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

God's Timing

I was feeling out of sorts, but couldn't really identify anything specific...just a little grumpy, forgetful, that not-quite-right feeling.  As I went for a morning walk in the sunshine, I realized the source: the coming and going of precious family members triggered my loss of Melissa in an incredibly subtle way.  I didn't consciously feel sad, but somewhere deep down my soul was saying, "Where's Melissa?"   Slight symptoms of grief were plaguing me, without me even knowing it.  I love the way identifying a problem half fixes it!!  Once I realized why I was feeling a little blue, I could accept it and feel better!!  I grabbed my cell phone to call the friend who had the insight to share with me this common experience of grieving parents: feeling sad when other family members come in and out of your home.  I was surprised to hear her voice, since I assumed I would just get her voice mail.  And guess what she was feeling at the time?  Right!  Her son was  home for the weekend, and she was wondering why she was not feeling more happy and energetic!  I reminded her of her own insight that she had shared with me a few years earlier.  "So, do you think you were meant to make this phone call?"  she asked, teasingly.  We had both seen the fingerprints of our Lord all over that timing.  Then I confessed to her, "And God had to tell me twice to phone you!!"   It was true.  The thought had occurred to me to call her at the beginning of my walk, but I dismissed it.  I finally called the second time the thought came to mind.  If I had listened to the Holy Spirit the first time, I could have felt better sooner!   We never know how or when God will speak to us, but we do know He is always there, always ready to hold us, always our loving and faithful Creator who longs to bless us!  Hope you hear the sweet whisper of God today! - And follow His leading! - Blessings JBM

Stressed

These past few weeks have been crazy at work. I've felt overwhelmed with demands.  As I drove into work one morning, I found myself practicing a very effective stress relief technique: very slow deep breaths, exhaling to the slow count of five.  It helps me every time to counteract the stress hormones causing my blood pressure to increase, my muscles to tense, or my stomach to knot.  This time I found myself transitioning from the deep breaths into singing praise songs.  Guess what?  Singing does the same thing as the deep breathing.  It makes you take those deep breaths and let them out slowly over the verse, but with one extra important benefit: you focus on God!  My praise songs put my mind on the source of all peace, all strength, all hope, and all love!  By time I pulled into the garage, I was smiling.  My circumstances were just as pressured, but my blood pressure was down, and my mood was completely transformed.  Focusing on God's greatness and love reminded me that no challenge is beyond His reach. Nothing will come at me that He and I can't handle together. What a difference!  I just had to pass this one on to you--- sing praises whenever those pressures pile up.  The physical, emotional, and mental health benefits are enormous!  Then again, that's just how God works! - Peace, always-  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  

Gifts from Heaven

I was blessed with a chance to honor Melissa in a dedication ceremony for a terrace in her honor. The whole occasion, although casual and brief, was a big deal in my life.  I crave the chance to talk about my child and hold on to those precious memories, which make her feel closer.  At the same time, the chance to honor her memory brought back to my conscious the pain of not having her here in person.  I found myself back in mild grief: a bit distracted and sad.  When I'm feeling the loss of my precious Princess, God sends me just the encouragement I need.  He is SO faithful!!  This time, the comfort came in the form of a comment by one of the Gordon College professors.  I had recently sent her a copy of Melissa's Prayer Journal.  She had replied with a lovely note, but I didn't  really understand her message in writing.   I had to hear her explain in person how much this book helped her in the past two months in order for me to comprehend the power of her gift to me.  She had just lost a family member to cancer.  Melissa's prayers, , Melissa's positive focus, and  Melissa's faith showed her how to deal positively with this horrific loss.  She had read  Melissa's Prayer Journal  several times, because it was so helpful to her.  I was so deeply touched!  Even I under-estimate the power of Melissa's prayers!  But God knows just how He wants to use each of us to touch the lives of others and bring them closer to Him.  My Gracious Lord gave me this encouragement that Melissa's prayers are continuing to touch lives and help people, and the message came just when I needed it: when I was hurting and missing my daughter.  Thank you, Dear God, for all your mercy and grace and love!  Just as Melissa said, "I'd be lost without You.".  Praise our Gracious God! - 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