HEART'S CRY

Transparency For the Journey, is not for the feint of heart.  Today's journey began with honesty to my accountability group and then the devouring of six fresh baked rolls.  I wish I could pretend the day went better but... I am heading into the dark forest.  The only way out is to get real. Good Grief. Thoughts for today seem to be centered around intuition.  God has given me the gift of intuition and the relationship "by gut" style!  I don't remember the official word for this relationship type, but I sense things.   One would think this would make me cautious and thoughtful...   One would be so wrong to think this. However, I have determined to use my strengths to my advantage in this war against my personal enemies.   So intuition, look out!  I am going to be using you as a tool to let me know what is going on with me as well as with others.   In order for this to work though, I'm going to...

This New Journey blog stream is my attempt of being transparent in the painful area of my life; my weight and my health. More information is not going to help overcome this life long behavior.  In fact, that has been a great diversion for me.  Perhaps one book I read will give me "THE" answer to my emotional eating and weight issues. Trust me, I know what I need to do and what happens if I don't.  I've experienced it.  Nothing is more frustrating when well meaning people offer advice as to how to lose weight.   While I appreciate learning what works for them, it doesn't help me.  We cannot assume that just because someone is flailing , that that person is not trying. However, just because this is my journey to take and I have to explore, create options, make decisions and act; I still need support and accountability. Many people in the circles of our li fe are purs uing change and fac ing huge obstacles. I know for me, I...

" I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong- that is that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each others faith.     I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles." Romans 1:11-13 What desire Paul shows in this passage for his church body.  He writes so transparently so we get to feel his heart and love.  He wants to impart a spiritual gift, like the kind we see in 1 Co. 1:7 and 12:1-31 so that these spiritual children of his can be strong and established.  He wants to see them nurtured and strong. " — To the end you may be established. Having commended their flourishing he here expresses his desire of their establishment, that as they grew upward in the branches they might grow downward in the root. The best saints, ...

Nothing like a weekend away to clear one's head and refocus.  If this weekend includes a class and an impromptu personal coaching time and an action plan...things begin to happen. I was born insatiably curious.  An explorer and pioneer at heart I think.  Gypsy in my blood.  One wild frontier has always turned me away.  I've walked to the edge of this forest more times then I can't count.  At times I'm brave and walk down the darkened path.   Other times...Fear takes over and I find myself screaming, t ripping and stumbling back down the path to my safe meadow.  I pick up a new back pack of "supplies and tools" and try to go around the edge of the unknow n looking for a short cut. Looking for a quick fix.  The KEY.  The magic word that will "work."  A wand or a button.  Short cuts and easy outs.   Rationalizing, reasoning, making excuses, w hining etc. Now...i t is time.  Time to fac...

My birthday finds me taking a few minutes of reflection this morning before work.  Pulling out a well worn article written when I met my birth Dad for the first time five years ago...reminds me of how blessed I am.   O.k. a few tears this morning as I think about how loved I am. We forget as a culture that those events that happen before we even remember do impact our today.   And we also know perceptions are not always realistic and yet they become so real and so very painful. While the people in my life loved me, I intuitively felt my coming did not make life easy on a 16 year old single Mom.   My feelings developed through experiences of being a nuisance, annoyance, pest and baggage are hard to overcome no matter how many birthdays separate them! My goal with writing this post today is to encourage you...whomever you are, through my brokenness, that you will find your value and your worth in the eyes of our heavenly Father!...

Today was our monthly potluck.  For our church, this usually means tons of food!  One famil y is trying to model healthy eating so we had humus, relish tray and quinoa salad.  Another family brought fruit and pasta salad.  Me?  I brought store made lasagna.  Add spaghetti casserole brought by a single Dad brought and chicken legs, vegetable casserol e, crackers and cheese and on and on.   Rows of tables filled with food, children and adults eating and visiting.  I stood back for a moment and relished the sight.  The little girl pulling over a chair for another little girl.   A four year boy dishing up fruit for a little 3 year old girl.   Kids sitting across the table from our older members enjoying undivided attention.     Laughter, talk and the sweet sounds of a large family enjoying each other .  Kids , potluck and enjoying the relationship of a family.  Being part of ...

I can't sit still.  My mind doesn't like to be still.  As far back as I can remember I have had an internal foot on the accelerator of my life.    Part of it is personality and temperament .  Part of it is experiences from my past. This weekend, I took a Christian Leadership Coaching workshop with Tony Stolzfus as a birthday present. While the books, materials and class gave me the information to help me move forward in my goals...it was the experience as a coachee that transformed my heart.  To Draw From ...  I experienced God in a way that I have never done before.  Having someone truly listen and ask about the cries of my heart, set me free.   Set me free...to be still. I am enough.  God has created me.  I don't have to be more or do more.  My value and my worth is not dependent on earning them.  While I know in my mind the truth of God's Word- I've been driven with such a desire...

Why Read? Reading takes us from where we have been, or are to where we can go or be! Why Read,  " The Traveler's Gift, Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success "  by Andy Andrews? It will change your thinking as Mr. Ponder goes from successful but exhausted professional to broke and unemployed and traveling through time as he learns seven critical decisions.     This book overflows with vision, passion and courage that seeps through the pages like a slow rain onto very dry ground. We are where we are because of our thinking.  "We are all in situations of our own choosing.  Our thinking creates a pathway to success or failure." (Andrews P. 26) "In great deed, something abides.   On great fields, something stays.   Forms change and pass, bodies disappear but spirits linger to consecrate ground for the vision place of the soul.   And reverent men and women from afar and generations...

Part of my professional development goals include intentional Bible Study.  Today's oft skipped verse just blessed my heart.  I don't know about you but I tend to skip reading the greetings.   Check this out: Romans 1:6-7  "And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.  To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:  Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ." Cross referenced to Jude 1 & 2 "...to those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ.  Mercy, Peace and Love be yours in abundance!" I love this!  Mercy, Peace and Love Multiplied !  Who doesn't need Mercy, Love and Peace multiplied and given in abu nd ance! I'm seeking multiplication!  

"For I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name: you are mine." -Isaiah 43:1 Yesterday, I celebrated with ladies and 20+ little g irls enveloped in glitter, nail polish, bling, laughter and tuille! Decorations for our Ladies and Girls Tea Sprayed Stems and Sparkling Shoes from Repeat Boutique Center of Attention! More pictures to come.  This was a fun adventure for me as I tried to decorate without spending much money.  Door foil, metal santa hat and gold beads bought for $.10 at the Dollar Store were spray painted with silver, spray adhesive and silver glitter. Tuille sprayed with adhesive and sprinkled with glitter. Tissue paper. Heads of flowers found in the "throw away" bin. Ribbon I found in a hidden corner of the church cupboard. Stems spray pained silver and adhesive and glitter and beads. Old vases either sprayed with silver and/or adhesive and glitter and jewels! Bits of lace.  Old doily's and white sh...

Talked with a young mom this morning with a coworker in the quiet of our office.   A young Mom who grew up swimming upstream in a slough of despondency and a bog of despair.  Molested, neglected, abandoned, abused, lost, locked up, beat up, let out and locked up again.   Her DSMVI is a mile long with horrific words like reactive attachment, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, PTSD, Bi-Polar and diss associative disorder.  Oh, don't forget felon and parolee. Her ID has been stamped, broken over and over again. AND YET... the one true God of the universe sent His ONE and only Son to accept her unconditionally.  He offered her a free and transformational gift. The gift of a new life.  Redemption.  Salvation.  I teach boundaries, renewing the mind and many other classes to help people learn new skills.  While the information and skills are valuable tools; authentic life changing transformation is only found in redemption....

Blizzards- the real deal, complete with snow, wind and cold- makes me homesick.  A mild one is blowing through today and I'm homesick.  Homesick for sisters and boys. The smell of karosen e lanterns Hay and straw and warm barns Candles Beans cooking Wood burning Hot chocolate and coffee Wind through the pine trees Stomping feet Laughing kids Debate over checkers and politics Reading Little House on the Prairie "The Long Winter" Feel of quilts and scarves and the heaviness of layers Quiet Dangerously harsh stillness An annual blizzard marching through our ranch and area was expected.  Partnering with electricity and water outages , it would lock us in our own little world. Caleb was a new baby when we were living on the ranch and hit with the "Once in 100 year blizzard."  My husband and Dad were living on tractors to feed cold cows and calves between breaking ice and scooping off the roof of an inundated building. The boys would run to the...

If you have never experienced those- up in the night-grasping at your legs-excruciating pain of growing...you have missed out on a great object lesson. Growing hurts. My boys and my husband talk about body building and the process of working out often.  I've heard them talk about the tearing that happens within the muscle and the work the body does to repair the tear and build stronger. While I know that God allows us to have the weight of more responsibility in order to build our character muscle, it is hard to watch when it to someone else. No doubt in my mind that God has a destiny in mind for each of my children or of His love that is greater than mine.  However, my first gut reaction is to reach out.  Try to rescue, or heal, or take away or solve.   It is my default setting.  Not the right one. My youngest is growing up and wanting to "do" his life on his own.  I love that he is building his own initiative and independen...

A month after my BIG beginning of setting goals and moving forward.  I have succeeded in many ways, with the support of the group of women I have surrounded myself with.   I am running up against some all too familiar barriers.   Self-sabotage greets me at every turn.  Fear of success and fear of failure and a "little" feeling sorry for myself. So I need a reminder.  Some self talk is in definite order. Note to myself for this new year:   Dear Heather, God is interested in the person that you are becoming.  The person of today who is growing and reaching toward the destiny that God has for you is more important then the person you used to be.   The old is gone and the new has come.  Don't let the tomorrow that God has for you be sabotaged with your performance of the past.  The idols of self-preservation, fear, control and pride come between you and what God has for you.   The anxiety...

When I was young I lived with the horses.  O.k. not literally, but very close.   I loved to work them on a long rope long before I worried about putting on a saddle.  My purpose was building rapport and helping them choose to work with me and trust  me. Watching a young horse bask in its freedom as it ran to the end of the rope and run in circles thinking that it was completely in charge.  As they ran, I could see them thinking.  Hmmm, now what?  "Go ahead," I would say, "just keep running." Do I just want to run in circles?  Soon they were looking toward me for some kind of direction.  It would not be long until t hey turn in to me , ready to work together. When saddling, bridling or any kind of training, if the horse would act as if they wanted to go it on their own, I would let them out to the end of the rope.  Usually, one go brought them back quickly. Who knew that this activity would be the picture that b...

Are you in the business of building and multiplying leaders? Are you a parent?  A teacher?  A business owner?  Do you have client s or employees or consumers?  Maybe you are a student or a captain on the football team? Then you are in the business of building leaders. Intentional or not... Ready or not... I'm sure that you pull those around up to the table to teach them complicated leadership skills and train and read and test and train some more?!  Maybe show videos or tell them what to do? Perhaps , provide them with a required reading list, study guide and then test their knowledge? Maybe, you say.  Or maybe, you are working like a crazy person shoving people through the rat race?   You want to build leaders until the work needs done and it gets messy and is chaotic and a struggle...then you rescue the fledgling leaders and cussing out their irresponsibility?  We cannot let them fail...because we would loo...