Preface: What a gift when important aspects of life overlap!  I have been a volunteer for the American Cancer Society Relay For Life for nearly a decade.  At the local event a sunrise service is held Sunday morning for those of faith.  This year we didn’t have music, nor anyone to lead the service, although there were enthusiastic women not quite confident enough at first that they could do it themselves.   That feeling didn’t last long as within in a couple of days I had this overwhelming feeling this was a gift for me, whatever it was that was about to happen.  Soon I knew in my heart I was to give the message that morning and am sharing it with you.   The audience was made up of team members, committee members and Boy Scouts who had been there for 24 hours doing what they do best- fundraise and raise awareness to fight cancer. My commitment to  Relay and my personal spiritual growth intersected that Sunday morning in a beautiful way.

Every day is the day the Lord has made! I remember singing this last year while sitting here in the dank, raw cold of the morning.  Today we sit here in the warmth and light of a new day.  Whether it is the day everything goes your way or a day it just doesn’t, each and every day is the Lord’s creation.   Life has ups and downs.  There may seem to be darkness, and there is light. We choose the days we like and label them good and others bad.  So the natural way of life, the ebbs and flows, becomes good or bad for us.

The difference between the days is in our minds.  We choose to be grateful for some and annoyed about others.  You know people who are grateful most of the time and others that always have something to complain about it.  It is a choice. When I was a kid I heard a story about 2 children who were invited to a farm.  One couldn’t stand the smell.  She grumbled and made faces and held her nose, whining to leave immediately.  Another child noticed all the manure and the smell and began running around excitedly looking in all the stalls.  When asked what she was doing she called back gleefully, “ With all this poop, there HAS to be a pony in here somewhere!” 2 Perceptions of 1 situation.

Last year when my cancer journey began, I had a hard time remembering all of this.  I spent a lot of time asking, “Why me?  What did I do wrong?” “Why am I being punished?”  I did get past it and regained the sense that I was in God’s hands and every day was the best day it could be.  I was able to bring light into what I perceived as darkness.   I even embraced being bald!

The second time, less than a month after finishing my treatment for breast cancer, when I was diagnosed with lung cancer, I didn’t go down that rabbit hole. I was gratefully in the Grace of God.  I didn’t do anything different except that I was open to His abundant gifts every day. Through the biopsies and surgeries, I felt little pain, and worry was not an option.  Whatever the outcome, I knew I was in God’s hands.  What happened for me was glorious spiritual growth.  I let hope blossom into belief.

Hope signifies the possibility of good news, good reports and a good life.  We see messages of hope all over especially about cancer. Hope gives us purpose and a reason to continue with efforts to eliminate cancer through preventative messages and treatment.  It has become a keyword for Relay. Hope elicits a response of “Thank, God!”  too often spoken as a surprise, because there was an inkling of doubt.

Hope grows into belief through faith.  With belief and faith there is no doubt. There is a knowing that what is for the highest good will be attained.  God told his disciples, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there’ and it will move; Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:14–20).

Like many parables Jesus told, there was some exaggeration to make his point.  They were not to be taken literally but for us to understand the magnitude of our capabilities with our faith in God. Mankind experiences miracles equal to the uprooting of a tree or the moving of a mountain, yet do not recognize it for what it is. Rather than belief in the power of God and prayer it is diminished to luck. Moving of mountains happens all the times when we are open to it. And it has nothing to do with luck.

Faith backed by hope, builds belief and extinguishes fear, anger and doubt brought on by adversity.  Be grateful for it.  Acknowledge the goodness in your life, even if in the beginning you honestly believe that the good you receive is the size of a mustard seed. I used to think I had to work harder at faith and trust like it was one more thing that would get stronger if I could just try hard enough! But you can’t force it, you have to let go and be still, especially in your mind.  Clear your mind so that His words can become your thoughts. I have never heard voices, but I think thoughts of goodness, and peace, and caring and love when it ordinarily would be difficult for me, or come up with solutions that blow my mind, and realize I didn’t come up with them all on my own.  I first realized that when I was writing a book and would go back later and reread it.  I would read and check what I wrote, wondering who wrote this? It couldn’t have been me.  Then it dawned on me that God or one of His angels wrote through me.  This connection is possible for all of us.  You just need to let God in. It is a choice.

Pray with trust and faith.  Asking for something you do not believe you will get, or deserve is not asking in faith.   Prayer with hope is a start, prayer with faith, even the faith the size of a mustard seed is the answer.  Prayer, knowing, believing that whatever is for the highest good- God’s will takes place.  What we want is not always in our best interest or the best interest of the world around us.  Only He knows.  Have faith in that too.

We can see things in our lives as being dark.  God brings the light.  Our challenge is to allow the light to shine in our life at all times and to trust that God has it all under control.  Belief built on hope knows miracles are coming, and responds with a knowing grateful smile and a silent thank you from the heart.  His will be done.  Every day is a day that the Lord has made, rejoice and be glad in it and watch your darkness disappear.

May 21, 2017 Relay For Life of the Greater Lake Region

Years ago, “You Are What You Eat”, was frequently remembered in my family  from John A Gambling on his radio show, “Rambling with Gambling”. Although I didn’t find a reference for it, my father repeated it from time to time, and later my husband did as well.

Unfortunately, I didn’t hear it for the seriousness of the words.  My family used it after a great meal, and joked about what we were today. Ah, so many years wasted on a limited perspective.

Over the decades, my relationship with food was more of a bulimic approach in that I binged on what I loved and countered with diets.  Obviously to me now, the diets were not sustainable.  I also now realize that when I countered with a diet, it was always to lose weight, never to be healthy.

I compare my perspective to negative space in art.  In my life the negative was out of sight, not an integral part of my life.

“Negative space is, quite simply, the space that surrounds an object in a image. Just as important as that object itself, negative space helps to define the boundaries of positive space and brings balance to a composition.” (creative Bloq Staff from http://www.creativebloq.com)

When I ate, I concentrated on the what I was supposed to eat not on what else I was eating.  For example, I start each day alkalinizing my body with a lemon tea from fresh squeezed organic lemons.  I realize I viewed that as a pill for the other things I ate.  The lemon was my positive and miraculously all else was background.  Of course that is simplistic.  But if someone asked what I did to care for myself I could say, I eat organic whenever I can and I try to keep my body alkaline.  Now I am not lacking in intelligence as it may seem, but when it comes to food, I have been very adept at seeing what I focus on and not in balancing the art that is my body.

I began many health projects in the same way.  Rather than follow the program to the the letter, I researched it.  I found online all the “other” foods they forgot to mention. I was creative!  I have always eaten healthy, except when I didn’t. I focused on the positive of my eating plan, not the negative.  I focused on the good I ate and ignored when I didn’t eat healthy, because it was rarely an unhealthy meal, it was the snacks, or “treats”.  And I was starting my day with lemon water! But those treats- cookies, ice cream, potato chips, bottle of beer, are the negative art to your positive body.  They are immensely important to the balance of what you are creating for yourself.

Included in the limited perspective of my relationship with food, was that food was a comfort, a treat, something to be enjoyed.  Not that it shouldn’t be, but it becomes easy to alter the terrain of your body with too much of one thing.  For me, it was sweets.  And if you are reading this, you probably don’t need me to mention the dangers of sugar.

Whatever is eaten impacts the body. What goes in may physically exit, but the impact remains long after.  What we eat is either healthy or harmful. Making discerning choices in important.  While determining a personal plan, that is important to remember.  Each bite matters, because you are what you eat.

It is a busy world no matter how old you are. School age children deal with the issues of self, family, school, home, community, and also the world through technological communication that bombards  us all. They need role models and listeners- adults with whom the can share their private worlds.  My Loving Self and Me is a book written for older children to read with an adult or in a family setting.  The stories present real life issues that children face today, about which their caring adults may know nothing.  By reading the book together, parents get the opportunity to discuss the experiences of the characters, discovering the quiet parts of their child’s life, or how they relate to the issues the characters faced. The characters always find a solution that comes from their heart.   The discussions in “What would your loving self do?”  that follows each story create teaching moments for you and your child.

There are many topics that come up in raising children. Not all of them are in the book, needless to say.  This blog is written for the parents, grandparents and other caring adults that have children in their lives that they support, bringing them information, hopefully before they have to deal with it in real life.

What will you get out of reading My loving Self and Me, the blog?

1. Insights into issues that children today face.
2. Ideas on assisting them in a loving and helpful way.
3. Links to websites that deal with parenting issues.
4. Direction on bringing faith and spirituality into your parenting style.
5. An occasional new unpublished story for you and your family.

The blogs are listed on the right in Recent Posts and below it in Archives.

From time to time, I write a new story using the characters in the book, My Loving Self and Me,  and “publish” it here for you to share with your children. If you have an issue your child is dealing with, and would like the characters to find a solution from their heart, please leave a message here.

Thanks for reading and sharing this blog and My Loving Self and Me.

Beth