May 6, 2013 Greetings My Friend, I love my morning quiet time more and more these days. I am almost to the point I was with my morning time when I worked and before I had cancer. After cancer my morning time got harder and harder to do. I was so tired and worn out that by the time I retired I slept on my days off just to get the energy to go to work the next day. These days instead of reading an actual book I read the Bible on line. I have devotions sent to my inbox and I find myself journaling my thoughts on what I read. I love it. Overall I am a deep thinker even though the last few years have been a struggle. I love taking my mind deep and pondering. This morning I was reading in my devotion about Cain and Able. Able brought a sacrifice to God and God accepted it. Cain brought a sacrifice and God told him that “sin is crouching at your door.” This has always baffled me. He brought a gift? His brother brought a gift. Through the years I have learned that our faith journey with God needs to start from the heart. I have learned that we often “clean the inside of a cup but not the outside.” I keep learning that God wants our full heart and not a part of our heart. God knows all we do, even the stuff we think in private or do in private. There is not a corner of our lives that God is not aware of. We may keep certain thoughts from family and friends but God knows what we are thinking. I am a somewhat competive person. I want to be the best at…..whatever. I want to be the teacher’s pet, the favored child and the whole nine yards. By being good and the best then I will be able to make everyone in the world happy. Guess what? It aint gonna happen. Someone somewhere won’t like something about you. That is the reality. Even in my older years I still struggle with this being perfect and everyone loving me situation. I am finally getting to be comfortable in my own skin. I am accepting myself for whom and what I am and you know what? That is ok. I have found that I need to be completely honest with myself, with others and more so with God. When I am completely open and up front about my thoughts, my actions etc. then I find I can enter into a relationship with God. I can’t pretend to be loving and hold bitterness in my heart. I can tell God that I am hurting and I need help to move past the bitterness. God is faithful and helps me do just that. I have a friend who is now a missionary. She is an energetic type of person even in her older years and I find I want to be like her. I want to have an important assignment like she has. Sometimes I can see myself as the next Joyce Meyers or a female Billy Graham. Like I said sometimes I get a bit competitive. A few years ago I asked God to “help me be still and know that He is God.” I had cancer and my mind and body slowed way down. I find days where I want to go and volunteer at several different places and then I am out of energy and sitting at home. I am starting to believe that God does not want me to be involved in every fun sounding to me type of mission work. God wants me to dig deep into my brain to think about lessons and then to share these lessons. For me the sharing is the blog. I am also finding that more God slows me down, the more I love it. My body is not able to get out and do what it once did. I would have never thought that I’d be the type of person who could stay home for days on end. I don’t even get out of my pajamas. I spend the first several hours I am up each day reading, journaling and writing. I love it. I do a little housework a little cooking and a lot of quiet time. Once or twice a week I go out with Junior and we do errands like grocery shop, run to Lowe’s and the like. During the warmer months I walk outside and soak up the beauty that is around me. My life is full and rich and I love it. Gone are the days of running children to baseball games, choir practice, volunteering with the youth group and working. These days I find I can’t go like I once did. At first it was hard to not run around and get all involved in things. The more my body slows me down the more I believe God has allowed this in me. As I slow down and spend quiet time I sense this is where God wants me to be. I think at some point a person or a volunteer job will come along and I will help with that. I have B in my life and I love on her, she loves on me. We enjoy each other. She has major back struggles so my slower pace in life fits in nicely with her. Sometimes we find ourselves napping on each other and there is a comfort even in that. I want others to “see” me being and doing. I love being around others. Again I learn that for God, I need to be quiet and give in the quiet of my heart. My quiet is writing. My doing is sharing what I learn whether it is a lesson in the Bible or applying the lesson to life. Someone somewhere will “hear” that Jesus loves them from what I am sharing. Not everyone has a “cool” fancy job for the Lord. Well frankly mine is a cool fancy job but it is the one the Lord wants me to do and I am not supposed to be what I am not. When I can wrap my brain around that fact, life is sweet. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet