Leap Day!

I treasure Leap Day because jumping is a favorite activity of mine.  I was once a high jumper, hurdler and long jumper on middle school and high school track teams, which I absolutely adored.  I delight in jumping for joy in worship.  When I was a kid I reveled in jumping over and into puddles.  I remember riding horses with friend Annie, and we jumped them over a fallen tree in our path; what a rush!  I still dig jumping out of a swing, except I am not as brave about jumping from the heights I once did.  This is a day to celebrate!

What do you love or hate about Leap Day?

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Checkup

:  an examination to see if something is in order.

Hope, abiding faith and breakthrough remain themes for me.  My chosen tools for reminding myself who I am and declaring it daily are affording change.  This morning, for example, I was wallowing in the slough of despond.  Appalled by my apparent comfort in being in the slough, I battled with my pen and paper to purge the poison from my person.  When it felt like I was heading toward the poured out poison like the proverbial dog to his vomit, I halted.  Opening my eyes I noticed the time -- bummer for me!  I had to go prepare the blueberry muffins for breakfast.  Pitying myself, I "so there"-ed! by promising myself that I was going to sit and pour out my complaint when I returned to my lazy girl chair.  I allowed angry tears to well up while mixing up muffins.

Later as I poured out my complaint, I felt hope gently tugging me out of the mire.  Abetted by this new beginning of breakthrough strength, I wielded my next tool.  Abiding faith pushed me completely out of the slough.  At breakfast I was clear-minded and fully present.  A wonderful victory in a wrestling match with dread about tomorrow burst upon my thoughts!  As I type I am still amazed and fascinated with this breakthrough.  Since it's completion I have felt happy, excited and anticipatory about today.

"God I look to you.  I won't be overwhelmed.  Give me vision to see things like you do.  God I look to you.  You're where my help comes from.  Give me wisdom.  You know just what to do!"  Brian & Jenn Johnson, "God I Look to You"

PS My sister-in-law loved the plush neck gaitor I knitted for her; I think my niece might like one, also.  


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Giddy

:  joyfully elated.

Why?  I dropped off the 3 library books from last week and picked up 3 more.  They are like presents to me.  Of course I have already put another book on hold...now you know one of my obsessions. 

What is one of your obsessions?  



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Hornswoggled

:  bamboozled


Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  I think it's great to celebrate love, AND I think it's funny that this holiday is what it is today.  By the way, I love receiving chocolate and flowers, so if you see my valentine today, remind him, ok?


History of Valentine's Day


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Sozo

:  saved, healed, delivered.

Lately my morning pages have served as a connection between me and my spiritual counselor  .  Repeatedly in the past month and a half, we have worked through lies and wounds from the past.  I am grateful to be gaining ground and freedom.  Sometimes I think I understand the connection from the past through my present and into my destiny.  Usually though I simply press on in faith with hope and with trust in my spiritual counselor.  This is another piece of the marvelous multi-faceted relationship I am blessed to have with God. 

No, I am not about to revisit my morning pages and retell any of those intimate conversations with my spiritual counselor.  If it’s junk that you need to know, I will be sure to be in touch.  I do wrestle with lies and wounds from the past and present like everyone else I know.  One of the MOST transforming and freeing things I have learned/am learning is to take those lies and wounds to God.  I’ve been through an official Sozo* session and have experienced much breakthrough and consequent transformation.  As God nudges me, I have sessions with Him that bring about similar results.  It is for freedom that Christ has set me free, and you, too!

Step into freedom today; carry everything to God in prayer!

"What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!

O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer."

 "What a Friend We have in Jesus"

(*Another name used for this type of spiritual discipline is “healing prayer.”) 

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Paradox

: a person with seemingly self-contradictory qualities.

     My husband and I have been working our way through Dave Ramsey’s “Financial Peace University.”  In one of the first lessons he identifies the two common and opposite personalities as related to money that make up a marriage:  the free spirit and the nerd.  Partway through this lesson my husband paused the DVD and commented, “you’re a mix of both, don’t you think?”  True to our usual, I was just thinking the same thing.  He is also a mix of both.  And that’s not only true about me relative to money.  I often surprise myself at what seem like inconsistent and contradictory attitudes, thought patterns and actions.

     This morning I hear my free spirit self saying “go ahead and explore that interest” about a new creative outlet that has captured my attention, while my nerd self is saying “if you do that, you’ll never finish or start the other ideas you’ve had.”  My free spirit self is rejoicing that “scanner" mode is operational (as Barbara Sher terms it).   What does it matter if I don’t finish or start the other ideas?  Pursuing the thing that interests and enlivens equals joy and refreshment, because it means I actually do something instead of only think about doing something.

Are you a free spirit, a nerd or a mix of both?

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