October | 2018 | itsawonderfilledlife

Archive for October, 2018

Grateful

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged #bethankful, #grateful, #thanksforwhatwehave, #thanksgivingday, thanks, Thanksgiving on October 7, 2018| 2 Comments »

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What if we started this day with the one intent to be grateful, thankful for everything that we have in our lives?

For me the thanks would start before I step out of bed, for as I inhaled the breath of a new day, fresh with so many possibilities.

The coffee brews hot, while I take our fun-loving, ever-present WonderDog out to the little piece of grassy soil, that is ours.

The soil on which our home sits … our home is warm and cozy, spacious and compact. Our home, where we live, have life and breath

Our home, where our two youngest still live … each day that we are still together is a gift, not to be taken for granted.

Our home, where we two live, together in committed, real-life love relationship … each moment a sacrifice to and for the other … love received, because it was first given.

Our home, where we will host others tomorrow … our third child, and others who we adore, who we get to sit around a table and feast, and pray and be thankful. This is abundance.

This home, from which we exit each day into lives of work, using what the good Lord gave us, to work, to earn and to be empowered by Him working through us.

Through the windows of our home we see others, neighbours, from different homes, cultural backgrounds, lives. We are better for how our lives intersect with others who are not just like us.

Those in our lives who are with us through the thick and thin, the ones who stay when others disappear, reminders of what real friends are and can be.

For God the creator, the saviour, thanks for redeemed life, through the one who teaches us how sacrificial love is the one that gives life.

We live our lives in a constant cycle of work and play, both giving joy and learning and purpose to every day.

At the end of the day, so much to be thankful for as my head rests on it’s pillow.

If we could just be intentionally grateful, thankful for everything that we have in our days, I think we might see a change in how we view life. It is not about what we do not yet have, but grateful for what is already our reality.

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough”
Ann Voskamp

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Examen the Day with Gratitude

Posted in GOD, Walking with God, WONDER, tagged #canadianthanksgiving, #examenthedaywithgratitude, #givethanks, #intimateprayer, #prayerofexamen, gratitude, Prayer, Thanksgiving on October 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Screen Shot 2018-10-03 at 6.54.35 AM.png In Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving this coming weekend.

It is my most favourite holiday of the year, for it is always good to be reminded to give thanks … and there is always something to be thankful for.

Over the past number of weeks I have encountered, in a handful of places and ways, St. Ignatius’ prayer of Examen, and I find it to be a good outline for sincerely thankful prayer.

Ignatius of Loyola was born, in Spain, in the late fourteen hundreds and lived into the mid fifteen hundreds. He was a Catholic Priest who founded the Jesuits. The Prayer of Examen is from his book The Spiritual Exercises.

The Prayer of Examen is not rote but is reflective and personal/intimate.

The steps and order of prayer are as follows (from http://www.ignatianspirituality.com):

1. Become aware of God’s presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look toward tomorrow.

Basically one starts out seeking God’s presence. Really this is more about us entering consciously, into his presence, then it is he entering into ours, for he is always with us … we simply are not always aware of this fact.

Then you look over your day, noticing all in it that you are thankful for.

Though we Christians do not normally put much stock into our emotions, and many would even say to not trust them. Yet God can speak to us in our feelings of joy, sorrow, melancholy, fear and anger. He may even awaken us, through the noting of our emotions of the day, to act in some way.

Then, choose one specific part of the day, it will come to you, to specifically pray about. Perhaps it will prompt to make an apology, a confession, a dinner for a friend in need.

Finally, pray for the day to come. For strength, for courage, for wisdom.

(click here for more details on how to pray the Examen).

Basically such reflective, personal prayer can not only be relevant when praying, but throughout the day, as our reflections begin to make us aware of God’s presence in all of our days. We can become sensitive to God’s presence in our life, in our days, not just when our head is bowed, or hands lifted in praise but when we are paying the bills, running kids to soccer and dance, standing in line at the grocery store.

It can convert us to followers of God who are intimately aware of his presence in every part of our day, not just the times we bow our heads.

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Weeping for a Night

Posted in life, Walking with God, WONDER, tagged #crymeariver, #jesuswept, #weepingforanight, #weepingthroughthenight, Tears on October 2, 2018| 2 Comments »

They are with us from birth to death, from morning to night.

Tears. The overflowing of moisture from the eyes which originate in their very own ducts, prompted to release and overflow in the presence of pain, or joy, or sorrow, or strong scents or strong emotions.

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Increases in the hormone estrogen can encourage their release, and an increase of progesterone can dry them up.

The Bible speaks, numerous times of tears in relation to Jesus.

From the prophesy in Isaiah 53:3, we know that well before his birth, Jesus the Messiah was to be “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”. Tears were in the cards for him, right from the beginning.

Interesting, though, that in Revelation, it is not the tears of Jesus that are spoken of, but those of us, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:17).

The shortest verse in the Bible has to do with tears … and Jesus. John 11:35 tells us that “Jesus wept.” Short and to the point, those two words remind us of Christ’s humanity, and of our being like him in our weeping.

When Jesus wept, he did so upon entering the home of Lazarus and finding him to be dead. Though he knew that he could and would raise Lazarus from the dead, facing his friends sorrow, over the corpse of their mutual friend … a corpse is always the symbol of a world in need of a bloody Saviour. So, he wept. He wept for the women there, for Lazarus dead before him, for sin that had swept, uninvited, into the world, for humanity whose only chance was a redeemer. And he wept.

That is not the end of our tear-jerking moments in the Bible, for our tears are of great importance to our God, for he not only sees and hears our cries, but, “You (He) keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book” (Psalm 56:8).

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