Jumping off a cliff?

Good morning to all of you!  What a beautiful day the Lord has made!

This morning as I took my kids to school, I was blown away by the beauty all around!  Everything looked so peaceful.  The trees and bushes twinkled and sparkled in the sun!  Magical, just magical!

Okay, as you know, I'm a very sensitive person!  And at this point in my juncture, I feel God in pretty much every thing that I see and do!  Today was no different!  God has been teaching me to see the beauty in everything.  Of course there is always going to be bad and dark areas in our lives.  But not letting that block our vision of the beauty that God has made, is a very important step!

The beauty of the trees this morning reminded me of one of the first experiences that I had as a Christian.  God had been dealing with me in a lot of areas in my life and had put a friend in my path who loaned me the book "A Love Worth Giving" by Max Lucado.  Okay, so here I was, totally mesmerized by God's true love, and walking very early in the morning.  I had all those "I'm alive, yoohoo!" feelings and my body was on fire for God!  And the stars in the sky, man they were so beautiful, and I realized that God had made them for me!  You too!  God was so BIG!  And I was small, like a child.  Even though I was a wife and mother, an adult, I acted in childish ways.  I had to grow up.  Be what God had intended for me to be.  I had to quit following the crowd or even what my flesh wanted, and do what was right.  In every single situation.  Now, I will tell you that I have failed miserably.  But instead of blaming others, I turn the finger around to myself!  Because I can choose.

I have mentioned that it's high time that we all got radical.  Well, I still stand by that.

I have been lied to.  I have been manipulated.  But it's my own fault.

When children do something wrong and say "well, so and so did it!"  what do we say?

We say "if they jumped off a cliff, would you do it to?"  We say right is right and wrong is wrong!

But as we reach adulthood, we say gray.  Things become fuzzy.  We inject feelings, past hurts, excuses, and reasoning into the equation.  Instead of searching for truth, integrity, and self control, we jump off the cliff with everyone else.

Okay, so what am I getting at?

I guess, no, I know that I must make a decision.  Take the road of least resistance or the narrow road that leads to ultimate peace and happiness.

But first we have to wrap our minds around the fact that following God's way of true life does not mean that we wont ever be able to have fun.  That we'll never have anything that tastes good.  No it doesn't mean that at all.  What it means is balance.  Taking responsibility, respecting ourselves and others, doing what is right even when we don't feel like it.  It was never meant to be easy.  But that's the beauty of it.

The roads are icy.  It's cold.  Maybe you get the winter blues.  But with out the cold and ice we wouldn't have such beautiful scenery.  The sparkle.  Snowmen.  Sledding.  Hot chocolate.  With out the icky stuff we wouldn't appreciate the special, unique "stuff" all around us!  Or in us!

So you and I can be the twinkling in the world!  We can choose to shine.  Let Jesus shine through us!  By deciding to do what is right.  In the cold, in the dark, by doing what is right, not perfect, but striving for it though, we can help change someone else's cold and dark point of view!

It's hard to change.  Thank goodness we have a wonder, powerful, loving, and forgiving God, who can do what we can't.

I am accepting God's ways and throwing the rest away.  Please join me, we can change the world!

I mentioned Max Lucado's book earlier.  It's really a great book!  It's a radical look at love.  It helped me to get past myself and see what "love" is and how to use it!  I highly recommend it.

Okay, I'm done.  I'll get off my soap box, until tomorrow!

Peace to all of you!  Have a great day!

Blessing~Becca