Hope

A fixed mindset has no hope.  It has lost its hope.

“There can be no change; Things will always be this way; There’s nothing I can do about it; It’s too late; Things are too bad; It’s gone on too long to see anything different; They’ll never change…”

It has no hope of a different future, a different tomorrow, a different you!

Hope is the propeller on the airplane of life that pulls us forward. We can guide it wherever we want to go when the engine is running.

Hope is freedom; an optimistic view of a new and brighter future; of change; a better tomorrow; a different way of doing things; freedom from the ruts in life… in your life!

Hope is one thing God has given mankind that no matter how bad things become, no matter what has been done, God can fix it. He can cause new growth. He is in the restoration business. There is aways hope. If you only have an ounce of strength or courage, He will give you more. If you feel there’s only a tiny bit of life left in you, He will fan it into flame.

Ask Him to blow on you.

The Eye of Beauty

Can you see it? See what? See beauty around you!

It’s not a foreign word, although in some ways it seems disregarded.

Just what is beauty? It is seen in many ways…

Calm; color; vibrancy; order; cleanliness; clarity; detail; simplicity…

Beauty comes by inspiration – meaning God-breathed. Everything God made was beautiful. It had order, rhyme and reason – purpose to it. He breathed it out with his words, and it became. He spoke us into existence and said, ‘Go tend the garden…you’re made in My image…make more life, perpetuate it. Feed it. Encourage it. Take it and make it wherever you go. Be inspired by what I’ve done. I will inspire you to make more beauty.’

If we look closely at what God made, we will develop an eye for beauty. True beauty lasts. It is deeper than looks only.

Beauty brings comfort, peace, calm, joy, hope, encouragement, trust, relaxation, contentment…

How do you feel when you look at something beautifully made? Does it inspire you to make something beautiful or do something beautiful? It can become contagious.

By beauty, I don’t mean pretty. Beauty has an uplifting element to it…a nobility if you will, in that it causes you to notice it, and brings a surge of hopefulness.

I don’t understand how it all works, but it does.

What do you see and how does it affect you?

Grow!!!

For the last two weeks it’s been raining/blowing cotton all over the patio, plants and ground!

Probably a 70′ cottonwood tree is still covered with hanging cottony puffs from the ends of every branch. It will be a while before it quits dropping cotton. Each individual puff of cotton has only one tiny seed attached…kind of reminds me of a badminton birdie design.

Why do we need 4 million seeds flying around from one tree? Stuff is meant to grow and provide more than enough. This one tree provides not only seeds for new trees, but also seeds for birds to eat, plus the cotton provides soft lining for the baby birds’ nests. Left over cotton turns back into dirt to replenish the land. I have a love/hate relationship with the tree because of the cotton flying everywhere, but the upside is the terrific shade it provides and the rustley sound as the wind blows through it.

I think all of nature tells us we are to grow, increase, do better, strive for more, become stronger, in turn becoming more helpful…just look back at all the great things mankind has done to better the lives of themselves, creating more beauty, making life easier from what we’ve been given by the earth.

Let’s not digress and diminish what we do. There should be no guilt or shame for making/creating/having abundance. God intended it to be this way. He says, “Grow”! and remember Me while you do.