September letter…

Hi friends, here is my September letter to you all. Lots of food for thought today. Hope it helps and gives you a few more tools for your tool box to help you along your way. I read a great book recently called “On The Other Side of Fear. How I Found Peace”. By Hallie Lord. She says that sometimes God is behind your struggles. He is creative and has an infinite number of ways to purify a soul. For example. Poverty. If we struggle to earn our daily bread and become too reliant upon, and proud of our own abilities, poverty is a potent antidote to such a weakness. (Now stay with me on this you guys)… When our efforts to earn daily bread become fruitless, we start begging God for help. And after enough begging, we see that everything ultimately flows from Him, not us. It’s humbling. The wonderful thing about God, is that He’s always waiting to offer consolation and insight, right when you feel your knees buckling from the weight of it all. Every so often, He parts the curtains a bit to let us peer into His workshop to see how our hearts are softening while He is pumping away on His mallet to mould us a little more. You can see how He sometimes manages to make us a little more patient, a bit more kind and a lot more humble. So often we march through life, never once giving God credit for our own accomplishments, never thanking Him for our gifts. If we can learn to trust God implicitly, knowing that He will never abandon us though the winds may howl and the waves crash upon us, if we can become free of pride and posturing, we will learn that what God says is true, that there is strength found in weakness. When we become weary from the challenges of ex: not being able to afford our next meal, try praying for the poor, meditate on their suffering and give thanks to God for the many gifts He has given us. Someone once told Hallie Lord that if you pray for your enemies, you will no longer be able to hate them. That the moment you begin to advocate for goodness in their life, is the same moment that your animosity towards them will begin to fade. This is because the light of love and the darkness of hatred cannot exist in the same space. The same is true of love and fear. Love creates life-affirming beauty, fear sets out to destroy it. Love is joyful, fear miserable. Love frees, fear imprisons. Love is kind, fear cruel. Love is honest, fear deceitful. Love is brave, fear afraid. And love is strong, fear is weak. Hallie Lord says that as long as we exist on this earthly planet, love and fear will be at war. There is no harmony between the two. But though they may do battle over and over again, love’s victory is written in the stars. For love is God and God is love and both are omnipotent. So there you have it folks for this month. A little nugget to chew upon. Have a great day and rest of September everyone.