Pondering Peacefully

I haven't posted for a while. I can't particularly put together a cohesive message I want to post tonight. I feel, instead, the need to share a few random thoughts that have affected me recently.

• Having work done is restful, even when you're tired. (My response after my daughter-in-law said, "Sundays are supposed to be a day of rest, but for me they're sometimes the most productive!")
• Modern descriptions of God's image:
  • God is ultimate friend, confidant in the dark, always whispering back.
  • God is known in the waiting for God
  (From Ray Waddle's Against the Grain: Unconventional Wisdom from Ecclesiastes.)
• "The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns." (Ecclesiastes 1:6. I didn't know the author of Ecclesiastes was from West Texas!)
• "Sometimes people will ask: 'Do I have a right to be angry?' With assertiveness, however, the question becomes, 'Do I have the responsibility to be angry?'" (From Les Carter's Enough About You, Let's Talk About Me: How to Recognize and Manage the Narcissists in Your Life)
• Thoughts on the topic "Loving Myself"
  • Feelings about ourselves or others are not facts. Actions or non actions are facts.
  • Healthy parents love their children regardless. Some are better parents than others but God is still in charge. Yet there is always hope!
  • I am always capable of receiving the strength to follow His lead. To receive serenity. To know what to do.
  • There is no perfect human being on earth.
  • Stuff happens.
  • The steps are steps in a life time journey not an end in themselves.
  (From an email group I'm on, ideas of another person who reflects how I feel.)
• "I watch you grow forward one day at a time, and listen to the incredible self-insight you are recognizing, embracing and have the willingness to work through." (from an email to me that makes me glow gratefully.)

A long time ago, a woman stood before me in unenviable circumstances. She was incarcerated and likely would be for a while. When I casually asked, "How are you?" her answer blew me away: "I am blessed." I know she blessed me, and the people I'm walking through these steps with bless me as well, whether they're writing books or talking to me or making comments I just happen to hear. Thank God, I'm blessed!