"God Bless The U.S.A."

 My favorite patriotic anthem...

"Proud to be an American and I love this land..."

Only in America where the very heart of freedom is lived Today. I'm talking our freedom to worship a god of the Pharisees or the son of God that died for all of our sins so we may be reunited with Him in eternity. Once our religious or Christian beliefs are curtailed, controlled and ceased by the government, then we're no longer the "land of the Free and the home of the Brave."

However, I doubt that will ever happen not with the revivals that are taking place here in America. Christianity is still very much alive... Prayer is still a lifeline and a weapon against weariness & hopelessness.

Thank God for His faithfulness, for holding darkness that we deserve and that He never gives up on us if we fix our eyes on Jesus. Let not your heart be troubled. Seek Him for wisdom and guidance. Accept Him today as your personal Savior and Lord and your life will no longer be filled with constant fear and agitation. Oh, how He loves you and me...

Happy Father's Day!

God is Faithful...

 It was forty five minutes past noon when I heard like a loud collision while I was leaving my driveway. Dare me, I wasn't looking at my rearview mirror! I knew I hit something. I didn't sound like I just ran over a bump. 

Sure thing, I got out of my car and here comes a guy maybe on his late twenties or early thirties looking furious and told me, "Are you not looking?" I just said, I'm so sorry." There was no need to defend myself or make excuses to what it seemed to be an admission of guilt on my end. But I did tell him that this was my first accident that I caused in 34 years that I have been driving. Now that I'm lying down my bed at night, that remark doesn't have any bearing to my negligence for not looking in the rearview mirror while backing up.

The guy was driving probably a 2019 or a 2020 vehicle. I still drive a 2003 vehicle. What swirled into my mind was that I'm going to drain my savings just to fix his new car. But I know that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is faithful...

Before I turn on my car, I say a very simple prayer-- "Thank you God for your traveling mercies, for your hedge of protection over me, and thank you that you're always with me wherever I go and for your faithfulness I'm always in awe..." That fervent prayer saved me that very moment. And this car incident happened for He is worthy to be praised and glorified. 

I call this a miracle car accident. I'm a big believer on God's exceeding Grace, and He is still performing miracles if we allow ourselves to see it- God's way.

So I and the other driver walked around to the back of his car because I knew I hit his fender or anything near his trunk. He must have been shocked to see that there was no damage, not even a tiny dent or scratch. He tried to look at it again and I would think that he, too, was relieved. The God that I serve erased what was there. I was telling the guy that it is God's doing and I prayed over his car and I gave him a hug and he said it's okay.

That was an opportunity for me to share the faithfulness of God. I pray that what he witnessed today is a revelation of God's working power. And a lesson for me to be more mindful of my surrounding We sometimes grow complacent of not looking through the sideview mirror and rearview mirror because we think that we got it covered at this time already. But...thank God for "He make all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

Romans 8:28 (KJV)

Your Greater Purpose...

I had a dream at 2 am today. It was about someone in my past that is probably the most influential trajectory of my life. I know he didn't have an inkling of how much he impacted my life. He will always be my rescue to my writer's block, and probably a very crucial reason why I still write and strum my guitar. More than anything, he's that someone I would keep praying to be saved...

As he was my greatest challenge, he was consuming me to a point where my covenant with God was perturbed. But with all the shifting happening in my mind, the heart knows when to let it go and give them all to the Heavenly Father. I stop fighting and chasing a dream that will never be mine till eternity. That was a decade ago...Time has its fortitude. This was mine to shake it off the dust.

Many of us cling to some things that are never a part of ourselves. If they did, they would have come to pass. And even if they did happen in your timeline, there's no telling it could have worked. It's not worth risking but there was that moment in time that I was going to risk it all. But God intervened...

I will close with this: "To love and be loved is a beautiful thing. To know your purpose and fulfill it is a priceless thing. But to know God and be known and loved by Him is better than life itself. It is life---"eternal life." (John 17:3).

"Hold On To Me..."

A new song you hear on the radio catches your attention especially if you kind of know the sound of that artist. Lauren Daigle.

I will let you be the judge of this song. I can only tell you that it threw me off for a second. I had to stop what I was doing. Immediately I went to youtube and just typed in a couple of words that I remembered and there it was. It's called, "Hold On To Me..."

Walking to a Hopeful Spring...

 "Your job as a writer (of any genre) is not to make readers imagine things as you see them but to trigger the theaters of their minds... Give them just enough to engage their mental projections, that's where the magic happens."  Writing For The Soul by Jerry B. Jenkins

Every season begins with a morph in mind. How you put your signature or your emblem to that visceral, deep, best feeling towards Spring should shimmer with Hope.

Yesterday I went to Hobby Lobby with books on my mind to buy. I just read Nerves of Steel by Tamie Jo Shults and Writing for the Soul by Jerry B. Jenkins, both last week. I also watched Captain America (Chris Evans)1 & 2 last night. I figure that it's better to learn to deviate from my keen interests in non-fiction. This anomaly will surely gain me more knowledge in honing my writing from blockages. The less I encounter writer's block, the better the flow of what I'm trying to elucidate teleporting messages that are Springy and memorable.

As I gathered 4 books together, it didn't dawn on me that these books I purchased were not in any way on my radar within the scheme of things in my life. One of the books is called The Power of a Praying Grandparent by Stormie Omartian cannot fully connect with me because I'm not a grandmother yet but I can read it and take away the nuggets of wisdom in that book and gift it to a friend that is a grandmother. Another book I bought is authored by Stephen and Alex Kendrick in The Love Dare. Skimming just the preface tells me that marriage is always priceless and worth fighting for. I thought for just one moment that just may be if I had read this book when my marriage was on the brink of inescapable divorce, just maybe surmountable. But no...thinking about it with no substance at all remains in the past of no return. But then again, this might encourage a couple to never underestimate the strength in not giving up in both parties concerned. The third book I picked to read is "Defined" by Stephen Kendrick & Alex Kendrick. I didn't need to browse the pages. The title itself conjures messages that may be worth sharing. God is the only one that gave us the absolute definition of who we are. There should be no confusion of your identity for He only created a man and a woman, Genesis 1:28-29. Anyone who wants to dispute that truth will have to seek God's heart of wisdom.

The last book I decided to get is Karen Kingsbury's "Someone Like You." This one I didn't even turn the page. The caption #1 New York Times Bestselling Author must have convinced me to add to my reading list this Spring. I have to pinch myself to remind me that this is a novel that it cannot give me fixations, squabbles on matters that have already framed my soul and heart to rest. The Bible tells us that this is the only book that gives us all we need to know. And I totally know that truth.

Stepping into Spring for me is doing what gives you a deeper understanding and appreciation of what we call life. It's your decisiveness, resolute habits that won't let you squander your God-given gifts. For me reading books, magazines, the newspaper gives me an edge to a place of wisdom, grace, peace, and clarity. It's a threshold. It doesn't matter what season I'm in but in the Spring I tend to get more purposeful and steady. Of course, I do have other activities that move me...I just wish that I could travel and see the world for what's their worth not only in the adventures of reading them but actually subdue their magical beauty for there is always a fairy tale behind every fascinating continent especially the island of the seas...

I love dolphins, polar bears, penguins, the exquisite birds and flowers in the field, and the green pastures God has provided for every living creature, the towering bamboos, and places where you most experience Heaven on Earth!

 

One breath at a time, one life, and One Creator. My Spring!

Opportunities, Chances: Blindsided of Them or Taking them Fearlessly?

 I'm writing with so many conjuring thoughts circling the hemisphere of my brain...Spring Break is just over. I failed my list of short term goals. I didn't organize the clutter in my garage neither discard the over-piled boxes of Nintendo magazines and the gadgets relative to playing Mario Brothers owned by my eldest son who refused to throw them away even when they're all savaged by time and space. What could be their worth? To my son's perspective, they're his legacy of being a gamer, an artist, and his threshold. To me, their physicality must be in their rightful place--to the large bin to be picked up on garbage day. My take is that, you already have the treasures of experiences and memories locked in your mind and heart then you don't need to save them and let them rot obviously...

Well,  during the inception and evolving precedence of COVID 19, I was binging on food since I was confined at home. I didn't really realize that up since stepping on that weigh scale and the numbers don't lie. I have had developed unwanted layers in my belly which to my surprise, I kind of denied the imperativeness of losing the 12 lbs. I gained because I see that compounding pounds to almost every human being in my circles of friends, in the family and my co-workers. Everywhere I go especially in the grocery stores, I see a lot of people maybe have the same issues like mine. It didn't really scare me at first. I subjected myself with identifiable reasonable excuses. I told myself, "you're still within the range according to the periodic table of height, weight, age factors. And then I just started experiencing heartburns, bloating after eating and severe insomnia and maybe even panic attacks. I became what I haven't contemplated to be one...heavy and thick; fat and obese especially when all of your life, you were identified as slim or just right physique. 

Oh well...what am I going to do about it? First, I accepted that it is a problem that is affecting my confidence and my over all well being. I know it's just 12 lbs. but if I don't do anything about it now, that number will quadruple and then who's to blame? Myself and no other factors...

So, this past Spring Break, I made at peace with myself. I'm not going to do the list of household chores but instead work squarely on what's keeping me to feel alive and well again. Without my precious dogs with me anymore, walking has been stifling. It just stayed on my mind. It didn't flow in my system. But then an epiphany surmise: what would happen to my advocacy of staying healthy through regiment exercise shared with others? I have a son that has struggled obesity all his life and now that he's finally driven to lose weight, here I am, had fallen off the wagon. This should be more than enough to hit the trails again and throw away incompetence...

The other day, I was walking at Lions' Park where I took Cocoa & Tootsie when they were still here...An older man just passed me effortlessly. I said to myself this can't be happening that someone much older than me just swinging not too shabby. Although I was jealous of him outwalking me, I kind of respect and admire the tenacity. I feel my body out of synchronicity. I feel heavy, the weight of extra lbs. are deterring me to walk/jog swiftly. Not a good feeling. But this is accountability: it just didn't happen overnight, weeks, but in months of undisciplined overeating.

But...I'm here Now to redeem myself. Losing 1 lb. just last week is a congratulatory week for me. I also started learning to play the keyboard. Thanks to my brother-in-law and my sister for blessing me another musical instrument to learn. Google, it is to help you accomplish that skill. Learning another skill confronts idleness. We have to be proactive and fight the cravings for unhealthy food. Most of all I thank the Lord God Almighty for being so faithful in my life whenever I was ready "to throw in the towel" to losing my heart...God says, in Matthew 28:20 "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

Don't we all need God? I do, for without His mercy and grace, Heaven may be unreachable for me and you to call our Eternal Home...God Bless