Once again the seasons are quickly changing! Leaves are falling and there’s a chilly feel in the air that invites butternut squash soup and hot apple cider. This is the season that stirs special home gatherings and definitely gratitude. We have all been through so much uncertainty and chaos making our together times even more meaningful. Giving thanks at these times is very important and surely a priority. We are grateful to be with our loved ones and sharing meals made with love and laughter. We look forward to making more good memories. We have been through a lot and celebrations create great healing.
As we remember our blessings this season perhaps we can review the past several months with a deeper awareness. Yes, there have been trials, but maybe we need to be thankful for who we have become through the challenges. Are we not more resilient than what we ever thought we could have been? Did we not evoke more compassion, love, forgiveness and faith than ever before? Even if we can’t readily recognize it, we found the courage, strength and flexibility to change routines, expectations, and perceptions. We may not have had time to reflect upon all these transitions that are both internal and external, but we have in fact changed. Hopefully we can embrace a new sense of truth, freedom and discernment about everything that is truly important in life. Hopefully, we have become more aligned with our intrinsic gifts given by God that can NEVER be taken. These divine gifts become more apparent through difficulties, similar to how a chunk of carbon that becomes a diamond through pressure.
In truth, we are all diamonds, but we may have forgotten that along the way. Maybe it’s time to remember that now. Maybe we can actually give thanks for the diamonds we have reclaimed through these recent times and become more diligent in shining our light daily no matter what. Trials can give way to great triumphs if we are willing to change our perceptions about the conditions in life. Instead of asking why did a particular situation occur, maybe we can ask a different question. If we could ask what is the lesson in this situation or what unrealized potential is being revealed, we would surely reclaim untold inner gifts bursting like brilliant diamonds with courage, confidence and new pathways to be even greater than ever before.
Yes, this is a wonderful season! Plan celebrations, and pray in gratitude for everything, both the trials and triumphs. Through all of it we became precious and priceless gemstones! It’s time to shine!
Blessings,
P.S. Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, having endured, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12)
“If you correct your mind the rest of your life will fall into place”
Lao-tzu (late century b.c.)
“Every human being’s essential nature is perfect and faultless, but after years of immersion in the world we easily forget our roots and take on a counterfeit nature”
Lao-tzu (late century b.c.)
“Thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence”
Eckhart Tolle
“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it but that it is too low and we reach it.”
Michelangelo (1415 - 1564)
“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in room alone”
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
“When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns music. To love life through labor is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret. All work is empty save when there is love, for work is love made visible”
Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)
“There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there for long enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking"
William James (1842 - 1910)
NEW BOOK!
Learning How To Get Through It
How to Find Your Joy in a Crazy Upside-Down World