Life Coach: Spirit, Body and Mind » patience

Shared Wisdom: There’s Always More

Margo — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:40:16 +0000

You all know that I love words. I am so grateful to the many people who have gone before me and shared their words of wisdom. I am so grateful that there continues to be a steady stream of wise and intelligent beings who share their thoughts on life and their personal life experiences. Here are a few that I choose to share with you today.

- “Feeling healthy and feeling good about yourself is not a luxury – it’s an absolute necessity.” (Anonymous)

- “I do not pray that you may be delivered from your pains, but I pray earnestly to God that He would give you strength and patience to bear them as long as
pleases.” (from “Safely Through The Storm)

- “May your footsteps set you upon a lifetime journey of love. May you wake each day with His blessings and sleep each night in His keeping. And may you
always walk in His tender care.” (Anonymous)

- “In those times I cant seem to find God, I rest in the assurance He knows how to find me.” (Neva Coyle)

- “God walks with us …….. He scoops us up in His arms or simply sits with us in silent strength until we cannot avoid the awesome recognition that
yes, even now, He is there.” (Gloria Gaither)

- “To be simply surrounded by God’s love and presence is pure JOY!” (Chuck Colson)

- “Joy is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of Christ.” (William Van Der Holden)

- “Fear of trials often depletes more energy than facing them.” (Beth Moore)

- “If God accepts me as I am, then I’d better do the same.” (Hugh Montefiore)

- “Resolve to keep happy and your joy, and you, shall form an invincible host against any difficulty.” (Helen Keller)

And as I was writing these quotations, I realized that many of them refer to “God” and to “joy”, and I found myself thinking that those two topics are intrinsically connected for me. Greetings from the road – New Lisbon,Wisconsin to be precise!

Along the same lines:

This post has been viewed 10695 times!

Waiting For God

Margo — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 03:02:22 +0000

I have to write about this because it just seems to keep coming up in one way or another in my daily readings. Patience is a virtue that I have had to work hard on acquiring. Left to my own devices I’m a “I want what I want, when I want it” type of gal. (Partners well with that “fly by the seat of my pants” personality that I have!) I love immediate results – yesterday!!

So when I opened my copy of the Daily Word yesterday and saw the topic was “patience” a small inner part of me groaned. That seems to be my first response to anything that smacks of a personal lesson that I need to learn, or relearn, or reinforce! Fortunately that response is usually short-lived and I am willing to dive in and look at the lesson. I am grateful today that I am willing to be teachable.

The title immediately under the topic read: “I patiently await answered prayer.” And I recognized instantly that I needed to go back in my other meditation books because I knew that I had received this message several times over the last couple of weeks. Someone was definitely trying to get my attention!!

In the posting that I wrote yesterday, Return To My Spiritual Sanctuary, I quoted from the book The Power of Prayer by E.M. Bounds, (July 8). Over a period of three or four days in the same book I found the following messages: “Persistent prayer has patience to wait and strength to continue.” (July 4) And, “Even if God does not answer our prayers right away, we must keep on praying.” (July 6)

Imagine my dismay when I turned the page on July 10 and found the title, “Delays and Denials” and read, “We need to give thought to the mysterious fact of prayer – the certainty that there will be delays and denials. We must prepare for and permit these delays and denials.” So does this mean that I have to wait for God to answer my prayer in His time? He’s not going to respond to my requests immediately? I am going to have to wait!!

I returned to yet another of my daily books, Moments of Peace in the Presence of God published by Bethany House, where I remembered a title from about ten days ago. And there it was: “Waiting For God’s Timing”. I took the time to reread this and I would like to share some of it with you.

“ ‘Truly my soul silently waits for God; From Him comes my salvation.’ Psalm 62:1

No amount of worrying can make things happen, let alone make them happen the way you want. Still, your human nature, bent on trying, rises to the challenge. What’s the remedy for this all-too-common malady? Oswald Chambers in his classic My Utmost For His Highest, wrote, ‘When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don’t fill it with busyness, just wait ….. If you have the slightest doubt, then he is not guiding.’

The story of Abraham and Sarah illustrates the futility of trying to make a divine promise come about in your own timing. Tired of waiting for a son, Sarah took matters into her own hands. The result was disastrous. God’s timetable always delivers an Isaac when the time is right.”

This reflection finished with the following prayer:

Slow me down, God, when I am in a hurry and you are not.
Help me to walk with you, not ahead of you.
Teach me to plant the seed and leave the harvest to you.
Amen

What a concept. I need to make this prayer part of my daily prayers. I need to remember to walk with God and not try to walk ahead of Him. Imagine that, trying to guide God! Only someone with the underlying egotistical traits of character that I have would attempt to do that. So for the foreseeable future my lesson needs to be one of patience laced with generous dollops of humility.

Along the same lines:

This post has been viewed 924 times!

Musings: Back Again!

Margo — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:10:34 +0000

I am so tired of being sick this Spring. It seems as though I have been dealing with unhealthy demons since about 20 February. First my really bad upper respiratory deal that knocked me out for two to three weeks. Then, after just one week of feeling good I was plagued by a bad cold/allergies (I never did decide which it was). That dragged on for more than three weeks before I was hit by the gastric flu bug. I am so ready to be done with all this and be truly healthy for the rest of this year!!

What really annoys the heck out of me is that sickness robs me not just of health on all levels, but also of time. Oh I know I still live each minute that God gives me. I don’t lose effective time. What I lose is the time I would normally put in to all the various activities that make up the flesh of my life.

My garden lies in wait to be ministered to. Outdoor projects for which I had a planned scheduled have to go on hold. The weeds begin to sprout profusely in the flower beds, and just the pure unadulterated pleasure of being out there working in the dirt has to be postponed while viral bugs have their with my body.

My writing is forced on to a back burner. No matter which part of my body is physically under attack, the Muse withdraws and hides. My head seems full of fuzz and leaves no room for inspiration. My arms and hands are sluggish, ravaged by fevers or infections or plain old weakness, and consequently they have no strength to fly over the keyboard in creativity.

My craft room sits in silence full of its colorful cardstock and inks, ribbons and stamps, glitter and glue and various findings. But nothing there is able to penetrate the general sense of dis-ease that pervades my body, heart, mind and soul. Not even a fast-finished product can elevate me from the murky depths that sickness produces within me. The Muse avoids temptation!

And my wonderful husband patiently tends me, doing everything he can to alleviate the grayness that insidiously surrounds me. And even there I feel robbed because I have no energy, nor am I in any kind of mood, to actively participate in our relationship. And that is a loss in and of itself.

There is nothing I can do about this state of affairs. Bugs and viruses for the most part have to be given their time. I can only languish and try to be as positive as possible. I practice patience and humility in accepting the situation for what it is. But my inner child grows pouty, wants to go out and play, and longs for the company of Muse.

I have been very careful this week in my return to health. No rushing out and doing everything it once. This is difficult for me because I have a tendency to want to make up for lost time, to catch up. But one thing I have learned: time once past can never be “caught up”.

Today I have done a little in the garden: prepared and planted up three raised beds with spring onions, Web’s lettuce, and chard. In another small flower bed I sewed seeds that I hope will bring a small wild profusion of blooms later in the summer. I finished all that I had hoped to achieve before the rains came.

And now I sit in my lanai and listen to the thunder rolling in the distance. One particular roll sounded rather like a Harley and for a moment I was amused as I pictured God in black leather Chaps and a ponytail rumbling across the skies on a sleek chrome machine! And, joy oh joy, my Muse is back and here we go dancing across the keyboard in a game of catch-me-if-you-can.Along the same lines:

This post has been viewed 1519 times!

Shared Wisdom: My Friend Max

Margo — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:29:47 +0000

If you follow my postings you already know about my “love affair” with Max Lucado. In my opinion, no other modern day spiritual writer touches on the affairs of the soul in such a compassionate and human manner. His words reach into my heart like the comforting embrace of a friend. So I was overjoyed to receive a copy of his Grace For The Moment – 365-Day Journaling Devotional from my husband for Christmas.

In the front of this book, as part of the introductory section, are four pages of writing with which I was already familiar from a previous book. They are what I refer to as “The Choice” pages and whenever I need some extra grounding in my day I go to them and take a few minutes to read them. I would like to share these daily choices which, as Max Lucado explains, because of Calvary we are free to choose.

I CHOOSE LOVE…..
No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness.
I choose love. Today I will love God, and what God loves.

I CHOOSE JOY…..
I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical ….. the tool of the lazy thinker.
I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.

I CHOOSE PEACE…..
I will live forgiven. I will forgive so that I may live.

I CHOOSE PATIENCE…..
I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I’ll invite him to do so. Rather than complain that the wait is too long, I will thank God for a moment to pray. Instead of clenching my fist at new assignments, I will face them with joy and courage.

I CHOOSE KINDNESS…..
I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me.

I CHOOSE GOODNESS…..
I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I will accuse. I choose goodness.

I CHOOSE FAITHFULNESS…..
Today I will keep my promises. My debtors will not regret their trust. My associates will not question my word. My wife will not question my love. And my children will never fear that their father will not come home.

I CHOOSE GENTLENESS…..
Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle.
If I raise my voice may it be only in praise.
If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer.
If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.

I CHOOSE SELF-CONTROL…..
I am a spiritual being…… After this Body is dead, my spirit will soar.
I refuse to let what will rot, rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith.
I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ.
I choose self-control.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. To these I commit my day.
If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek His grace.
And then, when this day is done, I will place my head on His pillow and rest.

Max Lucado
When God Whispers Your Name

Along the same lines:

This post has been viewed 934 times!

Shared Wisdom/Poetry: Choosing To Live

Margo — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:14:03 +0000

Just a couple of days ago in my posting Musings- Living Life (Lost Treasures), I shared and made comments on several quotations that had come to light as I was going through some old files. Another piece of writing that has surfaced is a poem by Pablo Neruda, a Chilean writer and politician.

He was born in 1904 and died in 1973. Pablo Neruda was actually his pen name, which he eventually made his legal name. He travelled extensively during his life as a consul or in other diplomatic roles for his native country. But he is more famously known for his prolific poetry.

Neruda’s works have been translated into many languages. In the literary world he is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century. I discovered this particular poem in an Italian book about ten years ago. It is one of those pieces of writing that at very first reading resonated deep within me. I’m sure there are better English translations of the poem, but here I offer you my own attempt.

To Slowly Die

He who chooses to become a slave to habit
Each day going in the same direction
Never changing gear,
He who does not dare to change the color of his clothes
Or speak to some perfect stranger……slowly dies.

He who chooses to avoid passion,
Prefers black and white and dots every “i”,
Rather than experiencing a whirlwind of emotions,
The ones that bring a sparkle to the eye and turn a yawn into a smile,
The same ones that make the heart beat wildly when a mistake is committed
Or feelings unexpectedly erupt ……..slowly dies

He who chooses not to overturn the table,
Or who is unhappy in his work,
Who does not risk security for insecurity to chase a dream,
Nor allows himself at least once in his lifetime
To ignore sensible advice ……..slowly dies.

He who does not travel,
Does not read, nor listens to music,
He who does not see his own gracefulness ……..slowly dies.

He who destroys his own sense of self,
Who refuses to be helped,
He who spends each day complaining about his own misfortune
Or the incessant rain …….. slowly dies.

He who abandons a project before it is begun,
He who never asks questions about things of which he is ignorant,
Or who refuses to reply to those
Who question him on things he does know …….. slowly dies.

We avoid death a little at a time,
Always remembering that to be alive requires an effort
Much greater than the simple fact of drawing a breathe.

Only intense patience will help us to achieve splendid happiness.

Pablo Neruda

What an invitation to life and living! It makes me think of phrases like, “mix things up a little”. It reminds me of Erma Bombeck’s urging to “don’t save the best china for a special occasion, use it today”. It reminds me to get out there in the middle of things, to get out of myself (that old me-me-me-ism!!!) and help others less fortunate. It reminds me to be oh so grateful to God for the incredible life that I have and for the joy that fills my heart as I awake to yet another day.

Along the same lines:

This post has been viewed 658 times!

Self Nurturing: Holistic Health

Margo — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:50:05 +0000

I am a firm believer in taking care of myself using everything available to do so. I also confess to not using all those tools to the best of my ability. I am a self-confessed stubborn, obstinate, procrastinating, pride-filled human being. There are times when I take the “I can fix it in my time and in my way” mantra to the edge of insanity!

However, I do not live like that most of the time – thank God. With a great deal of help and support from too many people to be able to name individually (although some of them were mentioned in my posting Mentors- Along the Path of Life) , I have found many ways and many tools to help myself. I have also come to understand that my schedule does not always align with God’s schedule, or the universe’s schedule, or friend’s or doctor’s schedules! And along the way I have acquired a little patience and a little humility and learned to live in joy.

I know that I have mentioned in previous postings that I use massage and Reiki as part of my preventive health measures. Although some massage some of the time specifically helps any physical challenges that I may be facing, massage can always help, as long as I am completely open to it, my mental, emotional and spiritual well-being too. Reiki, I believe, works in the opposite way. I find that Reiki always brings me comfort, healing, and alignment on the emotional, spiritual, and mental levels and can also help on the physical plain. In my personal opinion Reiki is “God medicine”.

There are many other forms of alternative therapy and also different lifestyles that can be used to better our general health and well-being. Here I mention just a couple because they are also my own “weak areas” (read: areas in which I procrastinate or am pridefully stubborn!). We read frequently that we are what we eat, which means that in some way I eat too much fat/wrong carbohydrate content because I am about fifty pounds overweight:-(.

Please understand (and here come a lot of excuses masquerading as reasons, I’m sure!) that I do not “overeat” in the generally recognized fashion. I do not attack all-you-can-eat buffet lines going back as many times as possible because it’s a “good deal” – although I have done that in the past. I do not eat “junk” food: I may have one or two hamburgers a year and perhaps one hotdog a year at the church picnic.

I do not eat chips frequently; I’ll have a handful with salsa if we happen to eat out at a Mexican restaurant. My pantry is not full of Twinkies, or Ho-Ho’s, or chocolate chip cookies, or Oreos. However, I do enjoy a good dessert when we go to a restaurant that offers them, and I will have a chocolate binge once in a while that usually lasts for about a week to ten days. All my meals are made from scratch using fresh products – no frozen or canned or packaged stuff.

But what I have to admit to is that sometimes I could eat less than I do. I could put half of what I eat on my plate and still be feeding my body enough. I just don’t want to if it’s something that I really like. I should stop eating bread and pasta and rice – but I love it too much, and so for right now I’m not willing to give those items up.

Along with the food lifestyle, and hand-in-hand with it really, is the exercise thing. Do you know what my biggest excuse is in this area? I don’t want to give up a whole hour exercising(even if it is broken down into small bite-size ten minute segments during the day!) when I have so much else to do. And right now, this very minute as I’m writing that, I am feeling just the teenziest, weenziest bit guilty because didn’t I just write a posting (Reading Or Writing- It’s Still About Words) in which I confessed to spending all my time reading for about ten days straight?

So here I am, this imperfect human being making my best effort along life’s path. But what brought this whole subject up in the first place is that right now I have an irritating tickle cough. It came on some time over the weekend and was preceded by a couple of days of not feeling quite right. I immediately started treating myself with Silver Shield, double dosing my Vitamin C, and taking Oscillococcinum (don’t feel bad – I can’t pronounce it either!), a homeopathic product made by Boiron. The thing is it hasn’t blossomed into flu nor have I had fever or feel sick.

I do not like putting chemical medications in my body unless I absolutely, life-or-death have to. I choose to take many different supplements and a whole food grain to support my health system. I haven’t had flu or a really bad throat in a few years and I’m sure that’s because I preventatively take care of my health. In fact, any real health issues that exist in me today (high blood pressure, cholesterol, reflux) could all be taken care of if I ate differently and exercised more!!

I also go to a Board Certified Holistic doctor once every three months because I know that she takes into consideration my whole being (mental, emotional and spiritual as well as the physical) when she treats me. There is also a level of compassion in my sessions with her that I do not experience with a “traditional” doctor. If I could afford it I would go once a month but unfortunately insurance doesn’t cover my visits with her so that’s out-of-pocket expense for me. But I care enough about myself to sacrifice in other areas to afford her.

Maybe one day we will be offered the freedom, under whatever health care we have, to choose holistic health care along side traditional health care. Actually traditional health care through the ages used to be more holistically based until the last century or so. And of course today, fuelled by greed and power, most of the big pharmaceutical companies will probably fight tooth and nail against that.

Along the same lines:

This post has been viewed 712 times!

Gardening: Spiritual & Physical Therapy

Margo — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:58:22 +0000

I love gardening. Whether it be the back-breaking digging and weeding, or the planting of flowers and shrubs, I love it all. Understandable really; I come from good British gardening stock. My father was an “uncertified” master gardener. He won many local city awards for his garden in London and was featured several times in our local newspaper.

The clearest memories that I have of my father are connected to the garden. When we moved into what would become our permanent family home, I was eleven years old. The house was a two-storey brick townhouse with a very large garden to one side that was a huge quarter circle in shape. The house had just been built by the local council and consequently this garden area was an ex-construction site. It was a mess!

I cannot remember how long it took my father to completely dig over the whole area. I do remember that he would come home from work and dig and then spend the whole weekend digging. It seemed to go on forever; he had such patience. What I remember most about that evolution was his insistence on digging down at least three or four feet “to get rid of the builder’s debris”, and that he dug up a flattened exploded bomb from World War II. And I remember his sweat covered torso (he always wore long pants because he had one artificial leg), glistening in the sun as it slowly turned dark brown.

The end result was an exquisite garden. A large circular lawn which was always in perfect condition, surrounded by flower beds full of roses, dahlias, asters, larkspur, delphiniums and London Pride, all bordered by white Alyssum and deep blue Lobelia. Along the back fence, which separated our garden from my Dad’s rented allotment, several trees were also planted: lilac, apple, pear, and a couple of others whose names I do not remember.

So as I dig and weed and seed and plant I feel a small connection with my Dad. I am grateful for this because, even though he was a very good father, always at home doing something for the house or the family, we did not have a rich or close relationship. He was just there in a very quiet and noncommittal way.

I’m a bit of a “fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” kinda woman and my gardening follows suit. It’s a sort of chaotic yet orderly mish-mash of things and I’m sure my Dad turns in his grave sometimes:-). But it gives me great pleasure and enormous satisfaction. And the butterflies seem to like it, which in turn reminds me of my Mum. But that’s another story.

I try to wear gloves to spare my hands, but sometimes I just have to get my them into God’s earth and feel it, and feel the plant going into it. On hot, swampy, Florida days the sweat streams down my body and I think of Dad digging his “three to four feet down”. And as I watch the seeds sprout and the plants burst forth in bloom, I feel a connection to my Creator that I cannot find anywhere else. And I have a tiny human idea of what He must have felt as He put the Universe together.

And so I find myself praying when I garden. As I stretch and use my muscles I talk to God. I let Him know my joys and sorrows, my aches and pains. I thank Him for all the gifts that fill my life. I argue with Him, and then place myself humbly in His care. And just recently I have begun to praise Him , to magnify Him in the midst of His creation. (There’s another story behind that which will have to wait for another day!) What better therapy could there be – and it doesn’t cost me a dime!

Along the same lines:

This post has been viewed 340 times!