Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. From our first knowledge of time, God did something. He created. He moved. He spoke. He saw. He divided. He called. He spoke again. From the beginning, God always acted. Add to this the pressure of a world system based on works and growing up in a household driven by performance and you've got a recipe for schizophrenia.
Perhaps God, knowing how easily we would take on the mantle of human doing, instructs us to be like Christ. Christ, who simply showed up. He did not break forth into earth like a homesteader charging toward a claim. And they were mad at Him for that. He simply arrived and seemingly floated through history, even while on the cross, simply receiving upon himself the punishment of the entire world.
Learning to be a human being is proving to be one of the greatest struggles of my life. Is it okay for me to just sit back and do nothing? To not think about it? Christ often escaped the daily pull of His mission in a distant corner of a mountain or some other quiet place, to pray, to reconnect with His father, to just do nothing. If He did only what He saw His father do, then He must have learned how to rest from God. There was a whole lotta goin' on in the beginning. But before all that, God was. He simply existed and communed with His doggone self! So, I'm going to do nothing but accept and be.
Perhaps God, knowing how easily we would take on the mantle of human doing, instructs us to be like Christ. Christ, who simply showed up. He did not break forth into earth like a homesteader charging toward a claim. And they were mad at Him for that. He simply arrived and seemingly floated through history, even while on the cross, simply receiving upon himself the punishment of the entire world.
Learning to be a human being is proving to be one of the greatest struggles of my life. Is it okay for me to just sit back and do nothing? To not think about it? Christ often escaped the daily pull of His mission in a distant corner of a mountain or some other quiet place, to pray, to reconnect with His father, to just do nothing. If He did only what He saw His father do, then He must have learned how to rest from God. There was a whole lotta goin' on in the beginning. But before all that, God was. He simply existed and communed with His doggone self! So, I'm going to do nothing but accept and be.
Imma be, Imma be, Imma, Imma, Imma be
Imma be, Imma be, Imma, Imma, Imma be
Imma be, Imma be, Imma, Imma, Imma be
Imma be be be, Imma, Imma be
Imma be be be, Imma, Imma be
Imma be be be, Imma, Imma be
Imma be, Imma be, Imma be, Imma be
Imma be living that good life, Imma be living that good good
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Breakdown or Breakthrough?
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. 'Which road do I take?' she asked. His response was a question: 'Where do you want to go?' 'I don't know,' Alice answered. 'Then,' said the cat, 'it doesn't matter.' - Lewis Carroll
Monday, April 19, 2010
Gettin' busy
Ahhh, he's back.
The new season of Dhani Tackles the Globe begins tonight at 11 on the Travel Channel. If you know me and you don't know who this man is by now, well... we probably just met.
Hey, I look at it like this. Katie Holmes said when she was a little girl, it was her dream to grow up and marry Tom Cruise. Well, if little Katie's dream can come true, then why can't mine?!
So here's some motivation. A great man needs an even greater woman. Isaac was able to fall in love with a woman he'd only just met because she (Rebecca) was Fabulous! Okay? Genesis 24 tells us that Rebecca was beautiful, industrious, kind hearted, a giver, devoted to God , a forward thinker, shrewd, properly positioned and did I mention beautiful? Interestingly enough, Rebecca's name in Hebrew means a knotted cord, to bind, CAPTIVATING.
Reading the book, Captivating: The Unveiling of a Woman's Soul changed my life and started me on an amazing journey to true godly womanhood in a way that no other self-help book has ever been able to do. Sure, it's easy to say, I wish Dhani Jones would be my husband. It's easy to dream of being his wife. It's much harder to shed the old Stacey and put on the new Stacey that is captivating enough to be tied to such a man. Marriage is like a spiritual three-legged race. Two partners wrap a cord around their legs, binding themselves together, so that every move they make must be calculated, in synch. They must surrender to each other and move from start to finish line as one if they intend to win the race. It's insane, but so absolutely great. So all this to say, I was never the last kid picked when playing sports or games. In fact, I was often the first to do the picking because I was fast, and strong and taller than everybody else, so some of the kids were just plain scared of me. lol But if I were in the line up now and Dhani was captain, would he pick me first to be on his dodgeball team or would I be standing there in the dust twiddling my fingers in the outfield waiting for a big red ball to hit me in the head?
Now, I have no idea if it's in God's plan for me to run a season of my race as Mrs. Stacey D. Jones, but I do know that it is His plan for me to be a woman who is thoroughly enthralling, inescapably captivating. So I better get busy.
The new season of Dhani Tackles the Globe begins tonight at 11 on the Travel Channel. If you know me and you don't know who this man is by now, well... we probably just met.
Hey, I look at it like this. Katie Holmes said when she was a little girl, it was her dream to grow up and marry Tom Cruise. Well, if little Katie's dream can come true, then why can't mine?!
So here's some motivation. A great man needs an even greater woman. Isaac was able to fall in love with a woman he'd only just met because she (Rebecca) was Fabulous! Okay? Genesis 24 tells us that Rebecca was beautiful, industrious, kind hearted, a giver, devoted to God , a forward thinker, shrewd, properly positioned and did I mention beautiful? Interestingly enough, Rebecca's name in Hebrew means a knotted cord, to bind, CAPTIVATING.
Reading the book, Captivating: The Unveiling of a Woman's Soul changed my life and started me on an amazing journey to true godly womanhood in a way that no other self-help book has ever been able to do. Sure, it's easy to say, I wish Dhani Jones would be my husband. It's easy to dream of being his wife. It's much harder to shed the old Stacey and put on the new Stacey that is captivating enough to be tied to such a man. Marriage is like a spiritual three-legged race. Two partners wrap a cord around their legs, binding themselves together, so that every move they make must be calculated, in synch. They must surrender to each other and move from start to finish line as one if they intend to win the race. It's insane, but so absolutely great. So all this to say, I was never the last kid picked when playing sports or games. In fact, I was often the first to do the picking because I was fast, and strong and taller than everybody else, so some of the kids were just plain scared of me. lol But if I were in the line up now and Dhani was captain, would he pick me first to be on his dodgeball team or would I be standing there in the dust twiddling my fingers in the outfield waiting for a big red ball to hit me in the head?
Now, I have no idea if it's in God's plan for me to run a season of my race as Mrs. Stacey D. Jones, but I do know that it is His plan for me to be a woman who is thoroughly enthralling, inescapably captivating. So I better get busy.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Being Inimitable
"Nobody can imitate me. You can always see impersonations of Katherine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. But not me. Because I've always drawn on myself only."
-The inimitable Joan Crawford
For some, the biggest challenge of this generation could be figuring out our health care system or stemming an already out of control energy crisis. For others, healing the effects of natural devastation in faraway lands or bringing child trafficking to a screeching halt may be the largest hurdles of our time. But for me, the greatest undertaking of the next several decades will be learning to be me.
The power to draw on one's own sense of self for innovation, creativity, pride of place, and sheer "fabulosity" is one not easily attained. It requires not settling for mediocre, conquering the enemy called average, becoming an overcomer by embracing the Mt. Fuji's in our way. It requires surrendering the selfishness of mind that keeps one from accepting the truth of heart.
Daily, I remind myself of the things that are holding me back, keeping me from achieving, from advancing. I need to stop doing that. I need start calling out the things that make me a show stopper, the elements of Stacey that make me indispensable, influential, and magnetic.
I wanna be that chick. That chick that everybody looks at and says, "Unh. Look at her...she think she all dat." "She think she somebody." Hell, yeah! I think I'm somebody! Doesn't everybody want to be somebody? The sad truth is, no. Not everybody wants to be more than satisfactory, more than okay, more than good enough. Not everybody wants to stand out of the crowd, stop traffic or draw admirers like the IRS to a fat check.
That's why, my dears, there is so much room at the top. That's why the Joan Crawfords and the Sophia Lorens and the Lola Falanas of the world are in their own fabulous world all to themselves. People want to be like them, but cannot because they are not. They want to be fabulous, but cannot because they're afraid that "they" could never include "me".
Well, I'm done with that crap...
Ain't nobody fly like me
sly like me, smooth like me
sharp like me.
Can't nobody love like me
strut like me, talk like me
rock like me.
Won't nobody lean like me
swing like me, rep like me
bring that like me.
I don't wanna be no wanna be.
I'm just gonna be me.
-The inimitable Joan Crawford
Photo courtesy of mimfroufrou.com
For some, the biggest challenge of this generation could be figuring out our health care system or stemming an already out of control energy crisis. For others, healing the effects of natural devastation in faraway lands or bringing child trafficking to a screeching halt may be the largest hurdles of our time. But for me, the greatest undertaking of the next several decades will be learning to be me.
The power to draw on one's own sense of self for innovation, creativity, pride of place, and sheer "fabulosity" is one not easily attained. It requires not settling for mediocre, conquering the enemy called average, becoming an overcomer by embracing the Mt. Fuji's in our way. It requires surrendering the selfishness of mind that keeps one from accepting the truth of heart.
Daily, I remind myself of the things that are holding me back, keeping me from achieving, from advancing. I need to stop doing that. I need start calling out the things that make me a show stopper, the elements of Stacey that make me indispensable, influential, and magnetic.
I wanna be that chick. That chick that everybody looks at and says, "Unh. Look at her...she think she all dat." "She think she somebody." Hell, yeah! I think I'm somebody! Doesn't everybody want to be somebody? The sad truth is, no. Not everybody wants to be more than satisfactory, more than okay, more than good enough. Not everybody wants to stand out of the crowd, stop traffic or draw admirers like the IRS to a fat check.
That's why, my dears, there is so much room at the top. That's why the Joan Crawfords and the Sophia Lorens and the Lola Falanas of the world are in their own fabulous world all to themselves. People want to be like them, but cannot because they are not. They want to be fabulous, but cannot because they're afraid that "they" could never include "me".
Well, I'm done with that crap...
Ain't nobody fly like me
sly like me, smooth like me
sharp like me.
Can't nobody love like me
strut like me, talk like me
rock like me.
Won't nobody lean like me
swing like me, rep like me
bring that like me.
I don't wanna be no wanna be.
I'm just gonna be me.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Focus and Fillet of Fish
photo courtesy of faqs.org
Life is like eating fish. You remove the flesh and toss out the bones.
I have been under the impression that every lesson I learn must be immediately and comprehensively applied to my life. But the light bulb went off today when I understood that I easily get bogged down by too much "truth stimulus".
A lesson learned today could be for use 20 years from now. I may be able to use the beginning of the lesson for my present and save the rest for my future. Focus is key. Yes, there are a million good things I have in me to achieve; but great things need focus to achieve.
Focus on greatness and God will bring along what's needed to take care of the good.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Some new words to add to the vocabulary of my heart...
Rest - relief or freedom especially from anything that wearies, troubles or disturbs
a period or interval of inactivity, repose, solitude or tranquility
a supporting device
(among the 20 or so definitions here are some of my favorites)
to relieve weariness by the cessation of exertion or labor
to be at ease; have tranquility or peace
to be quiet or still
to rely; be based or founded
to be found; belong, reside
Hope - the feeling that what is wanted can be had and will turn out for the best
to look forward to with desire or reasonable confidence
to feel that something desired may happen
Expect - from the Latin ex spectare meaning to await
to look forward to; regard as likely to happen; anticipate the occurring or the coming of
to look for with reason or justification
photo courtesy of podbean.com
"For I know that thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the Lord; and I will turn away your captivity..."-Jeremiah 29:11-14
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