Beauty for Bulbs

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Luke 10:2

 
He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

I wanted to write today using this photo as the inspiration point. I was recently in Mount Vernon, Washington at the height of tulip blooming season. It seems that the tulips in this area are grown for their bulbs. Tulip bulbs were once so coveted that they could be used as a dowery for your daughter. 

The tulip festival was at one time just a weekend event but has grown in popularity to stretch over the entire month.   

 

This is one my favorite of the pictures that I took that early morning. It reminds me of how vast the harvest is. I found myself wondering what happens to these flowers. I wonder what their journey is from this point forward.   So I am gathering little tid bits as I search for those answers. One thing I discovered because these tulips will be sold for their bulbs once they bloom workers must walk row by row and pull out any that are the wrong color. No reds among the yellows. I was reading that each year they rotate the color of bulbs in the fields that helps assure that they are getting the fresh bulbs when they harvest them. 

 

I think it is interesting that the growers are harvesting the bulb. Its not the beautiful flower in the field but what is at the heart of the flower. Its bulb, and I think that God is far more interested in what is happening in our heart then how pretty our life may look.  

 

It seems that the workers have go through the fields when the petals are about to fall and top off the heads. This process is called Deadheading. The stems remain for another 3 weeks while the bulb soak in the nutrients. Workers then have to cut off the stems.  The tulips get dug out of the ground and hung in ventilated bags and are ready for fall planting. I am by no means an expert.  It seems tulip bulbs will last many years but you can only leave them in the ground for two years before they must be pulled and allowed to rest and be replanted in another location.  It seems they are not just a set it and forget it kind of flower.

 

Anyway to reel this in this morning. I am attempting to write shorter posts. This one is around 500 words. I have photos that I want to use as the inspiration point that should add the value of another 1000 words to some of these posts.  Thinking it might be my plan for the summer. If you have been following for a while I'd love to know what you think about this idea.

 

Much like a grower knows the process required to produce the best bulbs that will produce beautiful flowers. The Lord know when, and how, and where you will best bloom and grow.  As for harvesters, I'm not sure why they are in such short supply but it seems that one only need ask the Lord of the Harvest to send them when the time is right for harvesting.  

Prayer: 

Dear Lord, 

Lord help us to bloom and grow according to your plans and purposes. Lord you know where the  harvest are ripe and ready,  I pray that you send workers to help with those harvests. Lord if you are tugging on our hearts to go and help with your kingdom work, give us the courage to take that step of faith and to go.

Wax on, Wax off....

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

I have some projects that I am working on and you may already be aware of them. The first is to learn to play the piano. I've been working on that project for 4 years now. I still have a long way to go but I am enjoying the journey. I finally got a semi decent recording of my recent recital piece called Scherherazade by N. Rimsky-Korsakov. I would have been thrilled if I had played it this well for recital last week. Sadly I got lost after the first page and never really recovered. Thankfully I played the my arrangement of Be Thou My Vison well enough. I think my bigger goal is to be able to write and arrange music on the piano. Four years ago I was at a big Christian women's conference and the only thing I really remember it that during it God spoke to my heart to call my friend Kirsten to take piano lessons. I was really hoping that God would just download the piano playing ability - kind of like they do in the movie the Matrix. While there are gifts that the Holy Spirit does give us even they often require some faith and practice to understand and operate in fully.  Piano has been more like one of the fruit of the spirit in my life. Those kind of things one must grow in ones life. For most of us the fruit of patience is not an automatic thing and if we are honest love has to grow. Just because God calls or tells you to do something does not necessarily mean it will be easy. There are things that we have to pursue, practice and stick with doing over a long long time to finally master.

My other big current project is a painting that I am working on. I have not seriously painted in 30 years. So this project is kind of experimental. In the photo here you see the face of the sun which is morphed version of my friend / clients great grand child into the sun. I have painted the nose I think about 6 times now trying to get it right.  I had done the eyes using another photograph and was using these in the photo to get a better handle on the nose and mouth.  I think I'm getting close. Even so I will probably take a break from the face and move on to some of the other elements of the painting. You can see my on going progress reports at http://mosaic-margot.blogspot.com/ There are times when I get stuck in projects and have to stop, pray and do something else until the Lord shows me the way forward. When I reach the edge of my abilities in a given task I look to Him to help me see what eles I could do, or how I might do something a little differently to achieve more satisfying results. Sometime it is good to do what you can and simply go to bed and get a good night sleep and look at things with a fresh perspective in the morning. These are things that I apply to all of life not just painting and music. I approach the challenges of life in much the same way as I approach art and music. I realize that it takes on going persistence and work to make relationships work. I realize that most problems are not solved in 30 minutes like the tv constantly leads us to believe. When I get stuck in life, I pray and do some thing else in an active kind of waiting while wait for the Lord to show me the way forward. How many times has God helped me re-paint my own nose because it was out of joint and my attitude was all wrong. Really, I get the message. It reminds me of that old movie the Karate Kid  - wax on, wax off, seemed a silly exercise to the kid but the master knew he needed to develop those muscles through use and repetition. 
Sometimes the things that we are doing don't make sense to us, they seem like silly busy work, kind of chores. Its often later down the road that we realize that those things were part of the wax on, wax off repetitions that allow us to be ready for the real challenge.

This blog has been an on going project for me. The idea of doing anything daily is a stretch for me. I am a pretty spontaneous, moved by inspiration kind of gal. Dailyness has been a discipline that I have needed to grow and develop. I'm sure some of you who have been reading for a while are thinking spelling and punctuation are things I should work on as well. I thank you for your patience. In my mind I am looking at this as the first pass. I am more concerned with the content than the perfection of the page at this point. I plan to go back and edit all of this for a published version. That is a journey and where it will go is still to be discovered. I suppose developing a following of people who are interested and encouraged by what I have to say is also part of the project. Maybe the building a following of people that are being encouraged is more important than a published book. I don't know at this point, and I don't know what I will do when I reach 365 posts of my initial goal of writing a year long daily devotional. Often the initial reasons for a project grow along with the project and my understanding of Gods greater purpose becomes revealed as I progress along in the project. I have found that God does not usually give me the next step till I get close to it.  

Another project is my patio. I got material to cover all the patio furniture cushions.  It is becoming a nice space to be. We also enclosed the dog yard. Now the dogs can be out with out getting all tangled up on everything. It was nice to be able to be out in the patio area for mothers day.

We are nearing the end of the school year. Which usually means things get crazy busy with all the final programs, activities, work and things that are quickly coming to an end for the year.  My kids do part home schooling and are part of an educational co-op through the Spokane School system. What that means for us is 2 days at school and 3 days of work at home. This year they both took some on-line classes and have pretty much worked on those on the 3 at home days. Can I say .... I'm ready for summer?

Like you I have numerous things going on. I do try to evaluate the projects that I take on to make sure that it is really something that I need to do. I only have so many hours in a day and so some things will happen little by little over time. I have found that when I get too busy and don't allow for down time and my quiet time with the Lord that the creativity gets lost in the busyness and tiredness. So I have learned to guard and protect that time each day because everything else springs from that time.

Prayer: 
I pray that you will be aware of the Lords presence through out your day. That you will take the time to allow him to be part of what you are doing. I pray that he will help you sort out what things are really yours to do, and what thing you need to release. I pray that he will give you the grace to know the difference. I pray that he will help you to stick with the things that he has given you that feel like they are just tedious wax on, wax off kind of tasks. I pray that even now he will help you look back and remember other similar things that he has helped you to develop that are serving you well today. 

 E-mail folks - there is a video that goes along with this post so click the title and head back to my site to hear it.

Little Reminders of His Love

Sunday was mother's day and as I sat drinking my morning coffee I noticed that inside the cup was a heart followed by an exclamation mark.
Now I'm not really one to go looking for images of Jesus in potato chips so this is out of the ordinary. I was not looking for a "sign from God" it was just there.  I thought it was a pretty cool way for the Lord to say happy mother's day.

It was a little reminder to me that God had his hand on the up coming service. Our pastor and our pastoral intern were out of town which left me to carry on in their absence.  I was to interview a Lindsey Moss about the story of how her mother's faith and prayer made and huge impact on her life. She has a great story by the way. Just so you know I've never done a public interview before. One other little reminder of His love was that through it all I was at total peace and knew the Holy Spirit was there helping me. I had spent the prior week praying and considering what questions I should ask and finding quotes and bible verses that would help tie it all together and help the congregation go from just a nice story to something that would make a difference in their own lives.

Anyway so for a little change of pace I am going to keep this post short and invite you to go listen to that message.  Here's the link.  http://www.fccspokane.org/2012/05/sunday-05-13-2012/

Lindsey is the baby held by her birth dad

A Current Photo of Lindsey's Mom

Here's the two photos of Lindsey and her family that we showed during the service.
I'm sorry I don't have a current photo of Lindsey to post for you. She looks very much like her beautiful mother in the current photo.

 This is the table I had set up for the interview. The tea set on the table was another little reminder of His love. Earlier in the week I could see in my head a tea set at a lace covered table. I'm not sure why tea sets say mother's day to me. I suppose its a girly kind of thing that you do with your mom. So I thought I would quickly stop in to the thrift shop down the street and see if I could find one. I did and that was a little gift of God's provision for me. I later gave the tea set to my mom, who loved it.

Prayer:
I pray that God will help you to be able to see the little reminders of his love for you through out your day. That you will be aware of his presence in a wonderful and abiding kind of way.

A-Z Reflections Post

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Photo from last nights piano recital.

Philippians 3:14
I press on toward the goal to win the prize
for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

I have found that one does have to press towards goals to achieve them. I have a number of goals that I am pressing towards. Piano is one of those goals. I've been taking lessons now for four years it still takes every bit of my focus and the discipline to practice to manage to play for recital reasonably well.  At last nights recital I played the first page of my classical piece well and then lost my place in the music and struggled to recover and find a way back into the piece. Sadly I never recovered. I never expected piano to take so much work. My friends Karen, Karen, Kirsten, Mark, and Ron who play beautifully,  all make it look so effortless. Actually I was blessed by my friend Karen Stahl for sharing with me a very difficult piece that she was working on getting ready to play memorized. It was good for me to see that even for someone as accomplished as she is still has new challenges to work on.  It was good for me to realize that all of these folks after years of lessons and practice got to a place of being able to play proficiently and can do things like carry on a conversation while playing ( how do you do that Ron.)  It is good to know that there are always new challenges on the piano even for these guys that make it look so easy.  I am coming to look at piano as long journey that will continue on as part of the fabric of my life. It is a good discipline for my often very scattered mind. It takes tremendous focus. I realized after last nights recital that I need to know where the on ramps are in a piece of music. So that if I loose my place I can find the practiced places to get back on track. So I will count it as a learning experience.

But on to my A-Z reflections. Writing daily Monday through Friday was my goal that started back in July of last year and so far I have managed to post every day. Some days my posts are later than I would like. Much like this one will be but it will post while it is still Friday. This is the latest ever.

I only found out about the The A-Z challenge just days before it started. I was checking out some of the new changes to the Blogger site and noticed they gave a link to other blogs of interest. I stumbled on the A-Z challenge and thought it sounded like something that I could manage and decided to add my blog to the challenge list.  I was already writing daily Monday-Friday. The challenge added one Sunday and Saturdays to my writing schedule. 

I really enjoyed having to narrow my writing focus to fit the letter of each day. I think it added a bit of suspense for some of my readers who would ask me - what letter I was working and what my possible topics might be for the next letter. I got to z and felt a bit lost and directionless for a moment but I have managed to continue on with life after AtoZ. I did actually sign on with two blogs the other Bits and Pieces I took a whole day and did a months worth of photos and short posts and then used the blog scheduler to cause them to post at the right date. This one I pretty much continued with my regular format and the main change was that each post had to conform some how to the letter of the day.

I guess challenge for me was to try and find time to visit the other 2000+ bloggers in the challenge. I have to say I failed miserably. I did get to maybe 100 and did try to leave comments if doing so was not a major deal. Really turn on off the word verification thing. I do plan during the 11 months till the next A-Z to visit the rest of the challenge blogs.

I did love the comments and the new vistiors to my blogs. That was fun and I've added some blogs that I will now regularly follow.

One of the things I did notice was that it seemed that proportionally there were a lot of writers blogs, which makes perfect sense. I guess I would love to some how see A-Z reach out to the art, photography community. Granted I have a lot more blogs to visit but  I was hoping to find other mosaic artest, painters, photographers. Maybe I still will. I think one think that might be helpful given how big the list of participants has become and which is likely to continue growing. Would be to have people sign up under sub categories. For example if you were an artist your goal might be to visit all the other art blogs in the challenge and it would be made easier to do because all those folks would have signed up in their own category. There might still be a big random surprise me button that could take you to anyone in the challenge in any sub category. Loved Marcus Clearsprings' Navigation Buttons, they made it much easier to visit the other bloggers.

So all in all I would say the A-Z was a wonderful experience. I will look forward to participating in future years. So I extend my thanks to the hosts and folks that worked hard to make the challenge possible.

I may even see if my children who are home schooled might join the challenge next year. Again another possible sub category.  It might be nice to add a kid version like the Nanowrimo folks did and reach out to home schoolers and educators. We had fun doing Nanowrimo as part of our homeschooling several years back. It think this would be much more fun and be within the reach of more students.

Prayer:
My prayer today is for the folks that put on the A-Z challenge that they would be refreshed and encouraged. I pray that the A-Z would continue to bring people together and encourage people to write, create and share the things they love doing with others.

For my regular readers let me just say thanks for your patience today because this is posting really late. I encourage you to press on towards the goals that you are working on. Don't give up even if you have days that don't go as well as you had planned. Don't give up even if it take you far longer to accomplish your goals than you ever imagined possible. While you are pressing towards your own goals look around you and see who you might encourage and cheer on their way towards their goals.

He Has Shown You What Is Good

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Micah 6:6-8 (NIV1984)

⁶ With what shall I come before the Lord
    and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?
⁷ Will the Lord be pleased 
with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
⁸ He has showed you, O man, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

In the old testament the people sacrificed animals to make up for the wrongs they had done. This is the system that God had instructed Moses to set in to place for the people when they came up out of slavery in Egypt.  In in the book of Micah written a long long time after Moses the question is posed. "With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? 

Even then God was more concerned with justice, mercy and humility before him.

In our day Jesus has paid the price for all of mankinds sins with his death on the cross. He took the punishment that we deserved. Some folks are still trying to pay their own way into favor with God. 

Their quest becomes that of becoming "enough" its all about measuring up to God's standards so they can feel worthy enough to approach a Holy God. The would punish themselves and live a life of self denial, cry rivers of tears. Wear guilt and shame like a raggedy old cloak and allow their sin to define them. Maybe thats you. Jesus paid for it all, and for you to continue to carry those things on your own is to stand in contempt of what he has already done for you, while thinking you can manage it on your own. Lay it down once and for all and allow the Lord to cleanse, heal and set you free.

Some feel they have done so much wrong that there is no hope for them. "Why would God bother with me" they think. "I have squandered all the good that God had for me." I meet guys in this condition every week at our feeding for the homeless and poor. They are resigned to a life of numbing their pain and simply getting through another day. All dreams and hope of restoration and a better life have long since died and they shuffle through their day from one meal to the next. 

Is there hope for people who are so far gone? Is there hope for you? 
Don't forget how the Father received the prodigal son.

Earlier in Micah 4 it says  ⁶ “In that day,” declares the Lord,

“I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief.
⁷ I will make the lame a remnant, those driven away a strong nation.
The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and forever.

Then look at Psalm 86 - it is written for one who is devoted to God, who trust in him, yet still needs Gods mercy and help. 

Psalm 86:1-6

Hear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
² Guard my life, for I am devoted to you. You are my God; save your servant who trusts in you.
³ Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.
⁴ Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

⁵ You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you.
⁶ Hear my prayer, O Lord; listen to my cry for mercy.

I think sometimes we don't bother to ask because we have resigned our self to the hopelessness of our condition. Or we think God is too busy for all the little things that make up our day.  I believe God waits for us to realize our need, he waits for us to call on him, to turn to him rather than all the remedies to our problems that our own mind can muster. He delights to walk with us in the dailyness of life, a companion and a friend who journeys with us. 

Sometimes he waits for us to be humble enough to realize we need his help.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

I can hear you saying but I've pleaded with God about this hundreds of times and still nothing changes. Perhaps you have miss understood the purpose of that thing in your life. Sometimes God allows things to remain because he intends to help us carry that burden. That burden is what keeps us dependent upon God. I'm not talking about guilt or shame those need to go, but sometimes we have consequences, or a handicap or a situation that no amount of prayer and pleading seems move God to take that thing away. It is in those kind of things that I start to wonder what if I am asking the wrong question. What if rather than asking God to take it away, if I were to ask God to help me with it and to some how use it for his glory. Maybe that very thing is intended to propel you forward into the greater purpose of God. Even Paul had a thorn in the flesh and he repeatedly asked God to take it from him. 2 Corinthians 12:7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  This verse stretches me a bit but I know that God knows what I need. If I stay close to him he will, prune and tend the garden of my life to allow it to produce good fruit.  Sometimes even when it is producing he must cut back some of the old growth to allow for new growth in my life. Its not that the old growth was bad but to remain fruitful he has to prune things that seem to be good. He is thinking of the over all health and growth of the life.  Sometimes his blessings come in disguise. 

Prayer: 

Dear Lord, 

Help us to pray according to your will. You know how you have designed us, you know the things that may seem like they restrain us that in actuality are the supports that allow us to rise above and to become more fruitful. Shine your light on those places still hidden in darkness. Help us to come to a place of humility and realization that we need your help not just for the big problems but for the dailyness of everyday life. Be with us and use our lives to bring you glory.

Sacred Cows

Tiny Treasures Cow Mosaic - Moooo!

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

My favorite cow story is found in 1 Samuel 6. The Philistines aka the bad guys have taken the ark of the covenant in battle. But it is causing them nothing but problems. Their statues of their Gods keep falling down in front of it. The people are sick and getting nasty tumors.   Some one has the bright idea of "lets send it back to Israel" but.... how?

1 Samuel 6: tells us what they did.
⁷ “Now then, get a new cart ready, with two cows that have calved and have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up. ⁸ Take the ark of the Lord and put it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending back to him as a guilt offering. Send it on its way, ⁹ but keep watching it. If it goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the Lord has brought this great disaster on us. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us and that it happened to us by chance.”

They have to make sure it is really the God of Israel that is causing them all these troubles. It could be just a coincidence. I'm not a farmer girl by any stretch of the imagination, but I know that mommy cows are going to go strait for their babies that are pinned up in the barn. In this story they did not do that they headed for Israel territory. ¹² "Then the cows went straight up toward Beth Shemesh, keeping on the road and lowing all the way; they did not turn to the right or to the left. "
 I love how it says in this verse that the cows went lowing all the way. They were not happy about leaving their babies and going on a road trip to Israel.  


So why am I writing about cows? Its is my guitar student, Trenton's fault. He was looking at my mosaic tiny treasures pins and he asks me "Can you make a brown cow, my aunt likes cows." I did not expect to get it done so quickly but I sat down to think about it and ta da we have a rolly polly cow.  


I think I am too tired tonight to come up with anything terribly profound.  Because I'm going to go to bed and write in the morning. (Changed my mind)

I am reminded by some great books my kids and I used to love reading together by Denys Cazet. They were called the Minnie and Moo series about two cows that we constantly doing crazy things that cows should not do. I think one of my favorites in the series was Minnie & Moo and the Potato From Planet X. It says in one biography about Mr. Cazet how he came upon the idea of writing about cows.
"He was inspired to tell stories about the silly cow best-friends when he passed a herd of cows in which all but two were facing the same way. The other two stood next to each other, facing in the opposite direction from the rest of the cows. He immediately dubbed the two nonconformists Minnie and Moo and imagined the adventures two cows who were loyal friends rather than followers of the herd."

I guess inspiration comes from funny places. Sometimes it is something that some one says that sends me spinning with an idea for a new post. We have termed those silly things that happen or would make good examples as "Blog Fodder" I have even heard it said in my household "watch out or you'll be Blog Fodder." I suppose that is always a risk one takes in my little corner of the universe.

Anyway I think my point today is that some days its just ok to do what you do. Its not like you have to hit every ball out of the ball park for the game to be a good one. Sometimes life is just kind of normal and ordinary and the stuff we have to do is just every day things.
I came across this quote by Mother Teresa that I had written down in one of my note books. It says, " Many people want to do big things, she explained. No one wants to do the small things - writing a letter for a blind man, washing someone's dirty clothes, cleans someone's tiny house." It made me think, maybe you are waiting for some great opportunity to serve the Lord in some astounding way. I guess I would agree with mother Teresa theres a lot of small stuff that needs done that can make a big difference in the lives of those who are touched by a small act of kindness.

Ok - thats as profound as I can manage - I'm going to bed.

Prayer
I pray the Lord will bless you and help you to see the little things that need done all around you. That you will have a heart to be about those things. Help us to be faithful in the small stuff, and in your time give us bigger things to do.

The Grace To Be Who You Say I Am

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

(E-mail readers this post has two videos click the title to go to the main devotional site if they don't show up in your e-mail. )

To hear some of my song go to the My Music Tab

Psalm 139:

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together 

in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,  

I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together 

in the depths of the earth,
¹⁶  your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me  

were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

We are sitting at the dinner table and my oldest son Niah, who had left the room comes back in saying. Mom I found this cool song, its called Little boxes. Mind you I know that song from at least 40 years ago and probably have had little or no cause to sing in in at least 30 years. So I started singing it and was able to remember all the words to all the verses. Kind of scary, I know. I can't remember my phone number most of the time, but I can sing you songs from when I was 13 and in some cases back to when I was three.

So my family is all giving me a hard time for being a dork. I keep trying to explain that my life is just one big musical. My kids and I are always bursting out in some silly song. Why are there so many songs about rainbows..... The cat came back it didn't want to roam it was sittin on the porch it was home sweet home.... The other day I met a bear out in the woods a way out there....marmalade molasses and honey, cinnamon and sassafras teas they make a morning finger licking and sunny..... Two little boys had too little toys each had a wooden horse....they used to tell me I was building a dream so I followed them on... some where over the rainbow... veggi tales veggi tales veggi tales brocoli celery gota be veggi tales....you gotta give a little, take a little, let your poor heart break a little , that the story of, that's the story of love.  So I can assure you my children got sung to - and even now that they are 11, and 15 they still get regaled with songs when the whim hits me.

You may read these posts and think that I am very serious and I am sometimes, but I don't like little boxes made of ticky tacky that all look just the same. I'm sure you are already starting to wonder how I am going to get something profound out of the song "Little Boxes" and truthfully I'm not really sure in this instant but by faith I believe it will come to me. Anyway while you are waiting for me to figure out that small but important detail take a minute to watch the video my son found.  I gotta say my rendition of the song was never quite so cool as these guys - gotta say I love the video. They even have a couch that's made of duct tape and cardboard. So here it is. Little Boxes, performed by Walk off the Earth

God has plenty of room in his imagination and in his kingdom for you to be uniquely you. We are not only a expression of Gods creativity, we like him are wired to be creative. You may not paint, or draw or do music but God has given you way to express his amazing creativity in the earth. Maybe your creativity come out in science or math, or in writing or speaking. Its ok to flourish and blossom doing the things that God created you to do and to enjoy doing them.  Its ok that I love riding my bike. Thank you God that you gave me one form of exercise that I really enjoy doing. Its just fun.

1 Timothy 6:17
Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

Ecclesiastes 5:19
Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God.

I was talking to my pastor recently about how God gives us generators - things that we love to do. Doing those things charges our batteries and puts a spring in our step and a song in our heart.
We talked about how we had both during our lives given up some of those things. Some times out of pain and the associated memories, sometimes so others could pursue their dreams, some times in an effort to be responsible. Sometimes because we can wrongly believed that we don't deserve to be happy. Or because of insecurities and the pressures all around us to conform, to fit in, to follow the crowd.

I think it is only as we spend time with God on a consistent basis that we begin to see who he created us to be. That we can get beyond the brokenness and begin to be what God intended for us to do and be. Lots of folks go of and try and find themselves when in reality the answer is with the one who created you and knows you fully. We get too busy trying to be responsible and trying to redeem our selves and be good enough to be accepted by God and we miss the simplicity of it all. Spend time with Jesus and he will help you see who he created you to be. So I leave you with this song that I hope will speak to you in a deep way.




Prayer: 
Dear Lord, Help us to come to know you and in so doing help us to find out who you have called us to be. Help us to embrace all the uniqueness of your individual design and plan that you thought of just for us. Help us to realize that we don't need to be put in ticky tacky little boxes and all look just the same. Thank you that you created zebras, and giraffes and made bees and humming birds with big bodies and little wings able to fly. Thank you that you have a plan and a purpose for each of us thats good and full of wonder.