HEART'S CRY

Under the weather days Gloomy dreary cold and foggy  A stay under the cover and hide from the world phase Rest restore and refresh days Where a girl can reconsider and reorder Dream desire and escape the craze Tucked in my mind days With blankets pulled over my head Freeing my thoughts from all that weighs Setting me free days Where I'm free to dream wander and roam Traveling to where my heart stays Me~

I'm up early today and was enjoying the quiet of a sleeping house.  Then the alarms began.  I smile as I hear my third son's first alarm.  Then his second.  The alarm goes off in my room.  Next, I hear the one coming up from downstairs and it abruptly being turned off.  Snooze buttons galore happening in our house. Maybe not just in the morning either. Alarms go off in so many ways in my life that I slam the snooze button on.  My health.  Finance. Relationships.  Maintenance.  I can only hit the snooze button so many times before they turn off.  Then what?  What have I missed out on? Then I wonder about the alarms that God set to go off for the world.  Things that were meant to wake us up and turn to Him.  Signs that it is time to wake up and be very alert.  Then I hit the snooze.   God help me to hear all of the alarms in my life so that I can live.  Help me to hear the alarms that you ha...

I'm working on my budget.  The realization hits.  If I want change; I have to be the change.  I have to BE what I want.  I have to lead the way.  So... it could get ugly around here as I stick firm to the detailed budget that I have.  I might stomp my feet.  Things I love or things my husband or my children love might have to be cut.  Areas that make our lives easier and more fun.  Diet Pepsi, Horses, TV, Eating out, Internet....  What should go and what should stay?  Do I cut or see how long I can keep stretching the rubber band until it breaks??????  Am I willing to do what it takes to have a new future? Then... I watch the news.  Protest in four states because of cuts.  Difficult decisions faced by every American during the next few months.  As I watched the news... I let out a deep sigh.  It looks like my house.  We have choices to make.  What we want verses what we have.  Where we want ...

This tends to describe me in everything I do.  I've always loved to drive.  Since "driving" for Dad to throw out hay to driving girls to school to driving thrill hill and beating the boys' record.  I go for a drive when I'm mad, sad or happy!  I love to drive.  However, I live like I drive I'm afraid.  Either full speed or stopped.  The Zoom-Eakes.  You know drive really fast and then slam on the breaks and yell "EAKES!!!"   If life is like a road and God directs us to follow in His way.  If my life is like I drive then I need some help!  Some things I've learned from driving.   Stay on my side of the road.   Drive for the conditions. (That was a painful lesson.)  Fill up with gas and check your oil BEFORE you leave for the trip. (Another painful lesson.)   Observe and know your landmarks, directions AND pack a map.  Don't panic if you get lost because there are lots of nice people w...

The speed needed in order to break free from gravitational pull according to the internet.  Velocity is the speed of something in any given direction.   Escape Velocity.  So my definition is that it is the velocity needed for me to escape the pull away from all that is holding me down.   To escape my own apathy and doubt and fear.  To escape my own bad habits and move in a new direction.  What do I need to get that velocity?  What is the fuel I need to move me fast enough to escape the pull?  When I think of a rocket leaving for space, I picture the huge fire as the rockets fire up. Fire... three things are needed.  Heat, Fuel and Air.  So have been thinking.  Air to me is space, quiet, and time.  Fuel is my goals, desires and thoughts.  Heat that is needed to start the fire is intensity and focus.  All three have to come together to have escape velocity.   I'm preparing to light a fire!

Am I important to you?  Isn't that the question of all of our hearts?  From infants to the wonderful woman at the nursing home turning 96.  Across our lifetime we want to know we are important to someone.  That we have one person that is crazy about us and that values us at our very core.  Not what we do or who are or who we know... Just Value.  Value that I am important no matter what. Value.  What we value comes out through out words, our actions and what we focus on.  Where I put  my focus shows what I value.  Value.  Importance.   You are valued to me.  I just want you to know that.  I treasure your words and your presence on this site.  So many people are so important to me.  That is where my focus needs to be.

HEART'S CRY: My Little Valentine : "Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday and is made up of my best memories. From chocolates that I know that my Mom picked up for Dad t..."

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday and is made up of my best memories.  From chocolates that I know that my Mom picked up for Dad to give us to the mailboxes out of hearts that we had cut out at our school.  Notes from boys didn't hurt either!  My rose in a vase that David gave me on our first Valentine's Day and the card with the poem that he wrote for me that is still in my hope chest. And the year that he took my wedding ring to be repaired when we were penniless to give to me again. My most precious Valentine's Day gifts have been those home made cards from my boys that are still in my drawer with crayon scribbled messages.  David would get the boys together and they would all make me cards and that is so much better then diamonds.  And on the first Valentine's Day with my Dad Chuck, he sent me a "Valentine for my Daughter" and it is a cherished possession.  I still want my husband to call me babe, be Daddy's little girl and my boys' fav...

Spending time in the nursing home today reminded me of how important it is to listening to those hearts around us.  Listening past the words to the cry of the heart.  Every person around us has something important to share with us if we will listen.   As girl, my Mom worked the early shift in the nursing home and I would go and spend time with the people there before going to the babysitter.  I would watch news, ride wheelchairs and play with the dog.  Mom taught me to look beyond the external and appreciate and listen to those ramblings and stories as gifts of wisdom and history.   Take the time today to listen to the hearts behind the words.

When someone we love hurts, we hurt.  What do we do?  I don't know about you but my first response is to jump.  To fix.  To try to make it better.  To figure it out.  To put it on me.  Take the blame and responsibility.  To cheer-lead.  If that doesn't work?  Tell them to get up and suck it up.  And...amazingly...it doesn't work.  Driven by love~it is still control.   Control is me not wanting to release.  Control is me wanting to do something to relieve my fear and anxiety and pain.  Control is holding on.  Control is my own self-protection. Reminding, cajoling, maneuvering, reframing....  It's all control if our motive is to do something about someone else. So what to do...  Let go of the outcome.  Release those that are hurting to God to care for and protect.  My responsibility is for my own reactions, responses, feelings, attitudes and behaviors and actions.  Love with...

The title on the World magazine that came today An article on Haiti's situation;  "Between Hell and Hope."   The article shows a disturbing picture of what it is like for these people.  The disconnect between those that have and those who are in struggling from meal to meal in make shift shelters.  Convoy of Hope is the organization that we gave to in order to help Haiti.   Not a government program.  What the government cannot do either in America or in Haiti~  People can.  People can make the difference.  You and I make the difference.  We stand between Hell and Hope.