mustard seed

I guess today's happy moment comes down to an interesting statement about myself and about our relationship with God.  Today my faith is the size of a mustard seed but my dreams are as large as the tree itself.   I cannot think of a better way to say it.  I cannot think of what else to say, but even with faith the size of a mustard seed God can help us attain dreams from and with that seed.  Dreams as large as the tree.

The details

I took this picture months ago and I don't remember a bug in the picture when I took it.  However today when I was looking through my pictures I saw this picture again and noticed the bug.  It reminded me of Ansel Adams photo of the rose and drift wood, focusing on God is in the details.  The details of this bug and this rose also reminds me that God is in the details of our lives, and how beautiful those details can be.  I see it in where I am in life, in the people I am blessed to get to know and serve, in the answer to small prayers like "please help me to quickly find this shirt so I can make it to the meeting on time," and in the other small beautiful details of our lives.

breath, it is ok to be imperfect

So there are several smiles.  The first was a delightful time on antelope island with a friend.  I have to share two of the photos of the wild sunflowers.  They made me smile (as did the great company).

The second smile came as a small reminder to breath.  I have been feeling rather inadequate about teaching, while I enjoy it, I still don't feel intelligent enough for it.  I have to try and remember things from YEARS ago and try to understand the why that I didn't think about before, or at least I may have but frankly I don't remember now.  So today I have been struggling remembering and understanding thoroughly something I haven't used in YEARS.  I have been praying about it.  Well I had the quiet inspiration to look at a specific book.  As I pulled out the book there was a letter written to me by my psuedo brother over a year ago.  In his letter he mentioned to look up two songs.  One was just breath and the other was freckles.  Both songs were what I needed to hear.  The first was a reminder to breath.  I need to take a break and BREATH.  The other was a great reminder that it is our inperfections that make us who we are.  It is ok to be imperfect.

I just need to breath and it will be ok.  It is ok that I am imperfect, I am who I am.

simplistic beauty and quiet delight

I wish I could write some deep thought and inspirational moment, but I have none today, all I have is the delight of this moment.  The delight of quiet reflection sitting outside in the late summer/early fall weather, while listening to Celtic music.  Today I spent time walking with a friend.  Her cooking and garden inspire me.  The delightful people her and her husband are bring a smile to my face.

Do I need to actually write out why these quiet moments of reflection and the friendship with good people, and this wonderful weather are happy moments.

I really wish I could write some great philosophical statement about life and the importance and beauty of these moments, but it is in the simplistic beauty of these moments and who I am and want to be and how I wish to live my life that makes them what they are in my eye, a simplistic beauty and quiet delight.

The broken road

There is a great country song that says God blessed the broken road that led me to you or something along those lines.  I feel that that is true in my life, but not in the sense of bringing me to someone at this time but rather to where I am today.

In my working career I have gone through a lot of jobs, largely due to the economy.  And let me tell you, regardless of the reasons I lost my jobs it was rough.  It was a broken road.  It led to feelings of inadequacy and self doubt.  Well today I am teaching and the combination of all those jobs have helped me become a better teacher.  I can teach based off of experience, and while my experience was "short" it was broad.  The broken road led me to here.  God prepares us for our destinations through "broken" paths.  We become broken that we can become strong and whole and far better.  I am who I am today because of the broken road I have taken.

Patience

So generally I have been placing my happy moments on things that haven't really been thoughts or inspiration or spiritual insight, but today is different.  Today I shall share the spiritual insight that has given me pleasure today.  It seems that different times in our lives, our lives seem to focus on different principles of aspects.  For me the most recent one has been patience.  To say the most recent is slightly deceiving since we all know that patience is not a lesson we learn overnight, in fact the word patience screams TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I have been learning patience, or more specifically God has been trying to teach mes patience and I have been a very SLOW learner.  But here comes a portion of the insight I have gained regarding this particular virtue.

I am teaching a class at the university and I am actually a little ahead of my schedule.  While I was thinking about what to do, I felt inspired to provide a real world building example for my next lecture.  So I contacted several friends to see if they could provide me with the necessary drawings.  They responded that they would send me some.  Well I teach in 2 days and I don't have the drawings yet.  Here is where my ah ha of patience comes in.  First I was inspired.  Than I acted upon that prompting and did all I could do. And then I trust God that it will work out in His timetable.  I want to worry, I want to try and "force" the drawings into my lecture notes, but that is not how it works.  Nothing I can do will get them here any sooner.  If God inspired me on how to teach, than I have to trust that He will help me achieve that inspiration.  Often we get mixed up in all we can do and the more than we should do.  We try to think that we can cause a seed to grow by opening it up and yanking out the plant so that we have a fully grown tree just by our forced actions.  In reality, that is NOT how a seed becomes a tree.  All we can do is plant it, water it, give it sunlight, etc. and trust that it will grow.

Patience seems to be a combination of trusting, and doing all we can truly do (not the extreme).   A portion of that trust can be described as faith and obedience. We faithfully obey God and have faith in Him and have faith in what He has promised us, if we keep His commandments He will help us.

surgery and recovery

My pseudo mom had surgery today.  It was a day surgery and I have to admit that one smile for the day was watching as she did make quick improvements in her recovery.  No she is not back to normal, it has been a few hours, but it is amazing how our bodies work.  Our bodies are amazing.