Be Your Very Best in every Season of your Life

Be Your Very Best in every Season of your Life

Each day we are blessed with the opportunity to be the best parent or worker or spouse that we can be, whether we have children or not. Here are some tips on how to be the very best we can be in every season of our life.

1. Have a good attitude. Try not to complain. Focus on the good things in life. A day laborer with a good attitude is more fulfilled and blessed than a CEO who complains, criticizes, and is never satisfied.

2. Be thankful. Don't fret over what you don't have or pine over what you'd rather be. Just stop and be grateful for what you do have and where you are right now.

3. Continue to grow by developing your talents and skills.

4. Remember that doing your best, being grateful and thankful are all ways to  honor God. No matter our station in life, God is the Master we are here to serve, so do all in the name of the Lord.

His Master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your Master's happiness."

                                                                                                                 Matthew 25: 21

Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving, 2014, was a glorious day to be thankful for all the blessings and abundance, the joy and happiness, we've been given, up to the present moment, throughout the year, and over the course of our entire lives.

Thanksgiving should be anything but just another holiday opportunity to stuff yourself. Like Christmas, it should be a time to remember what Jesus did for us by dying on the cross so that we might live, for the grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit showered upon us. For those reasons, Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.

In my home, Thanksgiving has taken on an even more important function beyond giving thanks. Yes, my scars from abuse and neglect run the deepest, but through the Holy Spirit I had help healing. Now, I'm burdened to help my siblings heal. Even after all these years, they are still suffering. They've never been taught how to love.

This year two of my siblings joined my Thanksgiving dinner. I opened with a prayer.

"Father in heaven, Happy Thanksgiving! We thank you for having your Son die on the cross for our sins so that we might have life. We thank you for all the blessing you've given us throughout the year and look forward to abundant blessing for the upcoming year. We thank you for the food we are about to receive and we pray that it brings us health, nutrition, and well-being. In Jesus' name, Amen."

My youngest sibling knocked on our door first. Much more important than the turkey centered on the table, hugs and simple words of affection are passed around as servings of spiritual nutrition. My siblings have difficulty showing or expressing affection, but I've been working on that. Today I heard one say, "I love you."

It was important because they'd never told that to anyone before. It's a sign of their respect for me, something that given our past I greatly appreciate. I'm still healing from those terrible early years and hearing "I love you" erases some of my childhood scars. Along with the capacity to love, I hope they will come the faith to accept God and with God will come help with the depression, anger, and drug use problems that have plagued my siblings' lives.

I know their pain runs deep, their frustrations constant, so I pray every day for God to help them. For some reason, our mother's passing some years ago seems to have been a milestone making things even more difficult for them. Like my mother, they don't push everyone away, believing they can't be loved and it surfaces as meanness, cynicism, and sarcasm. There is good in all of them and my assignment, my mission, is to bring out the good in them and help it grow with the right spiritual nutrition.

Our family Thanksgiving gathering ended, I walked one of them out to their car, gave them a big hug, told them, "I love you," and to my surprise, they jumped up, kicked their heels together, and returned a hearty "I love you" back at me!

At precious moments like that I know God is working through me to slowly dismiss the demons that have been slashing at their souls. 
    

What Happiness Means to Me

   Happiness

Happiness is:

being with and spending time with those you love.

Happy is the one who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding! For profit it's better than gold in her revenue; she is more precious than corals, and none of your choice possessions can

compare with her.

(Proverbs 3:1-5)

Everyday I will be happy knowing that I am created for happiness.

Happiness is:

having people tell you that you made a

difference in their lives.

Happiness is:

knowing somebody wants to be with you.

Happiness is:

knowing somebody is thinking about you, knowing somebody misses you, knowing somebody loves you.

Happiness is:

a matter of choice, having a positive mindset with a positive attitude, we choose to find happiness in

each moment.

Happiness is:

getting together for a holiday gathering and meeting up with people who give us memories to hold in our hearts and minds for a lifetime. The very thought of them brings a smile to our faces.  Maybe these memories are given to us in the cold of the winter, so we can hold warm our hearts until the

warmth of summer returns.

We’ll all miss out on happiness occasionally because we are so busy with our lives we don't see what is right in front of us.

Happiness is:

telling somebody you care without using words.

Happy are those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked, nor go the way of sinners, nor sit in company of scoffers.  Rather, the law of the Lord is their joy; God's law they study day and night. They are like a tree planted near streams of water that yields its fruit in season; its leaves never wither,

whatever they do prospers.

(Psalms 1:1-2)

Happiness is:

to know you don't have to be perfect, and know that you are only human.

Happiness is:

learning to laugh at ourselves.

Laughter is one of the greatest gifts we can give to one another. Laughter is a feeling in our hearts. It makes a noise so others can hear our feelings. Laughter touches our very souls. It helps us to live happier and helps the people around us enjoy us even more.

Time spent laughing is time spent with God.

Take time to laugh, it is the music of the soul.

(an Irish prayer)

God fills our mouths with laughter.

(Job 8:21)

A smile brings happiness in your home, positive feelings in the workplace and togetherness

in the community.

Joy doesn't just come to us. We must choose joy and keep choosing it every day.

Happiness is:

appreciating all the little things in life, like the smell of growing roses, sunsets and sunrises, the beautiful changing fall colors of the leaves on the trees, and the very first glittering snowfall. Happiness is found in a smile of a baby and in the twinkling

eyes of an elderly person.

Happiness is:

when we remember that God calls us by our name.

Happiness is:

giving thanks to God for dying on the cross for our sins so that we may have life eternal.

Happiness is:

the grace and love that God gives us each

and every day.