your story

I recently finished a book by Frank Delaney entitled The Last Story Teller. I've never been too captivated by "storytellers" but found the background and the story itself very interesting. What captured my attention most was this paragraph.
"Every legend and all mythologies exist to teach us how to run our days. In kind fashion. A loving way. But there's no story, no matter how ancient, as important as one's own. So if we are to live good lives, we have to tell our own story. In a good way."

 I think of my book "Broken by Addiction, Blessed by God-a woman's path to sustained recovery" as my own story woven into an approach to long term recovery-a way to run my day. I think it is useful and healing to "tell our story" ---even if I only tell it to myself. How did I arrive in this place? Who was involved and important? How were they involved and important? What choices did I make that impacted where I am today? Is there something I want to 're-decide?'

Can you tell your story in a kind way...in a loving way?

Blessings-Penny

skipping

Walking in downtown St. Louis the other day I watched a mother and daughter cross the street. The daughter was about 8 years old and holding her mother's hand. About halfway across the street the child looked up at her mother and broke into a skip. She smiled and looked so filled with delight. I wondered what the mother had said or what thought had entered the child's head.

When did you last feel like breaking into a skip? When did you last say something that might have filled someone with delight- so they felt like breaking into a skip? To feel like skipping we have to feel "light"-unburdened. Can you lift someone's burden today? Can you give up some of your own burden?

 God shares our burden-He promises. Take time to remember that today. Give it to Him. He would love to see you skip.

Blessings-Penny

Decisions

Within the last month both of my sons have declined major opportunities in their careers. Their decisions to decline those opportunities are based on what is best for their children. In declining those opportunities they have essentially ended their military careers and will retire. One will retire this month, the other sometime later. I am so impressed. For each of them the opportunities offered were things they would have enjoyed d and would have been capstones to their careers.

One son said it was really no decision. It would have meant transferring to another state and leaving his family where they are-no decision. The other son wrestled more-his decision would have meant a family move and with a daughter in high school and a wife with deep family roots where they are- he decided "no."

How do you make decisions? Who do you consider in the process? How do you talk with them? do you pray for God's guidance?

During the time my sons had to make their decisions, I told them I prayed they could feel God's presence with them, that they would be guided by His grace, that they would feel His peace whatever they decided.

I am so very proud of them-no matter their decisions.

Blessings-Penny

Issac

Much is being said about Hurricane Issac landing on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It is also the aniversary of "Tropical Storm Irene" landing in Vermont. We were trapped on our mountain for 3 weeks. Thousands of people lost everything. The landscape was devastated.

And yet this morning, as Issac approaches our new home in St. Louis, I walked in the park by the Arch at sunrise. The clouds were just above the horizon and that small sliver of sky was a brilliant pink. It even reflected onto the silver Arch. Color and beauty and majesty were overwhelming for just a few minutes.

Nature shows us the "power and the glory..."--in the good times and the bad. I can make no sense of it but I pray to be aware-acutely aware.

What might you be more aware of today?

Blessings-Penny

noise

There is highway repair outside our apartment. The work requires installation of large metal coverings over the roadbed when traffic is allowed through the work area. Those metal coverings are secured rather loosely and when trucks cross those coverings, it sounds like thunder...over and over and over.About 4 a.m. that noise awakens me and I have great difficulty getting back to sleep. I become frustrated, annoyed and agitated which makes sleep impossible.

My husband, who sleeps through the whole thing, suggests I think of the noise simply as background noise...something that is there but not really very important. It's like the worries that annoy and agitate us at night---thoughts and worries that are there but that we really can't do anything about---certainly not at 4 a.m.

How do we do that? How do we put the thoughts and worries at 4 a.m. as "background noise?"
We do it by placing those worries in God's hands. We say a quiet prayer that we sense His presence and His desire to hold those worries, that noise, so we can rest and our minds be quiet. He takes away the thunder and we receive His peace. 

What worries, what noise in your life needs to be placed in the background? Today can you place those worries in God's hands knowing He is with you?
Blessings-Penny

Life

We watched a movie the other night about a father and son who were writers. The movie is named "Flynn", I think. It's pretty good -not great. But it had a line I liked. The father (Robert DeNiro) said to the son, who was working in a homeless shelter, "I know what you are doing here. You're gathering experiences. All life is gathering experiences."

Isn't that true? If we are aware of each those experiences; if we think about them, consider them as part of a larger picture, isn't that really what life is? But how often do we do that? Do we really stop each day and consider the moments, the conversations, as the real essence of our lives?

Do we stop and thank God for the gift of those experiences? Do we ask God to help us make the most of those experiences, to help us shape our lives in His grace?

Blessings-Penny

Rest

"How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward." Spanish proverb.
This proverb was in our newspaper's comic strip and I smiled. In our very busy society we rarely give ourselves permission to "do nothing and rest afterwards." It is a concept difficult to even imagine. For most of us being busy equates with being important. Even retirees take delight in saying things like, "I'm so busy I don't know how I had time to work."

My prayer for you today is that you "do nothing and then rest afterward." In that rest thank God for the peace that He gives. The rest is His gift.

Blessings-Penny