Gotta Make it Lovely

Tonight I stayed outside a few moments to water my elephant plants, my withering ornamental grasses and my struggling flower bed. A recent storm wrecked havoc on my little plot and relocated some of my precious soil to my old concrete sidewalk. I noticed among the wreckage a lone bulb that had somehow uprooted and found itself displaced among the mess. One of my favorite musicals is The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman (based on the famous novel The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett). I often feel a bit like Mary Lennox when I'm close to the soil. It's easy to feel a swell of pride and ownership for my little plot, however small, and I feel so satisfied making it beautiful. I love the smell of the earth, the promise of new life, the hope of the future. One of my favorite characters is Dicken who exudes faith and positivity and helps Mary uncover the magic of the garden. I only meant to water, but soon found myself spraying away the remains of the storm, straightening t...

I watched an amazing training video this week by Darren Hardy on Sunday Planning. It changed my whole week and how I view my time. I'll link to it because I think everyone would benefit from watching it (yes mom, I'm talking to you too!!) Go here to watch the link . Darren teaches an important concept about goals. [This makes me want to cry.] He says that when you set goals, you can go big or you can go small, but it takes the same effort either way. He gives a few real life examples of this and it might seem insane, but I tried it for a week and IT'S TRUE!!! I'm doing a fun project on my personal YouTube channel (and I already went big with that challenge) so I decided to push myself and set an intimidating goal of making fifteen videos last week. I surpassed it with 17. Had I not stretched myself and set a BIG goal, I would have reached my smaller goal, yes, but likely with the same or similar effort. It wasn't that difficult to hit my goal of making fifteen v...

Authenticity is one of my favorite words. So simple and beautiful and powerful. God is purely authentic. He tells us all the time who He is. We won't ever have to be surprised. This means the opposite is also true. Those that are far from God don't often reveal who they truly are. Conversely, they enshroud themselves in a murky cloud of deceit. They may say they are who you want to believe they are, but their words do not match their actions. This is one of the ways they expose themselves. The scriptures teach "...by their fruits ye shall know them." - Matthew 7:20 Why does it matter? The answer to that depends on where you are going, and yes, I'm talking about heaven or hell. We are taught that we are judged by our thoughts as well as our actions. So our words had better line up with our deeds. This is my definition of being authentic , to live honestly with who we are.  So the answer is, it matters because it determines our ultimate destiny. Who we are...

I have a candle that smells like heaven.  Don't ask me how I know that, but it does. I could sit and smell this candle for a hundred years. Maybe more. I'm a very sensorial person, and it helps to have tactile reminders of my Home. This candle is one of them.  When I need to feel closer to Heaven, I take the lid off this candle and drink it in. I breathe it through every cell of my body and I remember.....  I don't actually remember, but it's like a deep part of me remembers and it's that deep reservoir I'm filling. I inhale the heavenly scent until my lakes are brimming and even then it's hard to stop. Sometimes I ache to be there. I can see the flowers in millions of colors and I dance among them in my mind. Swirling my graceful spirit through an eternity of beauty. And in my real-time moment, I'm there too. Heaven is inside me. There's no jolt back to reality, because there's no division between the two. This is the most beautiful ...