You Make Me Feel . . .

It’s Monday.  Life is full of Mondays.  I notice the blue shirt you’re wearing and note that it is a great shade of blue.  You haven’t said a word to me yet and I cannot read your heart from your facial expression.  As you approach me, I smile and wonder what’s up.

Tomorrow, next week, next year, twenty years from now . . .  I will not remember the shirt or the fact that it was Monday.  I will not even remember exactly what you say to me.  What will I remember?

I will remember how you made me feel.  That is what will make a lasting impression on me.  It will linger . . . stay with me.  I won’t dwell on it, but the truth is, it really will lurk in a space inside me for a long time.  It might change my day or my life.

Something to consider before we speak to one another.  Words have power to take life or to give it.  You decide . . .

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lost in the Details

Love this challenge!  Getting lost in the details means, to me, an invitation to slow down a bit and appreciate God’s creation at a deeper level than I normally would in this rush and hurry world.

Hope of Spring

Copyright 3-1-2013 – Martha L Shaw

Hope of Spring

My heart,

Still chilled from the long hard winter,

Fluttered just a bit

At the sight of

A simple, tiny flower

Poking its pretty face

Above the cold ground

By the rocks and trees

In the woods nearby.

Smiling,

I realize the coldness in my heart,

Like the snow,

Has begun to melt.

By Martha L Shaw © 3-1-2013

Division Versus Unity – Daily Prompt: Ready, Set, Go!

Seems to be – especially lately – that where ever I turn I hear angry voices and see fingers pointed.  I hear of daily reports of shootings somewhere in the nation, of new strife somewhere in the world, but also of this happening right in our own homes, schools, shopping malls, and churches.  Everyone seems to state a desire for “change” but like a game of “rock, paper, scissors,” it seems everyone wants to win. 

When are we going to learn to stop, to listen, to negotiate, to care?

So many amazing things have been accomplished in our world and in our backyards.  How?  Because someone was not afraid to be the one to stop, to think, to listen, and to begin anew.  Someone has to be the pioneer of change.  Are we so fearful, so selfish, so blind, and so full of conceit that we’d rather shoot or be shot than admit that this isn’t working?  Do we have eyes that see?  Do we have ears that hear?  Do we have hearts anymore?

Division = Death  . . . Unity = New Life . . . Make a Choice!

by Martha L Shaw

Copyright 1-24-2013

To participate in the Daily Prompt: Ready, Set, Go challenge,

read all about it by clicking here!

A Tanka Poem on Reflection

 Reflection

*

The eyes? Two-sided

Mirrors of the soul . . . for when

All about us looks

negative,  the true changes

must begin within ourselves.

*

By Martha L Shaw – © 1-17-2013

Quote of the Day on Trust

Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.

- Alan Cohen -

 

Trusting in the Lord to lead us means we don’t have to see the plan, run the spreadsheet, have all the long-range steps mapped out.  We just need to follow Him and the mystery becomes clear and the sun shines brighter than we ever knew it could!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons

Ah, I do love a challenge . . . there are many changing seasons going on in my life . . . spiritually, financially, and of course . . . it’s winter . . . which to face when they all must be faced.  Hmmmm . . .

Well, for starters, it is not and I do mean NOT flip flop season:

It is true.  I, a former yank (originally lived in MA) am now a southern belle (living in SC for 5 years) and I can tell newbie transplants from the rest of us because they still go without socks and wear shorts and flip-flops.  Not me.  My feet now get cold as early as December . . .

It’s true.  I’ve faced changes of season a plenty since coming here.  I’ve been seeking full-time employment for five years now and not found it yet . . . but I’ve had a number of temp jobs and at one I learned of a new kind of shoe . . . love shoes.  A category I didn’t know?  ”Dress flip-flops.”  It was on a dress code report.  I never heard of such a thing.  Cool.

I’ve enjoyed changes of spiritual season . . . being without income in a new place makes one realize, or it did me, what trusting in the Lord is all about and I sure learned my faith was weak, but I’m working on it. I believe He’s got a new season for me in my faith coming up soon along with the change in our weather . . . so I shall keep pulling up my socks and keep praying.  When I first moved here I didn’t wear socks until February and didn’t pray as much.  I’m learning.  I’m changing.

 Learning and changing are GOOD!  

Two Cent Tuesday Challenge – Style

What is style?  Seems we often spend our lives trying to find that special something which sets us apart and makes others respond with a jaw dropping “wow” followed by an “I so want what he/she’s got.”   I have felt that way many times, and finally one Sunday morning, a few years ago, I found “it.”  Here’s my two cents worth!

It was a while back on a Sunday morning at 9:30 in the morning that my eyes opened in awe and wonder.  My jaw dropped, my heart changed.  All those fads and foolish attempts to present myself in a way that would knock the world flat in a resounding “she’s got it.  I want some” was redefined forever.  It was at that moment someone new to my life related a life changing event in his own.  His voice cracked as he spoke of a special anniversary.  I was close enough to him to see tears forming in his eyes.  As he spoke of what changed his universe and forever made all things new, I saw a special glow that made me forget all those fancy baubles, high-end designer duds, and the rest of it.

I don’t know what he was wearing that day, nor how he wore his hair.  Did he have on that beautiful wrist watch that gleams in the sun?  Had he remembered to comb his hair?  I can’t tell you if any of that was so.  What I saw was the light of Christ glowing from deep within his soul as he related that this day was the anniversary of the day he gave his life to Christ, accepting Him as his Lord and Savior and entered into a personal relationship with Him.  I wasn’t sure exactly what all of that meant at the time, but I knew I had to have some of that.  Goofy hair,  wrinkled, baggy butt jeans?  No matter.  My friend had style.  True style is how we present ourselves to the world.  If you have style, there’s a glow . . .  a presence . . . you leave people wanting something more.  Its cost is not monetary . . . it only costs your life.  You surrender yours, and Jesus will give you His.

Style!  I’ve got it!  You can have it too!

Unripened Tomatoes and God’s Plan

Today’s sermon at church has me thinking.  My life is at, I believe, a point where the season is changing not unlike the weather . . . change . . . it is growing colder and it’s been a while since it was “flip-flop weather” and there are things I “need” and things I am concerned about and so I get impatient for change, but then there’s that taunting little voice that isn’t the Lord and it keeps trying to plant fear in me about change . . . sometimes my human impatience makes me want to rush ahead.

So, I’m thinking of unripened tomatoes.  My folks, when I was growing up, planted tomatoes in the yard.  Dad would get so excited when the first bud came, the first small green orb appeared in its place, a larger orb now clearly a tomato not yet ripe.  It seemed each year he’d grow impatient waiting for that first fruit and pick it before its time.  If you wait for the proper time and season, then pick the fruit, its sweetness is a delight, but if you run ahead . . .  rush things, it is a disappointment.

Life’s a lot like dad’s tomato plants.  Change comes.  It can be good if we are patient while we wait and stay in step with Jesus, but if we run ahead of Him . . . life is a bit like that unripened tomato.  Ah, but if we wait the harvest will be amazing!

Breathing Deeper

 

Hope

Like the peppermint stick

Has elements which startle the senses.

When all in my midst is flat,

Is dull,

Is flavorless . . .

Suddenly,

Life holds all it did before,

Yet there is also something new.

Something at once pungent and sweet

Has reached my senses.

I inhale its fragrance,

I taste its sweetness,

I hunger for more

Knowing more is there for me,

And perhaps has been all along

Yet I somehow failed to notice

Until now.

By Martha L Shaw – Copyright 11-15-2012

Enlightened

Dedicated to Rick . . . Servant of God

 

I cried out,

Needing someone to hear,

To care,

To reach out to me,

And you responded

With all the love and hope I knew was out there

But couldn’t see or feel.

Now I do.

But, that was yesterday . . .

Rising, I wondered what today would bring . . .

You were there, Lord,  waiting to greet the new day with me.

Your love was still mine,

And somehow the sky seemed bluer than before,

The sun shared even more warmth,

The birds sang more sweetly,

And my heart seemed lighter than yesterday.

Nothing in my life has really changed . . .

And yet, everything has.

 

By Martha L Shaw – copyright  11-8-2012