Browsing Tag

forgiveness

Live in the Big Show

Live in the Big Show

Dearest Grandson,

You know that baseball players in the minor leagues dream of improving their offense – hitting the ball – and their defense – fielding the ball – so that one day they will be promoted to a Major League Baseball team. They call it “The Show.”

Right now, you’re like those young players with their big dreams.

Right now, you’re still in the minors – childhood, that is – learning, growing, developing talents, acquiring new skills. All these are important, but what’s most important as you strive for the majors – The Show – is framing a life that is built on character … who you are and what you show (your verb, your action) … in living a life that is BIG … as you aim for The Show (your noun, your appearance).

And right now, you’re NINE. Something about NINE and baseball. NINE players. NINE innings.

So, what I want to share with you NINE fundamentals that I believe will help position you to Live in the Big Show, help give you a good eye at the plate, help you field a bad hop, help you wear both competiveness and compassion on your uniform.

1 Show gratitude.

Be thankful for all the good in your life. Talk about being thankful. Show your gratitude to others. Say “thank you” every day. Especially to God.  You’re never off on the wrong foot when you step out in gratitude. You can’t think about bad stuff when you’re thankful and keep your mind on the good stuff.

Whatever happens, in every situation, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the score, be grateful and continually give thanks to God.

2 Show forgiveness.

You will make errors, others will make the errors, but God forgives. We should too. Seek to have powers of forgiveness and love and you’ll be super. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with others, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. Don’t be angry with others, but forgive one another. Never hold grudges. Have a loving and understanding heart. If you feel someone has wronged you, forgive them because that’s what God says.

3 Show faith.

When you keep believing – whether you win or lose – you are choosing to hold on to faith. Stay faithful and trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Keep the words of the King of Managers, Jesus, in your heart when He said to “Have faith in God.” Without faith it’s impossible to play the game of life and walk with God. My all-time favorite verse, the logo on my pennant, is Luke 1:37, “For with God nothing shall be impossible.”

4 Show kindness.

You will be amazed how much of a difference you can make by just smiling every time you talk to someone. You have the power, the gift, to change someone’s life with small gestures:  a tip of the cap, a hello, a thank you. Be kind and patient and understanding to everyone. Clothe yourselves with a uniform of compassion and mercy, gentleness and patience.

5 Show integrity.

Be honest and true in all you do each day. Play by the rules and do what is right and fair, even when it’s hard, even when you get a bad call. Make your decisions based on the strong values you have learned. Treat all the people you meet that there is something worthwhile in them, because when you play and live with integrity and with moral character, you live securely. Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got. Become a role model of good actions for your teammates. Show integrity, seriousness, and set a good example for everyone. Go out of your way to do what is right, and speak the truth. No one can argue with that.

6 Show respect.

Treat everyone with consideration and respect, no matter what team they cheer. People notice how you treat others. Honor others the same way you want to be honored. In whatever you do, don’t let selfishness or pride be your guide. Instead, be humble, and value others more than yourselves.

7 Show friendship.

Be that friend who thinks of others, who is thoughtful and considerate, who nourishes the goodness in another person. Pursue friendship and happiness will happen. Encourage your friends, cheer for them, help them, and tell them how much you care about them. Build up their hope. Be truly loving, for love is the best rule in the playbook. Love your friends, your teammates, deeply. Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”  Let your love and friendship extend to everyone, especially those on the end of the bench, for love is from God.

8 Show service.

You follow God’s way when you give and serve others. You get energy from following your passions, from committing to people and service and causes. Compassion isn’t waiting; it’s doing. Compassion isn’t watching; it’s helping. You have been blessed with special abilities from God to be used in the service of others. So use your gift well, passing on to others God’s many kinds of blessings. Show generosity, be rich in the good things you do, and share with others.

9 Show the love of Jesus.

The best way to improve your life, your position, your relationships with teammates and with others, is to act like Him. Love doesn’t give up. Love doesn’t lose faith. Love is hopeful, no matter the score. Love endures through all circumstances. And that’s the love of Jesus you show to everyone. Be Like Jesus. When you show love, you share in joy and happiness and wonder and goodness. And that’s always the winning way.

So, during your young years, your training days (and really, for all your life), I pray that you will SHOW these NINE fundamentals as you advance from the minor leagues and into the major leagues. Into The SHOW.

Happy NINTH birthday!

I love you! God bless you. Always.

 

 

What people need

 

What People Need . . .

Love. Forgiveness. Encouragement.

There’s so much sadness, so much sorrow. There’s so much controversy, so much contention.

In all the noise of news reports and journalism and everything social media, there are hard things. And so much rawness in all the words. And in so many ways we speak to and treat others.

What people need most to cover all this rawness is the softness of words of love and forgiveness and encouragement. How we speak, how we treat others – it matters. In all relationships.

In this softness, we become stronger.

That’s what people need most — words that make them stronger. We can overcome the noise, the loud. We can choose how we treat others; we can choose words that encourage, words that build up, and words that bring together.

Our words can either bring together or tear apart, and here in this space, and on this Facebook Page, I want to purpose my words for bringing together. For building up. Words that point the way to what people need:  Love. Forgiveness. Encouragement.

Let’s start thinking more about how we speak, how we treat people … in all our encounters, in all our relationships:

…forgiving others and moving forward

…showing kindness and respect to others

…accepting others just the way they are

…encouraging others and cheering for them

…doing something little (or big) for others every day

…letting love be our compass

 

So here are my soft strong words for April, my thoughts, the tweets, which were liked and an echo of those things that people need most…..

  • The strongest, healthiest relationships are made up of two forgivers.The strongest, healthiest relationships are made up of two forgivers.
  • Let’s tip the scale to being more positive, more encouraging, more loving.
  • Thinking good thoughts about someone isn’t enough. We need to say the encouraging words.
  • You will be amazed how much of a difference you can make by just smiling every time you talk to someone.
  • Choose encouragement, lifting others up, not putting them down.
  • Let’s offer friendships that are generous and forgiving and guilt-free.
  • Treat all the people you meet that there is something worthwhile in them.
  • Let’s allow God’s goodness to flow through us and nourish all who cross our paths. ‪
  • Love the hard people, at the hardest times, in the kindest ways.
  • The gift of pure love allows us to bless others and accept them without condition
  • Let our love for others be sincere and active, without hypocrisy.‪
  • Make intentional time to tell others specifically how they bless you.
  • Let’s be less judgmental and cultivate a sense of wonder at each person’s uniqueness. We’re all a wee bit crazy in our own way. 
  • There is powerful freedom in admitting our weakness because it allows others to love us as we truly are.
  • Make allowances for and be patient with each other, and forgive without punishing.
  • We can either harm by the selfishness of our silence or diminished praise, or we can heal by the selflessness of our encouraging words.
  • Today give others precisely what you may think they deserve least. Grace.
  • If you really fulfill this royal law: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you’re doing well.
  • The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
  • Let our gratitude be awakened; let our love be quickened.‪
  • We all need to learn to communicate without blaming.

Above all, let’s keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. ‪

 

Pour out fear, pour in love

 

Pour out fear. Pour in love.

At the beginning of a new year, folks are all abuzz about their resolutions or some discuss their “word” for the year. Well, now we’re three months into 2016 and, although I didn’t make resolutions (too stressful! I like to make goals or plans instead), I have decided on a “word,” one that’s been floating in and out of my heart and mind nearly every day since January.

POUR

Pouring out. Pouring in.

Out and in of me. Out and in of others.

And pouring over. Like cleansing rain. Like anointing oil.

Pouring out of me: fear, doubt, pain, heartache, disappointment.

Pouring into me: love, mercy, courage, patience, hope, bravery, resiliency.

Then overflowing with all that good stuff, I pour out what’s been poured into me!

Love, gratitude, acceptance, forgiveness. God’s spirit!

Early twentieth-century Scottish evangelist and teacher, Oswald Chambers, best known for the devotional My Utmost for His Highest, wrote, “Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister?”

And the Bible reminds me: “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

God doesn’t simply splash a little love and joy and peace in my general direction. He pours into me all I need, until my arms are filled and my heart is ready to burst. He blesses me with happy day moments every day and infuses my life with an abundance of joy.

So this is what I’ll do:

Pour out that love, pour what’s poured into me. Put fear in its place.

As I tweeted this month: “Put fear in the back seat. It should look at the scenery and just be quiet. And never give it a map.”

Put fear in the back seat. It should look at the scenery and just be quiet. And never give it a map.

Then I’ll not seek to be ministered to, but to minister … as I do in one small way by sharing a Happy Day Moment …

So these are a handful of happy bits of wisdom (because I am old and can say that) that {I’m ministering to} and I’ve posted in the month of March 2016 on my Happy Day Moment Facebook Page

COMPASSION

Pursue love.

Any day can be shifted, to lift another, to make a difference.

Grace keeps reaching out, reaching for others, reaching straight across boundaries and walls and barriers.

A peaceful person is not one who’s always in a good place, but one who always has a good attitude in every place.

Each day contains moment after moment where we choose to follow love or fear. Choose love.

 

FORGIVENESS

We cannot serve God if we do not have a heart of forgiveness.

By letting go of unforgiveness, bitterness, and limiting beliefs, our hearts can be released into peace and new blessings.

Kindness and compassion not only require forgiveness, but also help us to do it.

Stop judging. Start accepting. Stop rejecting. Start embracing. Stop withholding. Start giving. 

Let’s work hard at living at peace with each other.

 

PERSEVERANCE

Pray and don’t give up.

You’re brave and brilliant and oh-so resilient…..hang in there!

Always in the midst of despair, or daily bumps, or life altering disasters, there is hope.

We can’t change yesterday, but we can do something about today. Don’t quit.

 

And then there’s this I posted that was liked/shared/commented on…………because, yeah, we need to be pouring out kindness…. 🙂

inspirationalquote of the day- (1)

Handful of happy September 2015

Let the fuel of your life be love, mercy, and forgiveness.

We all know that we get energy from food, from the sun, from coal, from oil, from the wind, from water, from natural gas, and that fuels store potential energy in forms that can be practicably released and used for work.

But I also believe that that we get energy from following our passions, from committing to people and service and causes, from choosing to live with gratitude. And the fuel that creates this strength and drive comes from love and goodwill – from kindliness and humanity.

That’s what I’ve been thinking about. Fueling my life – energizing my life – with love and mercy and forgiveness.

And then here’s a handful of other thoughts from my Twitter feed and my Happy Day Moments Facebook Page:

  • May your heart be at peace in the waiting.
  • May your faith be bigger than your fears.
  • Remember the power of good words and how we all long to be appreciated and encouraged.
  • My circumstances will not determine my peace
  • Lots of things in this world are not right. But one thing is always right: God’s love.
  • We can choose how we respond. Compliment more; criticize less.
  • Always pray and never give up.
  • Be bold in your kindness to others.
  • Give a boost up to someone who’s worn out from holding on.

 

Happy Day Moment Echoes: 3.15

These words I post, these words I put out there, these words fill me up. Lift me. Inflate me. And I seemed to need some major boosting this winter. {Hallelujah for Spring}

May these words lift you up, too. Help you rise above.

Our lives can change in an instant. Love and forgive often and always. You may not have that chance again.

Let every promise broken, every painful word, every hurtful word be covered with God’s love.

Don’t give up when you’re surrounded by brokenness and selfishness. Forgive those you hurt you. 

Peace comes from looking at what you have, not what you’ve lost.

When you’re hurt by others, neglected or overlooked or taken for granted, choose to give them the benefit of the doubt. Offer grace.

Remember the blessings and forgiveness we’ve received and reflect those in the way we treat each other.

Even amid the trials and struggles we all face, there are beautiful things that should remind us that God is good.

Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. ‪

Happy people express gratitude, cultivate optimism, and practice kindness.

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.

Finding ways to help others will push away our self-centeredness.

Today, share hope with those who are weighed with heavy and fearful hearts.

Today is a gift. It’s the only gift that you have right now.

It’s the first day of Spring. Let your heart thaw; let the river of love flow.

Let’s not use our words as a weapon or to get our way, but let’s weigh the consequences before we speak.

When we view our situation through the lens of gratefulness, instead of a self-centered mind-set, we have the potential to be happy in spite of circumstances.

Let’s acknowledge that others are bigger than the wrong things they sometimes say and do and that we’re more than the sum of a single mistake.

Always believe that each day carries a hope for happy.

It’s a discipline, this gratitude thing, and it’s essence is an understanding that every moment is precious.

Practicing gratitude trains us to look for the positive in all situations.

Differences of opinion don’t destroy relationships. It’s how we deal with them that counts. Choose compromise, forgiveness, compassion.

Kindness and compassion not only require forgiveness, but also help us to do it.

Seek a perspective that allows you to see hope in the midst of pain.

Forfeit your interest in judging others and adopt a passion for kindness.

If you don’t step forward, you’ll always be in the same place.

You can be strong by keeping quiet and trusting God.

Be strong trust God

Your Turn

Thanks for reading, and as always, I would love to hear from you. Post your comments below!

What I’m reading:

Praying Upside Down by Kelly O’Dell Stanley

Windigo Island by William Kent Krueger

What I’m watching:

Call the Midwife on PBS

 

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