All Things Work Together for Good

I have exciting news! My mom had tests taken after her bout with cancer, and she has recovered. Praise God! We had a party for her last weekend before she had her test results back, and she looked great. We were expecting good news, and that's what we received. What a relief!

What Mom went through will make her a stronger person. "All things work together for good," according to Romans 8:28, and I do believe that.

I know it didn't seem like things were working for her good when she went through chemo. She lost her hair, her eyebrows, and had to have surgery. She was uncomfortable, and it seemed that the treatments would never end. She became weak and many times wondered if the treatments weren't worse than the disease.

All of this was a preparation. These challenges helped her to grow. She began to question what was really important in her life and started prioritizing. She didn't spend time in self-pity or defeat. Outside it looked like her body was deteriorating, but her spirit became stronger than ever. She never stopped believing. She gave it her all.

Even though it seemed like she was walking through the valley of death, she didn't get stuck there. It was temporary. It passed. Psalm 84:6 says that passing through the valley of weeping, you will find pools of blessing.

This served as another reminder to expect good things. When something happens, I have choices. I can either say, "This really isn't fair. It makes me furious." Or I can say, "I really don't know why this happened, but I know God is in control so it will not steal my peace and joy." I might as well give God control of everything. He has it anyway, so why resist it?

If we trust in the goodness of God, we know that things will work out for the best. I remember when my daughter had her motorcycle accident. She was staying so strong for everyone else. I wondered if she needed to just let her family and many friends take care of her. For Mom I wondered the same thing. I thought, "Just let us be there for you in your time of need."

As much as I wanted to take the burdens from my loved ones when they were hurting, I couldn't do it, but God had placed in them the strength and faith they needed to get through their adversity and come out stronger than ever.

Thanks for letting me share my story with you. I sincerely hope that you experience your best life ever by knowing that whatever challenges you go through, God will restore you and turn things around for your benefit. He will give you beauty for ashes and joy for mourning. That's what He's done for me. God bless!

Love and Light,
Patty

Bounce Back!

This weekend we enjoyed a party celebrating Mom's recovery from cancer. Her hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes have grown back. Mom has bounced back!

Mom's health and attitude reminded me of something I read today about palm trees. During a hurricane, other trees will be blown over and uprooted, but the palm tree can bend all the way over until its top reaches the ground and still not break. If the storm lasts for hours, they will still bounce right back. Why? It's because they are resilient. Biologists have pointed out that when the palm tree weathers such a storm, their root system is actually strengthened by the stress. This gives them new opportunities for growth.

My Mom is like that. She has come back stronger than ever. She has bounced back. Life almost knocked the wind out of her sails, but she is an overcomer. Life is good! The cancer was not welcome in her body, but she did not let it steal her joy.

She's still standing. It reminds me of the Elton John song, "I'm Still Standing". The lyrics go like this: "Don't you know I'm still standing better than I ever did, looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid. I'm still standing after all this time, picking up the pieces of my life......Once I never could hope to win....I'm still standing, yeah, yeah, yeah....I'm still standing, yeah, yeah, yeah...."

I'm trying to learn something from this for my own life. Like that old cliche', "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade," I want to be able to make something delicious out of something sour. Like the palm tree, I may get battered and beat, but once the wind stops, I'll bounce right back again. I like what I read in Joel Osteen's book when it stated, "I'm too blessed to be stressed." Let's make this our motto. Let's appreciate the little things, as well as the big things.

Light and love,
Patty

The Comeback Kid

Jesus was buried and rose again on the third day according to I Corinthians 15:4. He is the original comeback kid. He literally rose above His circumstances.

At some point, we all face major challenges too. Thankfully, they will not be as drastic as what our Lord faced, but nonetheless, we have all faced or will face stuff: a layoff at work, a broken relationship, sickness, or the injury or death of a loved one. What keeps us from falling into despair when something like that happens? For me, it is my faith. It is my expectation that I will be able to rise above whatever happens.

Joel Osteen says, "When you plant a seed in the ground, you don't say, 'I'm burying this seed.' You say, 'I'm planting this seed.' The difference is that when you plant a seed, you expect it to rise again and come back to life. The time for planting comes when challenges arise....When you go through disappointments and you're in tough times, you may feel like you've been buried, but the fact is, you've simply been planted. That means you're coming back...better, increased, stronger."

When you plant a seed in the ground, if it had feelings, it would probably be dark, lonely, and uncomfortable under the soil, but guess what? It doesn't stay under there forever. It is planted and soon it will burst through the soil into the light. It rises out of the dark and becomes a beautiful plant.

We too can become more beautiful than ever before when we face adversity. No matter what we come against in life, we need to remember that we are not buried, but we are planted. The same Power that raised Jesus from the dead can raise us too. Our best life yet is coming. We won't live defeated. It's time to make a comeback.

Two thousand years later we are still in awe of Jesus, who was a man with skin like we have. We still look to His example to help us live our best lives yet. Nothing could keep Him down. Now we know that nothing can keep us down either. We don't have to tell Him about our problems. Instead we can tell our problems about Him.

This is a time of year we always celebrate resurrection. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to us. We have eternal life. We don't have to wait until we die to enjoy it. Are you letting your life raise you up? Do you have comeback power to overcome any challenge set in your way?

Let's join the original Comeback Kid this Easter and let God's blessings bloom in our lives. Happy Easter!

Light and love,
Patty

If I Could Turn Back Time

Have you ever listened to Cher's popular song "If I Could Turn Back Time"? The song says,"I don't know why I did the things I did. I don't know why I said the things I said." Do you ever feel that way?

Joel 2:25 says, "I will restore to you the years the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you." Could that mean that He will restore the years that we feel we have lost?

Joel Osteen says in his new book IT'S YOUR TIME that God controls time and can therefore turn back the clock and bring restoration to our relationships. I think like every parent, I have suffered from guilt about child-rearing. For many years I was a single mom with two teenage daughters to raise by myself with no child support. I worked full time as an English teacher and sponsored the annual staff, directed drama, coached the speech team, etc. Sometimes I look back and think, "If only I had spent more time with them, they wouldn't have rebelled so much as teenagers" or "if only we had had more money, I could have paid for them to go to college." All those things haunted me for years, but now I can see that my girls' rebellion made them become free-thinkers and independent women. Our lack of funds helped them to realize that hard work is required if we want reach our goals in life. Both attended college and one of them received a bachelor's degree.

Let's remember that God can restore the years we feel we have lost. I spend plenty of time with my daughters now. Now I have the time I lacked when my daughters were young to dote on my four grandchildren. And guess what? I'm no longer single. I married the most wonderful man on the planet. My life has been restored and blessed abundantly.

If I could turn back time.....I wouldn't. All the things that I did or said were the best I could do for what I knew at the time. "He restores my soul" (Psalms 23:3), and for that I am most grateful.

Light and love,
Patty

Speaking Faith-Filled Words

"Our words can bless our future or they can curse it," writes Joel Osteen. We give life to our faith when we use our words in a positive way. When we are grateful for our lives and complaint-free, we bring blessing in abundance to them.

When we look for the best in everyone and speak it, they become the best. With our children, we can speak blessing into their lives even when they are not living their best lives. If they are not behaving the way we would like them to behave, we can put a positive spin on it to our friends. When they ask about them, we can say, "She's blessed. She makes good decisions. She is kind and respectful. She just doesn't know it yet!" Joel Osteen suggests this practice in his new book, IT'S YOUR TIME.

We can also use our words to speak healing into our lives. Yesterday my back was hurting me, but I decided not to give it attention. I thanked God for my perfect health. I knew that if I didn't feel perfectly healthy at that moment, it was not a permanent thing. This morning I woke up feeling great. I took the time to thank God for healing me before I even got out of bed this morning. Once we realize the correlation between what we say and how we feel, we will make sure our words are full of faith. Let's remember to be victors, not victims. Joel 3:10 says, "Let the weak say, 'I am strong.'" We need to claim our victory even when we don't feel it.

Zechariah 10:1 says, "Ask the Lord for rain in springtime." It's the first day of spring and outside my window, I see snow, not rain! The idea of this verse, though, is to ask for what we need. We simply take things for granted sometimes, and do not even think about them. Yet, if we use the words to express our desires, we are voicing faith and releasing God's power. The snow may not disappear, but it will soak into the ground and bring forth flowers in as beautiful a way as rain would.

I'm grateful for today, and I am going to proclaim good things for my loved ones, myself, and you. God bless!

Love and light,
Patty

Favor Has Been Released in Your Future

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow them," wrote Louisa May Alcott.

When I think about my future, I believe that every day the right people will come into my path, the right circumstances will unfold, and the right breaks will come my way. This has been a regular occurrence in my life, building my faith and expectation in such a way that I am extremely optimistic about my life and the lives of my loved ones.

Psalms 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Joel Osteen says, "When you stay in faith, you will walk into God's blessings. Understand that He's already released into your future everything you need to fulfill your destiny. My prayer for you is that you will receive everything God has in store."

I also pray that for my grandchildren. Yesterday my oldest granddaughter turned fifteen and I pray that God will release favor into her future and give her health, wisdom, strength, and supernatural opportunity. I ask it in the name of Jesus.

God bless her, and God bless you.

Love and Light,
Patty

Choosing Faith over Fear

"Nothing before, nothing behind; the steps of faith fall on the seeming void and find the rock beneath," wrote the American poet, John Greenleaf Whittier. God is our solid Rock and the Source that gives us sure footing to meet every situation we encounter. God gives us the wisdom and power to do all things in the most successful manner. "All things work together for them that love God." (Romans 8:28) To find the security of the Rock beneath our steps gives us faith in a brighter world. Surely the greatest good will come to us and everything will work out perfectly if we have that kind of faith. Our lives will rise to meet our expectations.

Joel Osteen points out that faith tells us to believe in the positive, to believe that God will supply all our needs, and to believe that our best days are yet to come. Fear, on the other hand, causes us to think negatively about our finances, our health, and our state of being. He tells us that we can choose faith over fear and trust God with gratitude in our hearts to resolve any situation that could cause us anxiety. Even when things look a little dark and cloudy, we know that the Sun is still shining.

When one door closes, another opens. "According to your faith will it be done to you." (Matthew 9:29)

Let's stay positive so that the people around us will catch our optimism and be in a better mood and feel good about life. If we keep our spirits high, we will give everyone around us a healthy dose of hope.

Let's be careful not to watch too much bad news. Joel says, "I like to watch the news. I like to know what's going on. But I'm careful to recognize when I have the information I need and when it's just redundant doom and gloom that I don't need to hear again and again......Turn off negative talk. Fill your mind with thoughts of victory!"

Our God is all-powerful. There is no need to worry. We can choose faith over fear this very minute.

Light and Love,
Patty