Tag: God

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 95

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Today started out quite disappointing but along the way I managed to pull myself up by my bootstraps…with a little help of course!  First I was disappointed about something I was really looking forward to doing soon but it’s on hold for now. Then later on in the day I found out some disappointing news. I had enough of it and I decided to take a long nap. Then my daughter invites me out for a late lunch early dinner which I guess you could call it “brinner” 🙂

Sometimes God wants to bless you through your kids and I say let them! Don’t be proud, humble yourself and receive their blessing, they’re just trying to give back a little of what you gave them.

Walking home from the Mexican restaurant we ate at, my daughter asks me,” What is honorable these days mom?” I want to share a list of things I believe are honorable and if you come up with some of your own, good for you!

WHAT IS HONORABLE:

1. Working your problems out with a difficult spouse so your children can see that there are adults who care enough to work things out. This also shows them marriage is no picnic at times.

2. Honoring your dreams by pursuing them.

3. Telling the truth even if you risk losing someone.

4.Telling your kids the truth instead of always acting like everything is fine and trying to protect them. Your kids see right through you anyways and they know you’re only protecting yourself. Also, no one was ever hurt from knowing too much truth; it’s the lies that do the most damage.

5. Telling some one you love them even if they don’t reciprocate it.

6. Being able to love that person who hurt and traumatized you.

7. Forgiving yourself fully.

8. Embracing yourself with all of your quirks.

9. Not running away from life.

10. After a relationship dies, still having hope that you will find love again.

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 94

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It’s Tuesday and I say we all need something to smile about these days. I hate hearing the news lately so I’ve shut the  idiot box off.  If I need to know about anything important I know I’ll hear about it on Facebook or someone I know will tell me. My husband is usually good for that; he’ll come home from work and tell me the latest news headline he heard while eating his lunch. In this age of information at our fingertips it’s hard not to keep informed, whether you like it or not.

So I challenge you today to focus on the GOOD that is happening and part of doing that is on purpose tuning out all the negative voices that try to drown out the good ones. Life goes on  in spite of high gas prices, high prices for everything in fact. Life goes on in an election year. Life goes on and bad news reports can do nothing to stop the marching of time. Take life and enjoy each day because  I ask you,  can anyone of us add a single day to our lives  by worrying? And isn’t it true that MOST of the stuff we waste our time fretting over never really happen?

Today’s picture took me several tries to shoot it the way I wanted it. The wind was blowing hard that day and I wanted to capture our flag waving in the wind to remind us all that though the winds of adversity are upon us we WILL come out of this because we are a people who’ve never quit no matter how hard things have gotten now and in the past. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 93

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Expect the Unexpected from Me!

One of my daughters just turned 16 this week-end and to celebrate her day we had a costume party. I am one who doesn’t like to be put in a box. Weeks before her party we were brain storming for costume ideas. Eventually everybody decided on theirs and I still hadn’t quite decided who to dress up as. Then one night my son suggested I dress up as Slash since I already have hair like his. I laughed out loud at the outlandish suggestion and then I said to myself, ‘Why not??’ So that’s what I did and I had a blast. Saturday as I got ready for the party I was glad to have the chance to not wear any make up , wear my hair in its natural state-I didn’t use any of the hair products I normally do to relax hair as curly as mine and look as unattractive as possible. THAT, was so freeing and I dare say I enjoyed hiding behind the big hair and dark sunglasses. I also went as far as wearing fake tattoos only to find out that you really don’t need to get real ones when fake ones don’t come off too easily 🙂

So this week I dare you to do something so totally unexpected that you catch yourself by surprise..try it, it’s liberating!

 

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 90

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A few weeks ago I was sunning myself in my back yard. It was around 2 in the afternoon and I was thinking that I’m so glad to live in a desert climate where the winters are mild and I can enjoy the sun, while my relatives who live back in the midwest are freezing their butts off 🙂 The yard was quiet when suddenly I looked  up and saw the most wonderful creature hovering just 3 feet from where I sat.

My hummingbird, as I’ve called him since then, just stared at me in flight and we beheld each other for several seconds, neither of us afraid  and at perfect peace with one another. Time stood suspended for an instant. I held my breath, afraid that if I exhaled, he would leave. Then as quickly as he came, he was gone. He flew to a nearby Oleander bush and I begged him to come back. I wanted to hold on to the moment but he was done. I looked at him high up on the bush and I said good-bye knowing it was over.

That moment I’ll never forget and I immediately called my Mama and told her about it. She told me that because I’m such a calm person my good energy drew him to me. I like that!

My son loves how I can draw flowers and birds. He has asked me to do some detail work on his acoustic guitar in the past and I love indulging him. This week he asked me to draw him a humming-bird because he had gotten tired of the old design that had been on his guitar for a couple of years now. So I did and I’m sharing it with you on today’s snap shots of life. I wish you a wonderful start to your week end!!

Hummingbird Symbolism

The hummingbird symbolizes many different concepts. Because of its speed, the hummingbird is known as a messenger and stopper of time. It is also a symbol of love, joy, and beauty. The hummingbird is also able to fly backwards, teaching us that we can look back on our past. But, this bird also teaches that we must not dwell on our past; we need to move forward. When the hummingbird hovers over flowers while drinking nectar, we learn that we should savour each moment, and appreciate the things we love.
The hummingbird has powerful spiritual significance. In the Andes of South Americathe hummingbird is a symbol of resurrection. It seems to die on cold nights, but comes back to life again at sunrise.Hummingbird is the creature that opens the heart. When the hurt that caused us to close our hearts gets a chance to heal, our hearts are free to open again.

It is not commonly known that the fluttering wings of the hummingbird move in the pattern of an infinity symbol – further solidifying their symbolism of eternity, continuity, and infinity.
By observing the Hummingbird, we see they are seemingly tireless. Always actively seeking the sweetest nectar, they remind us to forever seek out the good in life and the beauty in each day. Amazing migrators, some Hummingbirds are known to wing their way as far as 2000 miles to reach their destination. This quality reminds us to be persistent in the pursuit of our dreams, and adopt the tenacity of the Hummingbird in our lives.

365 Snap Shots of Life” Day 89

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The Sacred Hides in the Ordinary

Have you ever ordered something from Ebay and when you received it you were disappointed because the item you purchased was smaller than the picture on the ad showed? That happened to me this morning when I received my Feng Shui wind chime. So I hung it up on the patio and it’s so small, the backyard swallows it up. Then I set out to find the positive in the negative as I normally do. I reminded myself I like small, dainty things and that helped. Then I thought about returning it and it wasn’t worth the hassle. I decided to keep it.

Just now Esther, my second daughter came home from having gone to lunch with her youngest sister. She was so excited because she brought home a butter fly. I looked at it as it sat contentedly on her index finger. Esther thinks it’s injured, I think it likes her. Then I remembered the little wind chime I hung this morning. We have to have eyes that see and ears that hear what isn’t obvious. My small mini wind chime , that tiny butterfly reminds me that the most precious things in life aren’t usually perfect. We have to be awake enough to appreciate those serendipity moments that come to us in our every day lives. Esther’s butterfly felt   enough at ease  with her positive energy to come light on her finger. Is it injured, as my daughter perceives,or  perhaps it didn’t want to die alone.

In this world we live in where perfection is demanded at every step, you have to on purpose make yourself slow down enough to look past the imperfections in things and people so you won’t miss the sacred in the ordinary. After God created everything He said His creation was good, NOT perfect. Maybe He left it open to interpretation and what I get from that is that He made things good-giving them the room to  become BETTER. So next time you deal with a disappointment, challenge yourself to see the sacred in it. It’ll be hard at first but the more you practice that, YOU will become better.

PEOPLE PLEASE STOP HATING

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Have we become so callous as a human race that we can’t say anything nice when some one passes away? People would rather speak badly of the ones who go before us than remembering them for anything good they may have done in their lives. We are all human. We all make mistakes. Not one of us is perfect. So before any one of us casts a stone at someone who has fallen, look inside yourself and see if you’ve arrived…chances are you’re like the rest of us are: WORKS IN PROGRESS.

-Eva Santiago copyright 2012

 

 

Gratitude Has No Expiration Date

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Gratitude Has No Expiration Date

The famine that besieged Egypt and the rest of the world had come to an end. Joseph, along with the entire generation, had all passed away. And:

“A new king arose over Egypt, who did not know of Joseph.”(Exodus 1:8)

A LIFE LESSON 

Is it really possible that anyone – let alone a king – would be unaware of all that Joseph had done for the country? How could anyone in Egypt ever forget the vital role he played its survival? Joseph, as second in command and sole architect of making Egypt the richest country on Earth, should have been immortalized for eternity. It defies logic that anyone could forget the one person who single-handedly saved Egypt and the entire world from famine.

Joseph wasn’t forgotten in the sense that no one “remembered” him. Rather, the significance of his life-saving contributions had simply faded from everyone’s memory.

Joseph’s insights and acumen clearly saved the lives of every man, women, and child. But as soon as the necessity of his contributions were no longer needed, then the appreciation for Joseph ceased as well. When the pain of Egypt’s experience ended, so did their memory of Joseph.

During the massive famine that spread throughout the entire world, Joseph was at the center of it all. Every country was dependent upon Egypt for their survival. But when the famine ended, then Joseph’s help was no longer valuable or even needed. And, over time, the mental leap that someone makes from when a person‘s contributions are no longer needed and the memory of when they were so desperately needed becomes smaller and smaller. And after an entire generation passed away, the people in Egypt simply did not know of Joseph.

Difficult to imagine? It actually occurs in our own lives all the time. Think about it. There are people who have helped you enormously in the past in one way or another. And when they gave you their assistance – whatever it might have been – you certainly expressed your gratitude. But as time went on, it’s just not natural to continue to shower the person with appreciation and gratitude.

But this doesn’t mean that you can’t let them know “out of the blue” once again just how much you appreciate what they did for you. Saying “thank you” to the person long after they’ve given you their help, is such a beautiful and selfless way to live. And the recipient will appreciate it beyond words.

It is very easy to forget people who were there for us, because once their assistance is no longer needed, our appreciation for what they did can easily fade away. And as more and more time passes, we can actually completely forget those people who were there for us when we needed them the most.

It’s not that hard to show appreciation toward someone right after he’s helped you. But the true measure of a person is not demonstrated by the gratitude you show a person after he’s helped you. Rather, the measure of a person is demonstrated by the heartfelt gratitude he can still show long after the fact. True gratitude is not defined by a person who doesn’t forget; it’s defined by the one who always remembers. Make the call today.

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