Just a girl talking to God

25/01/2022

16/12/2020

Each morning I spend what I like to call time for my conversations with God. I begin by centering myself in Jesus before stepping out into the chaotic environment that I seem to be surrounded by most days. Most of you can probably relate. This morning as I finished this painting I was reminded that the Holy Spirit fills all believers but only rests on some. The difference between those whom He rests upon and those He can’t rest upon is peace. Images of peaceful moments when I’ve encountered a hummingbird, or little flowers growing amongst weeds and all the heart shaped stones that have appeared before me. In each of these moments I have experienced peace. True peace is defined as wholeness in every area of life that produces a peace that surpasses understanding. I have learned that I can only obtain this state of peace by stopping and resting In Him. This peace used to be so very far from me but He allowed me to inherit it through Himself not by my own effort. His goodness surpasses all of my ability to be expressed by mere words describing His goodness! Those moments when words aren’t able to be expressed is when my paintings are created. They are a form of His understanding that is being given to me in a form that expresses His goodness. ❤️🙏🏻

15/07/2020

“In Love and Awakening, John Welwood uses the analogy of a castle to illustrate the world within us. Imagine being a magnificent castle with long hallways of thousands of rooms. Every room in the castle is perfect and possesses a special gift. Each room represents a different aspect of yourself and is an integral part of the entire perfect castle. As a child, you explored every inch of your castle without shame or judment. Fearlessly you searched every room for its jewels and its mystery. Lovingly you embraced every room whether it was a closet, a bedroom, bathroom, of a cellar. Each and every room was unique. Your castle was full of light, love, and wonder. Then one day, someone came to your castle and told you that one of your rooms was imperfect, that surely it didn’t belong in your castle. They suggested that if you wanted to have a perfect castle you should close and lock the door to this room. Since you wanted love and acceptance, you quickly closed off that room As time went by, more and more people came to your castle. They all gave you their opinions of the rooms, which ones they liked and which ones they didn’t. And slowly you shut one door after another. Your marvelous rooms were being closed off, taken out the light, and put into the dark. A cycle had begun.

“From that time on, you closed more and more doors for all kinds of reasons. You closed doors because you were afraid, or you thought the rooms were too bold. You closed doors to rooms that were too conservative. You closed doors because other castles you saw did not have a room like yours. You closed doors because your religious leaders told you to stay away from certain rooms. You closed any door that did not fit into society’ standards of your own ideal.

“The days were gone when your castle seemed endless and your future seemed exciting and bright. You no longer cared for every room with the same love and admiration. Rooms you were once proud of, you now willed to disappear. You tried to figure out ways to get rid of these rooms, but they were part of the structure of your castle. Now that you had shut the door to whatever room you didn’t like, time went by until one day you just forgot that room altogether. At first, you didn’t realize what you were doing. It just became a habit. With everyone giving you different messages about what a magnificent castle should look like, it became much easier to listen to them than to trust your inner voice: the one that loved your entire castle. Shutting off those rooms actually started to make you feel safe. Soon you found yourself living in just a few small rooms. You had learned how to shut of life and became comfortable doing it. Many of us also locked away so many rooms that we forgot we were ever a castle. We began to believe we were just a small, two-bedroom house in need of repairs.
“Now imagine your castle as the place where you house all of who you are, the good and bad, and that every aspect that exists on the planet exists within you. One of your rooms is love, one is courage, one is elegance, and another is grace. There are endless numbers of rooms. Creativity, femininity, honesty, integrity, health, assertiveness, sexiness, power, timidity, hatred, greed, frigidity, laziness, arrogance, sickness, and evil are rooms in your castle. Each room is an essential part of the structure and each room has an opposite somewhere in your castle. Fortunately, we are never satisfied being less than what we are capable of being. Our discontent with ourselves motivates us in our search for all the lost rooms of our castle. We can only find the key to our uniqueness by opening all the rooms in our castle.”

18/06/2020

Perspective
Patience

17/06/2020

Sharing this awareness! 🥰
https://youtu.be/aqX5IFKYFWk

https://www.eckharttollenow.com Eckhart Tolle discusses the decisive shift from identifying with a feeling and simply observing it in your energy field.

03/06/2020

Refuse to allow the darkness of this world to engulf you. Rather, allow My light to envelop you and bring life and strength. Spiritual truth has not been shaken or adjusted by human tragedy. I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. You live in a world of good and evil. You get to choose which one will define you. John 12:46 "I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness."

03/06/2020

Sharing this Jesus Calling from yesterday. Feeling it has significant meaning regarding what’s taking place at this time. 🙏🏻❤️

24/05/2020

Thought for today...

07/05/2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/upshot/the-power-of-nudges-for-good-and-bad.html?_r=0

Nudges that benefit companies and not consumers are a misguided use of a principle of behavioral economics.

22/04/2020

Painting Mary Magdalene today. Getting closer to finishing this project. Just have the canvas left after this. ❤️

16/04/2020

Some days I wake up and feel like I’m living in the movie Groundhog Day. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Creating something beautiful with my hands is one way that helps to keep my thoughts in a good place. ❤️

10/04/2020

Working on the Blessed Virgin Mary today. She was an example of having grace to suffer with patience. ❤️

07/04/2020

Sharing the following understanding that I received while I was working on Jesus this morning. I was praying for my hands and fingers to be perfectly guided so that I can complete this ongoing piece of art by Good Friday. ❤️His love for us will never cease. His love is never withdrawn. His love is perfect. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” We must never deny His love for us. It is for this love that we are to remain patient. We have to be strong. We must do our part. We must pray for a new start.
“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭3:18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

03/04/2020

{{Question}} There are so many questions that have entered my thoughts recently. This would be one of them...What is God saying to all of us? God made us for Himself. How do we find peace in this time? How do we shake that restless feeling? Through the years, I've definitely learned something about restlessness. When I feel that restlessness settling within, that’s when I know that I need to seek God. In the past I would instead choose to seek advise from friends and family. I’ve learned that God is who truly sees my heart. God knows where and what the restlessness is. I pray, I cover myself up in His Word. I open my heart to listen. I share with Him my anxieties, my doubts, making sure I leave nothing out. I pray and ask God to show me what it is. My soul cries out to Him in a prayer filled cry. He is with me in my desperation to find peace. Is He reminding us that His ways are higher than our own? The Lord prefers our obedience over our sacrifices this is the understanding that I have been receiving. We are all being asked to be still and stay home. Open the ears of your heart and listen to the One that is asking you to understand that you are being shown the better way. Allow His Word to speak within the depth of your spirit.
Prayer-
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” ~ Proverbs 3:5-6
This is truly in ALL your ways—not just in the ways for all to see. Meaning not just in a public way. ALL your ways means—in every area of your life. Public, private, faith, doubt, religion, relationships, hardships, steps, breathing, seeing, hearing, richer or poorer, sickness or health.

I find the following words to be true from Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on Proverbs 3:5-6.
It is promised, He shall direct thy paths; so that thy way shall be safe and good, and happy at last.”

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.””
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭40:8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Is God asking us to truly understand that His Word must come first in our lives?

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.'” (Acts 17.24-28)

Have we as a nation under God allowed others voices to determine if we qualify to be worthy? Have we become a nation under God possessions that are no longer of God?

This nation under God was graciously given to all of us. God’s law was written in our hearts. What have we chosen to neglect?

01/04/2020

It is the leadership of love, not the lordship of power, that our Lord sets before us. That is what the world is aching for, the leadership of a love that can be trusted. The love we see shown forth upon the Crucifix... (pg. 16)
Meditations for Lent
The Good Shepherd- Father Andrew

26/03/2020

A few months back I bought this little book at an estate sale. “Apples of Gold” is the name on the cover. The description says, “Do not inquire as to who said this, but pay attention to what is said.”

21/03/2020

Yale University is offering its most popular course for free on Coursera. I signed up for it — here's what "The Science of Well-Being" is like.

17/03/2020

SHARING THIS...
IF YOU ARE FEELING A MIX OF EMOTIONS IN THE MIDST OF THIS COVID19 CRISIS....
Patti Ezell, LMFT, LPC

As a friend and as mental health counselor and marriage and family therapist, I want to offer some practical suggestions to support your self-care in the midst of this COVID-19 crisis. We have all been focused on physical health precautions, but I want to turn our attention to our emotional and spiritual care.

Anytime we go through a major disruption of our lifestyle and routine and we are bombarded with unsettling news, it is normal to go through waves of feelings such as grief, fatigue, anxiety, fear, sadness, confusion, frustration, and irritation. We find ourselves on high alert as our minds and hearts are trying to process what is happening and catch up to the new reality. We look calm and like we are functioning on the outside, but inside our hearts are disturbed and our minds unsettled.

Here are some suggestions that may seem superficial at first glance when you are so overwhelmed, but I assure you that keeping them in focus as you move through your day will help. They were helpful to us as we ministered in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

1. Focus on and do the next thing....whatever that is. One thing at a time. If that is to brush your teeth, do that. If it is to eat a snack do that. If it is to do some work do that. Just do the next thing. Try not to run ahead of yourself into the future.

2. Drink plenty of water. Cortisol, a stress hormone, clouds your thinking and makes it hard to remember things and multi-task. Water is the only substance in the world that flushes out cortisol.

3. Eat regularly. If food supplies are limited, try to choose small healthy snacks (peanut butter, handful of nuts, fruit, protein).

4. Set up a simple routine for yourself and your family wherever you are right now. Establish a routine for each day, then do one thing at a time.

5. Rest and allow yourself to heal -- you are trying to process all that is going on around you. If you have been running on adrenaline it will subside after 4-5 days. When it dies, you will feel the exhaustion. Rest when you can and you will recover some energy. Go slow. Your body needs rest to keep your immune system strong.

6. Set aside time in your day, perhaps 30 minutes or an hour, to reflect on your feelings, but then get back to your special routine and other daily tasks.

7. Get 15 minutes of sunshine morning and afternoon. Breathe deeply and allow the sun to warm you. Sunshine is one of God's natural antidepressants. Research shows 20 minutes of sunshine a day, even if in small spurts of time, can cut the impact of stress on your body by 50%.

8. Reach out and seek help, rather than withdrawing. Call friends. There is comfort in talking with others who offer a calm, reassuring word. We all need safe places to be heard when we are confused. And remember to call and check on those you know you may be alone and need a reassuring word.

9. Minimize the amount of news coverage you are watching to 30 minutes every 8 hours.

10. Pray. Vent your raw honest questions, doubts and feelings to God. It does not matter what you say, nor how you say it, nor how long it has been since you have connected with God. He loves you and cares for you. Be assured of His grace and love through Jesus our Lord. Jesus understands your pain and His Holy Spirit will comfort your heart and guide you through step by step through this.

Here are some comforting Scriptures to focus on:

“I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” Psalm 16:8

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.” 1 Corinthians 16:13

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” Hebrews 6:19

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” Isaiah 43:2

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34

12/03/2020

Working with clay today...🥰

11/03/2020

Growing Up
When you really think about it...
Is there truly an age that we are really finished growing?
Are you thinking about it?
You don’t wake up at 30 or 40 or 50 or 60, and walk out of a door and say’ I’ve finally found the real me!! The truth is that right now this very moment I am the most complete version of myself.
What is the final destination that we are all suppose to reach? It’s definitely not about impressing others each new day. That’s not the test that is waiting for us at the end. It’s truly about love in your life. It’s about being around and with those people that make you feel good and truly love you. It’s about feeling that spark that ignites your inner flame. Tomorrow we are all given an entire new day to change if we choose to. Learning to trust your intuition is something I’m still learning to do. It can’t be today I believe and tomorrow I don’t. That just doesn’t work with TRUTH. It’s never too late to wake up and follow your destiny. I am choosing to share my story about choosing to believe that love truly is our destiny. It is LOVE that comes down to meet us when we take our very last breath. Everyday is a new day to love and be the love God created you to be. That is how we grow UP! ❤️ What will the rest of your story be? Tomorrow is going to be a beautiful day. I’m going to feel joy. I’m going to love. I’m going to smile. I will choose to forgive. I will allow myself to feel and be real. Wake up and step out of your shell. It’s clear that you have to make the effort in this life. Remember that if one choice isn’t working just as quickly another presents itself. Failure is about an opportunity to rise back up. It’s not about being ridiculed or feeling dumb.
I had to learn to retrain my brain not to be fearful of the new. We are responsible of our own gift of time. Don’t limit yourself. If I wouldn’t have stepped out of my shell and the abstract version I once was I wouldn’t have fell in love again, eloped, got married. I chose love and life is right now. Right now I’m trusting the path I’m on. I didn’t know all of this back then, that’s why I’m telling all of you this before I go to bed.
Sweet dreams...❤️

10/03/2020

🦋💗