Thanksgiving

Living with so much abundance, I take for granted a million blessings each day. Instead of living with gratitude, I focus on my worries and concerns, my mind ruled by my to-do list.  When does gratitude come naturally to me?  When someone bails me out of a tough situation, I am grateful. When someone forgives me for messing up, I am grateful.  When anyone gives me positive reinforcement, I am grateful.  When I pray, I am grateful, because my mind focuses on He who sustains me and gives me everything!  Since living gratefully escapes my natural tendencies, I have to work at it.  I try to write down five things for which I am grateful each day. I plug prayer into my daily schedule.  I want to talk about the "highlights" of my day more over dinner, because focusing on the positive in our lives deeply enriches every moment!   Sharing our positive thoughts with others, giving positive reinforcement, deepens the quality of our lives in immeasurable and profound ways, bonding us to others and fueling the goodness in our hearts and theirs.  Thanksgiving -- truly being thankful for all the good in our lives and the good in those around us-- is absolutely magical!  I pray your celebration of gratitude will be filled with the warm feelings of well-being that comes from truly counting our blessings and giving thanks to Him who provides it all!  Thank you so much for reading this! -  JB

Praise Reports

I find I tend to focus on the things I'm worried about, even in prayer.  I'm often too slow to bring my concerns to God. I often stew about them before it even occurs to me to pray about them!  Yet, once God answers my prayers, I say "Thank you" and move back to my next problem!  It's so easy to be focused on the broken stuff in our lives rather than the blessings!!  Melissa shared the same thought in one of her prayer poems: "I'm slower to say "thank you" than I am so say "please". There is actually a whole body of psychological literature finding the importance of training our minds to the positive, but this is an old Biblical principle- Phillipians 4:8.   When I was in college, our Christian fellowship packed a small dorm room full of students at 9:00 pm each night for a 15 minute prayer meeting.  We started with "praise reports and prayer requests."  What a great way to train our minds to remember the goodness and faithfulness of our Lord!  Although I have written recently about my daughter's trip to Asia, I neglected to report that she not only returned in one piece, but with amazing self-confidence and loaded with new talent and skills!  God more than answered my prayers!  So, when we focus on how the Lord has been faithful to us in the past, our minds are fortified for trusting God in the future!  We serve a faithful Creator, a Loving Shepherd, a Trustworthy God.  So, I will continue to write down five blessings for which I am grateful every day, first thing in the morning!  Hope your day is filled with praise! - Blessings, JB  

Role Model

I had a precious opportunity to honor Melissa in a brief ceremony dedicating a terrace in her memory.  As her friends shared their memories of her, I was struck again by how much she reached out to others, even in the last months and days of her life.  She had a clear mission: to support other people and to share God's love.  She lived this mission at every opportunity until her last breath.  When time gets short, our priorities become more clear, as did Melissa's.  I tend to get so caught up in my own concerns, my own "to-do" list, making it so difficulty to focus on others.  When God places a need in my path, I get frustrated at the interruption of my plans, rather than seeing this opportunity as God's provision for my ministry to others.  Melissa had no such cloudy vision.  She knew every interaction was another chance to give God's love to others, and she made each contact count.... every day she lived. She coped with her lungs filling with cancer by making every day count to bring God's love to a hurting world.  I want my focus to be the same.  I want to realize petty, little worries have no place in my life.  Each day is a precious opportunity to give comfort and love to every person we meet.  I pray for that razor-sharp focus on being an Ambassador for Christ, which only possible through constant connection with the Holy Spirit. So, I'll keep trying to stay connected with prayer, renewed by God's Word, and focused on what really matters: sharing God's love.  Blessings-  JB

Struggling

I've been struggling with God...... again.  I've actually found myself arguing with Him.  I argue with God fairly often. It gets me nowhere.  I don't recommend it.  This time the struggle is over time.... again.  I want time to do what I want to do.  I fail to recognize His sovereignty in my life to give me time I need to do His will, not mine.  Of course, my failure to acknowledge God's control over my circumstances is just another form of rebellion that I don't want to admit to.  I know in my head that He will provide what I need to do His will.  The hard part is submitting to His plan, not mine!!  I want to accomplish what I want to accomplish and then I'll be glad to do His bidding as well.  The Lord doesn't work that way.  I have to get my head in line with His.  How do I do this?  How do I let go of precious goals and hand them over?   First I choose to obey, secondly, I pray out loud and hand my goals to God and, lastly, I ask for His help with my feelings to follow: His help letting go.  I actually got to a place of peace this week by following that three-step recipe.  Of course,  I have to repeat these steps over and over, because I'm so stubborn and have such a hard time giving things over to the Lord.  I am happy to report that prayer works, again and again.  This is how Melissa was able to give over her entire life,-- how long she had to live, -- even when she had her whole life ahead of her.  Prayer. Asking God to help us to trust.  And He does. So, I'll keep praying.  Hope you do, too!  Blessings - JB

Letting Go

I've been practicing my specialty this week--- fretting!   I'm a pro at worrying about things, especially my to-do list!!  I see these next couple of weeks as my last chance to complete my second book of Melissa's writings before I get swallowed up in the academic year.   My window of opportunity for 2011 is quickly shutting for this precious project.  This morning, I gave it over to God......again.  Reading Oswald Chambers brought me back to the enlightenment:  my life and goals do not belong to me.  I am serving my God, and He is in charge of what gets done and when.  The Lord will give me time and strength to complete that which is needed when it is His time.  And God knows when the world is ready for this book, not me.  I have to chose to let go and let God take control, which for me is a constant struggle.    Although painful, letting go is also the only way to peace.  Amazing how Melissa kept that perspective, when her time was really getting short!  I need to follow her example. So, I'm sharing this little patch of peace with you, while my head is still in a good place.  As long as I keep my eyes on Jesus, I'll have a good day!  I hope  yours is good, too.  - Blessings - JB

Centered

I'm about to send my only surviving child to the farthest corner of the world by herself for the first time.  This is not a comforting feeling. Yes, she is in college and will be a part of a reputable program, but she will be far from my reach.  Any difficulty she encounters, she has to handle without me. I literally have to hand her over to God. As I was driving to New York to visit Melissa's grave site, I had an "ahaah" moment.  The light bulb went on over my head!  A verse came into my mind, "You will keep him (her) in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because (s)he trusts in you."  Isaiah 26:3.  I had to look up the verse, because I had no idea where this came from, but there it was in my head.  I remembered Melissa and the incredible peace she had even has her life came to a close.  I know that peace came from her constant praying. She stayed connected to the source of peace. She stayed centered, focused on God, and that gave her "perfect peace", just like the verse says.  So, what is my challenge during the next 7 weeks with my daughter not even on email most of the time?  I must keep my mind centered on Christ, because I trust God.  She is, after all, his child, not mine.  So, I hand her back to her Loving Father who actually is even more concerned about her well-being than I am, as impossible as that is for my pea brain to imagine!  I hand her over to our Faithful Creator, and keep my eyes focused on the invisible.  The God who loves her even more than I do will not fail!  Thank you for journeying with me!  Blessings- JB

Forgiveness

I'm writing a book on positive grieving, a survival manual for mothers who have lost a child.  You know what word I use over and over?  Forgive.  Forgive others for not knowing what to say or for saying the wrong thing. Forgive family members for fighting and emotionally withdrawing and being irritable, because that's what grief will do if not expressed honestly and directly.  Most of all, forgive yourself for everything: for all past mistakes with the loved one and all current mistakes with everyone else because you are in deep grief.  Forgiveness is such a critical discipline in the path to healing and healthy relationships. Somehow, Melissa seemed to automatically forgive others shortcomings, especially in the last year of her life.  Maybe knowing each day is precious makes us more aware of the importance of letting go of petty irritations. At the same time, Melissa also let people know when they owed her an apology, which makes for honest, close relationships.
        Our faith tells us that Jesus died to provide us with unlimited forgiveness.  We have to choose to believe and choose to forgive, especially ourselves.  Forgiveness is a choice, just as faith is a choice!  If we "can't forgive", its because we have chosen not to forgive, but won't admit that to ourselves.  Prayer is the pathway to forgiveness, both of others and oneself.  If we pray sincerely for God's help to forgive others, He will help us to do so.  And we must pray also for forgiveness for ourselves.  Holding on to guilt or anger is simply destructive.  Both anger and guilt eat away our souls.  Choose forgiveness as often as you need to do so.  And allow the peace of Christ to reign in you, no matter how many mistakes you make!  Peace.