought Joy back in the form of a dog.

To understand this, you need to know that while I love dogs, and still missed my Bishon, Millie, I had decided not to get a dog “unless God dropped Perfect Dog into our lap.”

That weekend–enter Chester the Cairn terrier.

My adult son, David, was staying in a cabin with his buddies that weekend, and this dog was hanging around the whole weekend, outside in the rain, apparently abandoned.

David called me Saturday morning. “Mom, would you consider having a dog?” (Since he lives with us at the moment, he needed our permission to bring the dog home.)

“Absolutely not!” I quickly said. “I don’t need any more complications in my life. Especially now.”

On Sunday, David called on his way home and said, “Mom, I couldn’t leave him. I’ll find another home for him if he doesn’t work out.”

Fair enough. I told David, “OK, if he isn’t Perfect Dog, you can find a home for him.”

Well, Chester is Perfect Dog.

It’s like God hand-picked him. He is very well-trained. Playful. Doesn’t bark indoors. (That one’s for my husband, who jumps out of his skin at unexpected loud noises–like dogs barking.) Chester loves to walk. (That’s for me. He even loves walking in the rain–like me.)

Chester is one bundle of joy, and he sparks joy in me. (Did you know we have a Joy Center in our brain that literally lights up when someone is “happy to see us, happy to be with us”?)

God knew just how to put Joy back into our lives.

And He knew how much we needed it, because the very next day, our family experienced a very traumatic loss. As I told David, “This dog is God’s constant reminder that just as terrible things can just happen out of the blue, so can good things, like Chester being dropped into our laps out of nowhere.”

God used Chester to restore my joy. In a few days, He would also restore my peace in an unusual way. But that’s another story….

 

I was thanking God for showing me a new heart issue that needed to be healed, when these words landed in my heart:

I reveal it so we can heal it.

Dr. Mark Virkler says we hear God’s voice as “spontaneous thoughts that alight upon our minds.” That’s a pretty good definition, but I would amend it a little. Because when I hear from God, it’s more like “spontaneous messages that get impressed upon my heart.” There is a knowingness, a feeling about it, that is deeper than emotion.

So it was with this.

I noticed something about the words: It wasn’t “I reveal it so I can heal it” or “I reveal it so you can heal it.”

It was, “I reveal so we can heal it.”

Healing is a partnership.

My part is to be open to the revealing. Sometimes it’s downright painful to have something revealed. This issue certainly was. It went very deep.

But I have found in my Healing Code work that when something is revealed, it is ready to be healed. Things may take years to show up, as this issue did—because I had to heal a lot of other things before I was ready to heal this.

So my part is to be open to the revealing, and then to do the Healing Codes and to pray.

God’s part is to actually do the healing.

I have to show up for it, ready. Only then can he do his work. That’s how God chooses to work in our lives—through this partnership.

Because what he’s always after is a relationship with us. A relationship where we can hear his voice, know it’s him, marvel that he deigns to speak to our hearts and to heal.

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).

One day on my morning walk, I was contemplating what a mess we human beings have made of this world.

The feeling, as I thought of the latest news (don’t remember what exactly triggered this), was anxiety.

Into these thoughts, into this worry, came an inner “voice,” an impression of words on my spirit: “I am still working, and I am not worried.” Immanuel, breaking into my life again.

The tone was quite cheerful. Confident. “I am still working, and I am not worried.”

“Look up Mark 4,” came next.

I didn’t remember exactly what was in Mark 4, so I looked it up.

I immediately knew the two passages Immanuel’s words were based on.

First, the parable of the farmer (Mark 4:26-29). It’s short, I’ll quote it:

²⁶ And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. ²⁷ He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. ²⁸ The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

“The seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself” . . . “I am still working.“ Whether I see it or not, whether I understand how he’s working or not, God is still working. In the world, in me, in my children.

Despite whatever it is going on around me, God is in control and he is always working.

God also told me he’s not worried. Picture Jesus, asleep on a cushion in a storm-tossed boat (Mark 4:35-41). “Jesus, don’t you care that we’re about to die?” the disciples cry out. (Sort of like I was subconsciously thinking on my walk: “Jesus, do you see what a mess we’re making of this world? Don’t you care that we’re destroying your planet and each other?”)

Jesus gets up and calms the storm  He wasn’t worried . . . because he knew who he was and what he can do.

Do we know those things? Truly, deep in our hearts?

Those cheerful, confident words to me that morning come back to me often, when I’m tempted to think God doesn’t care about whatever it is I’m worried about.

“I’m still working,  and I’m not worried.”

As radio teacher Steve Brown always said,  “You think about that.”

 

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. What could be better than a whole day devoted to food, friendship, and gratitude?

In fact, Thanksgiving is actually the healthiest holiday we have. And I’m not just talking about the turkey and the side dishes.

Thanksgiving is the healthiest holiday because the benefits of gratitude are measurable.

In a WebMD feature, Elizabeth Heubeck summarized some of the health benefits of giving thanks. University of California Davis psychology professor Robert Emmons conducted a study on gratitude, finding that grateful people–those who perceive gratitude as a permanent trait rather than a temporary state of mind–have an edge on the not-so-grateful when it comes to health. “Grateful people take better care of themselves and engage in more protective health behaviors like regular exercise, a healthy diet, regular physical examinations,” Emmons told WebMD.

Gratitude acts as a stress buster. An inability to deal with stress is attributed to up to 90 percent of all doctor visits, and is linked to several leading causes of death, including heart disease and cancer. “Gratitude research is beginning to suggest that feelings of thankfulness have a tremendous positive value in helping people cope with daily problems, especially stress,” Emmons says.

I know this to be true in my own life. I keep what I call my “gifts journal,” noting the things that felt like gifts on a given day. As I thank God for these gifts, my focus changes from any problems I may have to the love that inspired such gifts of grace. I can tell you, this one simple action has totally transformed my life. Not only did it cure me of a postpartum depression years ago, but it has continued to relieve stress and be the source of much joy and strength.

Gratitude acts as an immune booster. When you’re grateful, you also tend to be optimistic. According to Lisa Aspinwall, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Utah, “There are some very interesting studies linking optimism to better immune function.” In one, researchers compared the immune systems of healthy, first-year law students under stress. They round that, by midterm, the students characterized as optimistic (based on survey responses) maintained a higher number of white blood cells (which protect the immune system), compared with their more pessimistic classmates.

Optimism also has a positive health impact on people whose health is already compromised. In separate studies, patients with AIDS, as well as those preparing to undergo surgery, had better health outcomes when they maintained attitudes of optimism.

So as you partake of the wonderfully healthy foods of Thanksgiving, I hope you’ll also take time to feed your soul and strengthen your body by recounting all the things you’re grateful for.

And don’t stop at Thanksgiving Day, either! (I have s sample journal you can use to keep track of your “abundant gifts” throughout the year. )

For more health benefits of gratitude, visit my Healing Heart Issues blog for an article on the latest research: