Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Live, Laugh and Love….Really? Hold on, In His Grip


One of my favorite sayings is Live, Laugh and Love.  If you stand in my kitchen you will see that saying right over the entrance of the archway into the kitchen.  Because that is what I picture in my kitchen. The smells of baking in the oven, my sweet husband sitting in his chair delivering his news from his day and of course Olivia interrupting about fifty times to get in her every single thought that she has ever had.  This is life evolving around us. Listening to life, laughing at our life and loving each other because we are in each other's life.  Living, laughing and loving each other.  Some of our greatest memories are made in the kitchen.  Honestly, a lot of weight is gained in that kitchen but we lived while we were in there.

 Living is hard these days for all of us.  Some days we are all doing well to put one step in front of the other.  I am amazed at the friends that surround me and how they survive life.  Between cancer, sickness, job loss, home loss, lives lost ,each day brings a day of truly living.  Not the fairytale but the realities of life.  Where we take that life, where we walk in that path of life, the decisions we make along the way and how we get through it is our testimony of living. 

My testimony touches those different facets of what we call life.  I have walked down some hard, difficult roads that have led me to greater heights than I can ever imagine.  I have walked through some valleys that I thought would never end.  This does not make me an expert in life it just gives me a testimony that might come alongside someone else and pick them up and help them keep walking.  My joy is to share my life so someone else may be a little stronger, a little happier and a little more closer to the God that has been ever faithful to me.

A friend reminded me this weekend that the model of prayer Jesus gave us was "Our"  Father in heaven.  She told me how God showed her that the "our" part joins us all together as a body.  In that joining, my testimony of life, may touch you…your testimony of life will touch me and someone else and so on.  So, if we want to really touch someone, we have to open our lives to others, we have to share our victories and failures and we have to be alone with God. That alone time leads us to hear Him and understand our journey so much more.  Really the saying should be Learn, Laugh and Love because in the love part is where we get to hold on to someone else's hand.  Giving them something they needed out of the abundance of what we have learned and been given.

So come join me in my quiet place .  On my back porch that overlooks the pool and my garden.   In my swing, with my coffee steaming and listening to the quiet of the morning I listen.  Come visit with me  and the Holy Spirit as we talk.  Yours will be your own conversation. Telling Him all the things that you need …all the things that hurt…all the things you love. On my porch swing I will be doing the same.  I will pour another  cup of coffee.  I want to tell you all about the God who loved me, laughed at me and with me, and more than I can imagine loves me.  So that when we meet maybe my story will help you and I know your story will help me. 

The scripture for my life is  Proverbs 3:4-5 "Love the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding, and all they acknowledge  Him and He will direct your paths." I have found that to be true more than I can ever even discuss with you.

Unfortunately for me ,today is a one way dialogue. I have  been doing all the talking.  But if you knew me, personally, you would know the first question I would ask is " tell me about you. Tell me how you are doing?".  Because that is my heart.  To know you.  To be a part of your life.   Maybe, as the coffee starts to get cold you will hear from the Holy Spirit something that swells in your heart to make life just a little brighter today that you will share with me.  Living  can be one of the hardest things to ever learn. Sharing your life can be a milestone for you and yet, when we do, it is the closest I believe we can get to knowing God.

Today  LIVE, LAUGH AND LOVE

In His Grip

Barb


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