As a follow up to my writing yesterday about our children. This song came up in my writings so here it is
Truer words have not been spoken.
Mike and The Mechanics.
This song is so true , you know scripture tells us this. Blessed is the peace makers….
Matthew 5 verse 9
9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
We need to be the peace makers. I have learned through life experience whether I was right or wrong that the chasm needs to be at least attempted to be fixed. God calls us to get our egos and differences out of the way and let go let God.
We all have family stuff , we all have friends stuff we are living imperect lives with stress and problems. but we are also infused with the Holy Spirit that is the presernce of God within us. He can do things that we cannot. He will move us to greatness if we say yes and allow him to show us the way.
Never leave a word unsaid with anyone that you love because none of us knows when that opportunity will come to an end.
The first thing I would like to say is sorry. A friend told me that my blog experienced a loss of some of the attached video files. I have no idea why. I spent about 5 hours restoring the blog entrees so that they function as I intended them to do. Just another challenge. 🙂
I will go further back into the blog all 270 or so and make sure that they all are in working order.
This blog needs to function as God intended it to in order to help others.
The plain truth of the matter about my personal life is this. I am a man in the dessert of my life at this moment and I am living this life challenge to the best of my ability.
I know God’s awesome power, I am living it. Up until 5 years ago you could ask everyone that knows me that I was the fun creative guy in the crowd who was just not very serious.
5 years ago God took my life into a different rhelm one that I never knew existed. Just as I was starting to try to figure out that whole experience my business slowed down and I now was facing economic changes in my personal life. After these two life events took aim and attacked my life , my mother fell gravely ill in the Spring of 2011. We spent everyday at my mom’s bedside until she went home the day before Thanksgiving of that same year. In the meantime the Spring of 2012 brought me terminal brain cancer. Since that diagnosis God again moved in my life and has made incredible things happen to me. My mom went to the Lord Aug, 2013 and even given my faith it hurt like heck and still does.
The next piece to my life journey is this blog. This blog is my third form of Spiritual writing that I have been called to do. I have to state again for the record that I am no writer. It is not a natural process for me. I am not an open book type of person but I have become one by God’s design. At one point I began to write that I needed to die to self. I have come to understand exactly what that means as I spilled my life out in my different writing endeavors.
I also know that this is my calling in this moment. I feel a sense of peace in my soul that this is my job for God. I am to witness my journey and his Victory in my life defeating an evil that attacked me to silence my voice.
I know that this is my truth. The other part of me Danny the average regular guy has struggled to keep up with all of these monumental life changes. It still seams like fantasy Island at times. I am being completely honest with you.
I needed the week away from this blog to just stop the process. I have spent time just being. I have spent a lot of time sitting before the Lord in the chapel.
It was beautiful but it is work keeping silent and stopping my mind from wandering. Silence also makes you take on the issues in your heart and mind very honestly. It is a tough and necessary process though. Life is easy when you drown out everything with work, noise, tv and music.
God does not call us to be constantly distracted , he wants our attention. He wants a conversation with us.
In the chapel I feel so peaceful. God is present. I opened my heart up to God in a very special way last Monday while in the chapel and felt a warmth surround me like I was being hugged it was breathtaking.
Moments like that are the reason that I believe that I am not crazy but I am human who is living an Spiritual journey thus I cannot fully comprehend everything that was and is taking place.
I will be taking up to a week off from my daily blog. During this Season of Lent I have been so busy with life stuff and this blog that I have found myself a bit strapped for time. My focus for prayer time has been very strained.
I am at a life intersection where I need to stop the daily process and sit with God in prayer. I can not serve God or others if I don’ t stop talking, and typing for a period of time.
I have been on a bit of a personal high with myself being cancer free, the dawn of a new Spring Season and getting my license back. I have been very distracted by the fruits of this life.
But I have learned through life experience that I cannot afford to be too invested in this life. I believe that for us to be successful in anything that we need do that we need to stay in balance. For me my faith in God is the ballast that keeps me stable through all of this life’s situation.
So, it’s time to be still and know that I now need to listen for his guidance.
We are all born of our parents by the miracle of God’s design of creation. I am sitting here today with Spring outside and I am just so enamored by its beauty
I was thinking about the fact that it is no coincidence as to where we are born and live. God predestined that for us before our birth that fact is stated in Psalm # 139.
Our lives are mysteries to us but they are not a mystery to God.
I love being a New Englander. The snow never bothered me until I became handicapped and have been reminded to be careful not to fall on the ice because if I hurt my right arm I can not take care of myself.
I love that I again live here. Since my illness almost took my life I am very cognizant of Everything around me like I have New eyes looking out, like a new sense of smell and a crisper ear to hear nature. I have been in essence a prisioner in my own home. The one thing I counted on was to watch the Seasons Change with anticipation of it and then projecting forward to the next season to see what would come.
NEW ENGLAND IN THE SPRING
When I was diagnosed with terminal cancer nearly 3 years ago, I projected my self towards the different Seasons that were coming birthdays and anniversaries. Projecting gave me a reason to fight for life. None of us knows what tomorrow will bring including me. I have my next scan the end of. April. 🙂
Okay, the bottom line is this I look at each day and each opportunity to experience the moments of the day in a new way. To stop and look at the beauty surrounding me , the smells,sights, and sounds of nature.
I came by this beautiful video of New England and it still does not capture its full beauty.
Enjoy, and God Bless You All,
Danny
Like I have said my mother and mother Inlaw,really loved this singer. I find great comfort of remembering these things when I write.
Times have changed so much. When I was a young boy my neighborhood had the nicest mailman. Everyone knew him and the kids and dogs thought he was great.
Sam would drive and walk his mail route. He used to take a couple of kids on his lunch break with their parents approval for a hot dog and ice cream. Then we would ride around in his US postal jeep and watch him deliver the mail.
Sam was married and did not have children. He was kind and always had dog cookies for the dogs on his route. He was giving out cookies to the dogs even through the mail slots. I remember he was missing the top part of his index finger. He told me that a dog thought it was a cookie. Lol
There was a huge saint Bernard dog that was so excited to see him and the mail truck on the street so he would bark, run off his porch to see Sam and he would climb into the jeep for a ride. Sam would laugh and give him cookies. On our way back out of the neighborhood he would stop and get the dog out and back on his porch. Looking back 99 percent of the things that Sam did 46 years ago would never be allowed now. But it was awesome. Sam also let us chew his green apple gum that he had. 🙂
This is the type of dog,full grown of course.
I am grateful for the memory of this kind man. He listened to each kid that took a ride in his jeep or walked the route with him. He was a great role model for each kid that he took along for a short while on his route. We were not invisible to him. When we went to the dairy bar down the street for the hotdog,the man behind the counter would say hello Sam, who’s your friend today. So nice. 🙂
This scripture was from my bible ap. I could not have picked a better reading for this wonderful man. He did not have children of his own so he helped to raise others. What a great man. God Bless Him. 🙂
13 Who is there among you who is wise and intelligent? Then let him by his noble living show forth his [good] works with the [unobtrusive] humility [which is the proper attribute] of true wisdom.
It was an innocent time when I grew up where families were generally large and we ran all over the neighborhood and played. Our mothers and fathers had to get a check in call if we at a friend’s house. The parents knew each other and called each other as well. It was a great time where we as young children seemed somehow safer to move around.
I believe each one of us is the sum total of our life experiences. I believe that the kindness that I learned from my family and people like Sam the mailman equipped me with an awareness and need to let people know that they matter. In even the smallest way.
Life is beautiful and the people that we are encountering during our day should be validated. I don’t care if it is a check out person at the store, the person you hold the door for or the person on the bus. Everyone is lifted up just by being recognized. Just the fact that someone cared enough to share a kind word just means so much
What is there in life that is more important then to bless another person. To be Jesus to a young one on the road trying to find their way.
This song is for Sam who I am sure went to God many years ago.
The weather is changing, the days are longer and life is so beautiful so why not laugh. Just laugh and let the Spirit of joy lighten your heart and mind. Amen.
I saw this amazing teaching of FR. Leo Clifford and it was so spot on with life and what awaits us when we are called to God. The link is down below.
The beauty of the pure love that God has for us is something that I know is bigger than we could ever imagine.
How do I know?
It’s quite easy for me to explain, I felt this love on a couple of different occasions in my life and the joy was more that I could handle. My heart exploded and I got a glimpse of what the love of God is.
God’s love supersedes our understanding . So many beautiful things that we experience in this life are beautiful. But none of my life’s experiences have come even close to that level of total love that I have felt in those brief encounters.
One of the times that this experience happened to me was during confession and spiritual direction a few years back. I was crying from the overwhelming joy of love that God poured through me. Fr. Said it was a gift to me from God on my journey to let me know he is pleased.
The bottom Line is this. Fr. Said it is a glimpse of what Heaven would be like with Jesus Christ/ God.
My response as I attempted to compose myself and sit up straight was, I cannot handle this love then. Fr. R looked at me with a questioned look on his face . I just said it is too much for me to handle. Too much beauty.
I have said that I would always be honest about what I write here on this blog because it is not all me.Its happening to me and I am merely relaying my journey here.
God does not want me to experience one thing more here in this life than he does for you . We are all the same in his eyes. Ask, and you shall receive.
Why I had the feeling that I could not handle the love of Heaven at that time in confession has been thought about many times through prayer since the 1st event happened.
This is my opinion on this matter,
I am a sinner in ways that I am sure that I am unaware of . When God calls me I will still be unworthy to be in his presence . I do believe we need to go to purgatory in order to be purified before we arrive in Heaven. I guess the amount of time we spend there will depend on how we lived our lives here.
Some may not believe that and that’s okay. I can only speak for myself. I know on my best day I am not worthy. I am not beating myself up I am just being truthful and honest. Amen.
We Wait For You (Shekinah Glory) & Lyrics (Shekinah is God.)
Psalm 42 versers 7-9
7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.8 By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me– a prayer to the God of my life.9 I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning,oppressed by the enemy?”
The trials of this life roar at me I acknowledge that The Lord who is my rock is with me on this journey and guides me in the day as I toil. At night time when I have a worried mind he comforts me and soothes me with the music of his word. When we are at our weekest ( When we are tired) is when the evil decides I will get them upset and make them worry. We can’t sleep and are thinking God why aren’t you stopping him from this crap ?
Why must I be oppressed.
The answer in my opinion is this. pray,pray,pray talk from the heart and you will see the effect. Peace pours down through the mercy seat and we are washed by the healing blood of Christ. Nothing can bother you too much when we put ourselves in front of the one who created all. This is the world that we have as a result of sin. So, these challenges are part of of our daily journey.
I am directed once again through my prayer to say that we need to get quiet and listen for God’s voice and direction during prayer. We need to learn to be at peace in the quiet. It is a discipline that we learn and it takes a little practice. But practice makes perfect. Eventually even the small noises that are present fades until you can hear what is going on in your head, words scroll through your brain and thoughts that are so alive and are meant for action are placed before us by God through the Holy Spirit.
Everyone of us is capable of a successful prayer life from the Pope to a small child. It is up to you to desire it. What we achieve in this life is limitless when be believe in ourselves not because we are great, but because Our God created us with the ability to communicate directly with him through the Holy Spirit to attain the gifts that are needed to reach our goals.
The one thing that I really have come to understand myself is this. God is not a God that worries about us winning a lottery. What God wants us to desire in my mind is this…
God wants us to rely on him and to keep it simple. When we are in prayer we should be looking for things that will bring us closer to our God or will allow us to help others more. God already knows what we want so I do not ask. I figure if he thinks it’s a good thing for me or that I would be a good steward of that thing that he may allow it to happen.
God also wants us to rely on him to give us what we need and what is the best for us. Winning the lottery for example is not always the best thing for all of us. It could destroy many. But for the few that could handle it and remain who they are in Christ. They would be able to Bless so many. I heard of a regular guy recently that won a huge lottery and gave it all to charity. He said that his needs were met by God and he did not want it to effect his family.
When you as a parent are trying to talk to a child who is distracted and not listending whether it be because of tv, radio, video games whatever, don’t you find it annoying! Especially when you are trying to direct your child on a straight path where there is safety and security, and they are just too busy, there is too much noise etc.
By not shutting down the noise we are ignoring God. If you say God does not hear and answer my prayers it could be because of all of the constant music and the distractions of life is drowning out his voice.
Everything today is instant, a text message can travel the globe in 1 second. I had to learn to silence and shut down the technology before I begin my prayer. Otherwise we become distracted by it.
God deserves better, and we only get the best from our Father when we love, respect and listen to him. Amen.
Word Of God Speak Mercy
So this upcoming Advent/ Christmas Season look for the opportunity to devote yourself to more prayer time . I tell my kids all the time when you get into the car don’t just put on the radio . Give the ride to work to God. I use to do that a whole lot myself. It is very peaceful.
Just a quick blog, I am sitting here at home all by my onesies, and was thinking about my blog. I have had so many conversations over the last two years about documenting this journey. What I get now more than ever is just how much people are enjoying the witness of my journey and that of my family. Its causing my family to re-live certain events that were tramatic in that day and I guess this journey,of hearing it and reading about it in this manner will bring more closure and healing to us all.
My intent for this blog is very simple, I want to help even just one person. We are all the same to God precious. This blog is his victory story. To everything there is a purpose.
The byrds
When it comes down to it, by the grace of God all that we have in the life really is eachother, and that is really the most important thing anyway. Material stuff is really so unimportant. We need to celebrate and support oneanother. Amen.
Just Danny Speaks 