Soul Mates

Soul mates.
Serendipity.
What do they have in common?

It seems that should be obvious doesn’t it?

Serendipity is the stumbling upon something wonderful without ever looking for it.
A soul mate is someone whose inner light is interconnected to your own…
You could spend a life time searching, but when you stop looking and allow fate to have her way, wonderful things will transpire.

One day you stumble upon each other…. and you just know.
A memory of being forever together while never knowing the other.
An interconnection kept them ever united.

There’s no struggling for words… within the first moments, you’ve known each other forever.
You laugh about things that no one else gets.

There’s an electricity even when you’re apart, it’s there surging and rippling.
The way waves billow upon the shore…. reaching and connecting yet never leaving…

There’s an aura when you’re together enshrouding you both.

You feel that way because even though you just discovered each other physically… you were always united spirtitually.
I believe the two souls were born together and then separated to roam the earth searching for one another.

Not everyone finds their other half…
Not everyone stumbles into that joy…
Not everyone will know that fulfillment…

But for those who have… what an incredible feeling it must be.

Until next time,
Jean

 

Live Freely

“She fearlessly left her own cage.”

Brooke Danielle Reniger
https://m.facebook.com/brookereningerauthor

 She fearlessly left her own cage.

What cage are you locked in?

Perplexing thought as I read the above quote on Facebook the other morning.

As I pondered it, my heart was overwhelmed.
The truth behind the quote gnawed at my soul…

Because I knew this is what I just did…
I left it… to live freely
yet not without fear… but bravely… oxymoron….humph.

We’re all in a cage of some sort.

I know I was… the sad thing was, I put myself in it.
I kept myself in it.
The agony of that self-inflicted cage became an overwhelming and delusional place.
I believed that it would stop… that things would get better.

Don’t go back to the past because you will only rewind it over and over again.
It never changes.

What’s amazing is this cage can only be felt by the constrained in it… the captors don’t see it.
They don’t believe they’d do such a thing.
Why did I stay in that cage for so long?
I know within my heart why… but those that I sacrificed for mock…

People can be fed poison without even knowing it.
They can become so engrossed in the activities… that they become the norm… the toxicity becomes what is normal.
But it’s not.

How do you teach them something different?
How do you teach them the truth when they believe the lie?

Living the truth and seeing the lie eventually becomes their reality.
You’re not there to blame for the behavior anymore… but the behavior never changes.
Difficult as that may be to comprehend.
The innocent become the victim and suddenly take on the form of the oppressed.

Walk away friend.
Walk away and be live freely.
You who are living it understand.

Walk away….
…and live freely.

Until next time,
Jean

Relationships

“The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.” John E. Southard

I love to watch the boys play and interact. It brings warm, fuzzy feelings to stand back and see the playful interactions…  although all too quickly those giggles of happiness flip into shrieks of, “NO!!!! THAT’S MY TOY!!!!”…. ahhhh yes, motherhood.  Sibling relations

Relationships can be like that too… mother-child, friends and lovers. Life is filled with challenges within those relationships… but how do we deal with them?

I believe all too often relationships can become toxic due to lack of proper communication. Feelings are bottled up. Lies are told and hidden for years. Trust is broken… never to be re-built. How we deal with these issues will determine the final outcome in a relationship.

Decisions.

Where do you draw the line?
Where do I draw the line?
What will you tolerate in a relationship?
What will I tolerate in a relationship?
… these are questions we’re all faced with everyday.

When you have a relationship that communication and honesty, along with God, are the foundations, it is one to be cherished.
One to be diligently worked on.
One to be appreciated.
… because I think it is rare.

As our interactions begin slowly and gradually build, we become comfortable with the familiarity of them.
This is when issues are more likely to arise…
But really… we saw the signs long before we believed them.
We felt the pain before we addressed it.
We hid behind our hopes believing the lies.

Step out.
Stop the noise.
Build faith.
Trust your gut…

Until next time,
Jean

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

“Mommy… I love you!” The words melt your heart because you know they are the truest ones you’ll ever hear from anyone. Your precious child… the one you carried and bore… the one that you would do anything for… no matter what.

Our children have the ability to inflict unspeakable joy as well as tremendous pain to our hearts and souls. Forgiveness and our unconditional love for them is what allows a mother to overlook the hurts… this level of love is reserved only to these souls who’ve entered into our lives. Spouses, lovers and friends are not subject to this type of unconditional love.

I’ve often told my children that their actions speak louder than their words… a cliché it may very well be, but so much truth is forced through this simple yet powerful statement. Our children may shower us with gifts and loving words, but actions of disobedience and disrespect reveal a disturbing truth. I understand fully that our children will do things that they’ll later regret and through their actions of genuine remorse, we see their love.

Relationships with adults are different. When you’ve opened up your heart and laid it upon the altar… bare and naked, you’ve given something of yourself. It’s the ‘do unto others as you’d have them do unto you’ kind of thing. Actions as well as words will create a loving bond between two people or drive a wedge between their two hearts. Love and trust must be nurtured or a necessary good-bye must sadly be said.

You find yourself at a crossroad and you have to ask yourself… “Are you going to do it again? Are you going to except the pain again?”

Before you step onto either road, consider your heart because actions do speak louder than words.
Until next time,
Jean

Little Boys

Sometimes I ask myself, “What in the world was the child thinking?”

Like when one took a blue permanent marker and colored on the wall beside the bed.

Like when they decided to play kick ball in the house and broke a window.

Like when they’re coloring famously and then suddenly stop… look at the crayon quite seriously… and then start snapping them in half.

Why? Do adults do that? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so… at least not rational thinking ones… pardon me to anyone reading this that may have done the above listed offences as an adult! But seriously, have you ever wondered this?

I have to believe that I’m not the only mom that has!

So, today Evan comes in the back door and very calmly and seriously says to me (as he’s taking off his boots), “Mom… Aaron just took my toy and threw it in the hole for the pond (not a big pond, just my little fish pond). He’s so mean!”

He didn’t really seem upset, other than his sleeve and pants were a bit muddy and wet from ‘fishing’ (no pun intended) his toy out of the little hole.

I ask him, “Where is Aaron?”

“He’s outside still,” says Evan

“Is he coming in?”

“Yeah! He’s comin’ in! He’s mean!” …off he goes to get into some dry clothes.

A couple of minutes later the back door opens again and in walks Aaron. He looks at me a bit bedazzled and starts his gibber relating his side of the story like only a three-year old can … as if he knew I was waiting to hear it.  He kicks off his boots, walks on up into the kitchen, rambles off a few more defenses and off he goes to find Evan.

I waited.  Waited some more. No problem.

So on I went peeling apples with my friend who’d come over for the day. We looked at each other and just chuckled.

Boys are kinda’ like that. If you have boys, you know exactly what I mean. They duke it out and get on with the game.  No fuss, no muss!

After awhile the laughter started and the tussling and the happy playing.

It was a good day… and I think they must have duked it out before they came in.

Until next time,
Jean

Death of a friend…

“To everything there is a time and a season… a time to born and a time to die…”

My daughters dog, Jake passed away yesterday…

He had cancer and we were expecting it… even so it was a sad day, especially for Taylor.

Many of you know that Taylor moved out of state a month ago leaving her beloved Jake behind.  Last week I thought for sure he was going, but he seemed to be hanging on… almost like he knew she’d soon be coming home.  Well she did this weekend and got to be with her boy one last time.

My mother heart feels her pain… it’s profoundly deep within my soul.  Her tears reach into the inner most part of my heart because I love her so.

They were the very best of friends and although I am no poet, this is for her…

Best Friends

He was your best friend for such a short time…
Oh what fun times you had…

The warm summer days going for walks… down to the river and down the field lane…
Laying side by side in the cool, cool grass just being together…

Your love was unconditional… it was true to the end
Such happy times the two of you had.

But he was sick and he knew his day was near…
He dreamed of being at rest.

But he pined and he longed for his girl to return,
For one last loving hug and pat…

 What he wanted most of all was to hear those last loving words…
“Good-bye my boy… I love you Jake…”

Some people may not understand the love between a dog and it’s owner, while others completely do. I believe with my whole heart Jake desperately held on for their final good bye.

Sunday morning they had that… as we drove away we saw him walk over to where we would later find him…

Until next time,
Jean

In loving memory of Jake

Purpose

“Sometimes it’s the same moments that take your breath away that breathe purpose and love back into your life.”

~ Steve Maraboli ~

Loving someone has an incredible impact on your heart and soul. It’s causes both intense pain as well as overwhelming joy. My question today is, ‘What are you willing to do in the name of love? What are you willing to sacrifice? What are willing to tolerate?”

These pose some challenging thoughts running through my mind.

As a mother, I’m willing to go pretty far out…

As a Christian… well, maybe not so far….

Our children are literally blood of our blood, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. The pregnancy… the development… the childbirth…

The first time we look into those eyes there is an instant bond that no one can break… not even the child.

The first moment we hold them in our arms and feel their nakedness upon our own… the warmth… the natural instinct to die for this child.

The first moment that child suckles on you… you are its life source…

I remember everyone of my children grasping onto my finger for the first time…

I remember everyone of my children’s first movement within my body…

I remember the incredible feeling that leapt into my heart the first time I felt their bodies movement within my own…

I remember…

The anxiousness of their first time away from me. For a few of them they were never without me for the first year of their life… it wasn’t a burden. It wasn’t a difficult decision. It was by far my own. I wanted it that way. They won’t be little long…

I wouldn’t change a thing…

Except the disappointments I feel I caused in their lives.

Except the impatience I too often show.

How I wish I could take back those hasty words…

I have a purpose… and that purpose is to ‘train them in the way they should go, so when they are old they shall depart from it…’

Not only a purpose, but a deeply concentrated focus.

Let us each realize, those of us that have been given charge over a soul, remember whose it truly belongs to… the One above

A charge to keep we have…

Until next time,

Jean

“Mother’s Accomplishments”

A poem by Alice Hawthorne in praise of mothers…

“Mother’s Accomplishments”
by, Alice Hawthorn

What is home without a mother?
What are all the living joys we meet
When her loving smile no longer
Greets the coming of our feet?
The days seem long, the nights seem drear,
And time rolls slowly on,
And, Oh! how few are childhood’s pleasures
When her gentle care is gone.

Things we prize are first to vanish,
Hearts we love to pass away;
And how soon, e’en in our childhood,
We behold her turning gray;
Her eye grows dim, her step is slow;
Her joys of earth are past;
And sometimes ere we learn to know her,
She hath breathed on earth her last.

Older hearts may have their sorrows,
Griefs that quickly die away,
But a mother lost from day to day;
We miss her kind, her willing hand,
Her fond and honest care;
And, oh, how dark is life around us!
What is home without her care?

…let us look to our mother’s while we have them,
Until next time,
Jean

Times Ticking On…

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As I was folding laundry the other day I started thinking about my time… realizing as I’ve gotten older time appears to be moving faster and I am moving slower. It frightens me to a certain degree, yet it makes me want to push harder and focus my time and energy on what matters. When we look at our life and what each day holds… all the schedules and responsibilities we’re faced with, we can begin to feel weighed down. As I pondered this, I realized I don’t like to waste my time on things I know I won’t do well at and things I don’t enjoy. I tend to drift towards my comfort zones and areas of expertise. Although I’m not afraid to try new things I’ve become enamored with, I just wouldn’t bother with things that aren’t important to me… my time is so precious that I must stay focused.

I must concentrate first on my relationship with my Saviour Jesus… then my marriage and raising our children… then on my personal love of gardens and writing. This is where my heart is screaming to be… my mind and soul are fighting a battle as the current of life is flowing downstream and I’m wrestling up stream. I have to stop and go… go with the flow of my life and stop trying to force things into a mold that I don’t fit in…

I want to grow deeper in my Christian walk… become better friends with my husband… play with and get to know my children. I want to write about all these things that I love… I want to be selfish about my time and stop giving where I don’t want to. I want to be who Christ made me to be….

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” Ecclesiastes 3:1
Until next time,
Jean
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Stumble and Pray

“They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.”  Psalm 34:10

When our children started taking their first steps they would stumble and fall and we would keep encouraging them on… “keep trying… good job… yup, do it again…” are things that we would say.  They would stumble often at first and then before we knew it they were running and we were saying, “Stop running in the house!”  We didn’t want them to fall and hurt themselves, yet we knew that was all part of the process… we would be close enough to catch them so they didn’t hurt themselves as we guided them along… hands outstretched behind them as they toddled forward.   How time flies and as we look back onto those happy days when they were little and learning we can see other times when they fell… learning to ride a bike and ice skating to name a couple.  Oh how our hearts ached when all of a sudden, THUD! But again… all part of the learning process.

As adults we too stumble and fall… we have days where we fail… days we wish we could erase from time and memories… but that isn’t possible with humans… but it is with God. As we repent for our failings and look unto Him for forgiveness He is there… The Bible says that God loves a broken and contrite heart.  Each day is a new day and with that new day we have Christ by our side guiding our way.  How it aches our Heavenly Father when we go THUD! The key is prayer… stumble and pray… stumble and pray… He will lead the way… all part of the learning process.

Do we call out to the Lord when we stumble or do we sit there awhile and wallow in our failings?  The latter is not what the Lord would want from us… He desires us to look up to Him immediately, reaching up for His hand to pick us up.  But you say, there is no hand… Yes my friend there is… the hand is His Word… God’s precious promises are all found there… but we must turn to it… feed on it. Then and only then can we have peace… only there can we find it. When we stumble and fall friends, get up! Reach for His word and seek His help.  Oh how precious it is when He presses upon your heart to go to a certain scripture and there is the answer or the hope you were longing for …. only in prayer… only in supplication can it be found…

“Prayer is an indispensable part of our relationship with Jesus Christ.” Laurel Oke Logan

Until next time,
Jean