Jeremiah 31:1 “At the same time,” says the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. …. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…..
Song of Solomon 2:4 He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
2017 was a year of many and varied reunions for me. It was lovely, and certainly made me wonder why I’ve let so many relationships not flourish. Relationships need attention to thrive, grow, deepen… and I let many of mine go.
Why was I so busy that I could not exert effort to see and be with? Yes, I know while raising my children and helping my family through several moves, they were priority. And the relationships I let lapse were folks who were also involved in their own lives. We get busy. I get that. But then it seems it gets easy to let things slide.
I remember reading the Clan and the Cave Bear series several years ago. Once a year these clans would travel a several days journey to meet up with other clans, friends, and family. They spent several days visiting and enjoying one another. But they put forth the effort with enthusiasm.
Yet I made no effort for the longest while. Especially when I was no longer working, why did I not reconnect then. My husband died 11 years ago, so I was free to travel and get re-acquainted. But I didn’t. What was I doing that was more important than maintaining relationships with friends and family? I don’t know.
But this year, through opportunities I grasped at the travel and loved reconnecting. It was a wonderful time seeing these folks and reliving memories, but was humbling and shaming to realize I had let so much important time pass before visiting with them again.
My first reconnection was going to Ireland and seeing cousins again. We had a wonderful trip, my sister and I, and it was great to share the trip with her.
In late September, one of my sons and I went to Pinehurst area in NC and met with a couple of friends we’d known and loved dearly while we were living in Germany. Except for Facebook, much of those relationships had waned. But one of the friends was traveling from New Zealand, and we met at the other’s home in middle of NC. We had such a lovely, laughing reunion.
My next big trip was to go to Vermont for a family reunion. I had not seen many of these cousins in twenty years. So much time had passed. I traveled from Vermont to Maine to see some friends I had not seen in forty years. Along the drive I kept wondering what had kept me from seeing all these important people sooner. After all, I know how short and sudden life can change or end. So what was my delay?
Bottom line is selfishness, I think. I was content doing whatever, and just kept on moving along that line and not varying. Stuck in my own kind of rut, actually. Yet, once I reconnected, I realized how important seeing these people were, how my heart lifted and was warmed, and have determined I won’t let so much time pass before the next time we are together. I may not be able to see them all yearly, but I will try to. Trips to Ireland may have to be every two years, but I am going back soon.
Relationships are too vital to let grow cold. I won’t do that again.
Thank You, thank You, God, for giving me the opportunities to renew time and memories with special folks who made such an impact in my life. This has been an endearing year seeing these wonderful people.
They are all woven into who has myhelped to develop me and ‘mybellaviews.’
Psalm 119:165 Great peace have those who love Your law and nothing causes them to stumble.
Inner spiritual peace is experienced by any believer who walks in the Spirit despite surrounding turmoil. The Women’s Study Bible, second edition, 2006, pg 1450
Psalm 37:7,8 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; do not fret—it only causes harm.
Matthew 11:28, 29 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon me you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your sons.
Some of the most wonderful things about God are his forgiveness, grace and willingness to save us through His unconditional love. He promises to always love us and never forsake us.
Unfortunately, we cannot always make the same promise. We might wander away, turn from Him and the path we are given. We may walk a different path if asked to do something we don’t want to do. We sometimes we run like Jonah; sometimes we continue to question and doubt like Gideon; sometimes we fear and hesitate like Esther.
Sometimes it seems it (whatever God has asked us to do) interferes with the life we see before us, and He has asked us to go into an area that frightens us or causes us to doubt. Possibly, we turn away in anger if a loved one is not healed or is taken from us and we are left with that searing ache and pain of permanent loss on this earth. (We sometimes forget we will be reunited with loved ones). It could be we turn away when temptations become too great and we succumb and then begin to drift further and further from Him.
And yet He remains constant and there, ready for us to come back, seeking His comfort, forgiveness, and peace. And we need to remember that He will meet us WHEREVER we are. He will some into our wilderness, our pain, our mistakes, and forgive, and suck us into the warmth of His comfort, peace, forgiveness.
That is a difficult concept since we only have human minds to receive this, and as humans we don’t always have the faith and trust to believe someone may not hurt us again if they have repeatedly caused us hurt, anger, or shame. With repeated hurts, we develop mistrust which erodes our relationship and belief in the sincerity of the person. It can be difficult to understand and believe we will be forgiven if we have wandered away and then seek Him again. After all, we don’t believe we are good enough, so why should we believe He would care, let alone forgive us.
But again, we are not God.
He is constant, while we are constantly evolving, experiencing life and the changes making our path. Hopefully our ideas, beliefs, faith and wisdom bring about a more mature love and walk with Him in our life. And of course, that love and faith is God. We grow and find peace and rest when we begin to follow Him. And let the Holy Spirit be our guide, our eye opener, the one who clarifies. We need to trust.
So for all of our waffling, He is constant, steady, always there, and willing to take, willing to accept our burdens, hurts, doubts, fears, anxieties, and even our anger, our ire at what may have happened in our life.
And then, if you are willing to let Him wrap His arms around you, He will help you heal, walk closer to Him, learn His ways and seek His solace and comfort always.
It does not always seem simple. We feel we are better able to shield ourselves from hurts, to gauge our path and our decisions, trusting in our own knowledge and judgments. Our belief is sometimes to hold onto our angers and wounds. And of course we can.
We can certainly impede our own progress and healing. But why would we choose to? We have God who loves us, and wants to help and cares about each aspect of our lives. But we heal when we release our anger, hurts, and beliefs we make no mistakes or sins. That begins our walk on the path of growth and peace. It is not a walk devoid of hurt, slights, loss or pain. There is that. But with Him, you know He is there to comfort while you grieve, and hand over anger, hurts, and all the rest f our human emotions. We are NOT alone. He is there. He wants you to hand over your concerns, all of them
Thankfully, through a couple of back sliding times, I now know I am more stable and steady and at peace while walking with Him. So I choose Him.
Life at ‘mybellaviews’ feels so much more secure, restful, and peaceful.
Isaiah 25:8 He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken.
John 5:24 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
Romans 5:21 ….so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
My beautiful, sweet, God-loving cousin died this morning. She’s gone home. Her death was not surprising. Over the past seven years she dealt with breast cancer first. Five years after treatment, on the day she was going to receive her “cured” pin, she was told she now had colon cancer which the tests revealed. She underwent chemotherapy, and was hospitalized for several days in the ICU when the medication caused her to be very ill.
But reassured after the medication, she was now cancer free, she enjoyed a few months of living with that belief. Until six months later when she was again told her cancer had not been totally killed, and she now had to have a permanent colostomy to remove the tumor to be cancer-free.
Six months later, she was told that unfortunately, you now have a large tumor in your liver and a smaller, although significant tumor in her lungs. There was no medical treatment that she wanted, or that was recommended. Dawn opted to go home and enjoy each day she had left.
Dawn, her name means a new day, new opportunities, possibilities to serve, people to affect and enjoy, places to see and experience, and all the other meanings to starting a new day. And that’s the way she lived those last few months.
Dawn was filled with God’s love, grace, and the knowledge of where she would go when she left this earth. She walked and filled each day with grace, humor, and lots of love. She sparkled, and when she laughed, one heard the joy, love, and all-encompassing generosity she had. Dawn was one of those persons who sucked you into her warmth and love, who taught one who didn’t know God personally just how joyful that experience could be. She continued to hike, care for her husband and her dogs, enjoy her friends and family, laugh, and she also made plans for her final wishes to be done.
She was confident of her home awaiting her in heaven. Her only concern was to not have pain that could not be managed. Certainly, she did not want to be a burden, but she knew she had two nurses in the family who were more than willing to walk this path with her, and help in any way she needed.
I miss her and the wonderful times we had, and won’t have again in this life; but I know I will see her when it is my time to move from this life to live with God in the home He has created for me. Until then, thank You, God, for her and the impact she made on ‘mybellaviews.’
RIP until we meet again. 
Luke 8:15 But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.
James 1:2,3 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
I write a lot about patience. I’m sure the reason is because this is the area I can see has improved the most over the past several years. Thankfully, I’ve learned to develop more, or God has guided my path to learn how to develop more. It’s certainly been a long time developing more, and the road was not always smooth, but I can see the progress finally.
Patience is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. I need help with many of the fruits, but patience affected so much of my life, and of course because it affected mine, it would therefore affect my husband and children and sometimes friends. My impatience could lead to anger, then dreadful words spewing from me, and so on. Yikes. When I finally realized how awful this affected my life, I tried to curb it.
I was not able to rein in my patience on my own, and finally realized my impatience and so forth was part of a deeper problem. Aw-oh. Now delving deeper to find the cause of my anger, frustration, angst, I realized, ‘I am selfish and self-centered. I think life is all about me.’
Really? All about me? How so, and why for goodness sake? Great to finally come to realize that yes, God has made me unique, but not necessarily good. I guess I had never felt incredibly good, but did not truly see myself as selfish. How eye opening to realize this is my base!
Wow. Yes, it was often I thought about me, and how things affected me, and what I wanted, and my time, and my goals…..When I broke it down after seeing other very selfish, self-centered people, it was shaming. Oh no, I truly behave like that?!
Then heartfelt pleas to please help me change, please correct my behavior, please give me a sharp kick to the head whenever I am acting or behaving in a selfish manner. Let me know immediately before I act a selfish manner, or immediately correct me before I follow through with my plans for my time, for me pleasure.
Often times, I would get the faintest whisper, a trace, a fleeting hint I was again being selfish. I wonder how often I discarded the gentle reminder that I was acting in a way to ensure I got what I wanted.
When I would ignore the prodding I would feel so disappointed in myself, so flawed, so unworthy to have Jesus die for ME. But the fact is He did choose to die for me, for you, and for all of us. He chose to do this so we could learn more about love, forgiveness, patience, kindness, gentleness and freedom from sin. And to realize although we will never be sinless, He is pleased with our advancement and our improvement toward being a follower, and one who will hold out a hand to help others learn about His love and death to save us.
I am thankful that He died for me, and I am beginning to grow in my walk and love journey with Him. He is ‘mybellaviews.’
Galatians 5:22-24 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Ephesians 4:23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
As I’ve mentioned many times previously, I have little patience. I think I was born with none, and then through parental correction, sullenly tried to learn to have some. And now with God’s help, I’ve developed some more. Please do not misread, and think this means I am a patient person!
But it is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. This means that as we get closer, develop more learning of how God wants us to behave, believe the words and instructions written for us, and develop our faith, we work to become a new person, clothed and behaving more like Jesus. One will often see the word longsuffering written as one of the fruits, and this translates as patience.
It amazes me that I can recognize the growth within. Probably because I was so without patience – and this of course also translates to being incredibly self-centered and selfish. So, then armed with that knowledge too, it’s easy for me to see several areas I need to work on.
I’ll also admit to groaning and persistently saying “oh, I am such a loser. God must weep daily and shake His head over me. I am such a miserable selfish thing….” And keep my mind focused on these negative aspects. However, that is not what God wants either.
God loves us, and we are His creation and He doesn’t make mistakes. And by beating ourselves over our perceived flaws and failings, and continuing berating ourselves, we concentrate on the negatives. We then may compare ourselves to others, and therefore are not working on the strengths and blessings He has given us.
He has made us unique….not a comparison with someone else. Each of us is unique. So our bottom line is not to compare ourselves to others, but to recognize where we need to grow. My root core is being selfish and self-centered which leads to other areas that need improving such as my impatience and yearning to be more like someone else.
So, as I’ve come to recognize my areas that Jesus would frown and shake his head, and murmur, “Kathy, Kathy, you are not choosing what is important here…” much as he gently admonished Martha when He walked here. My growth has been easier once I stopped beating myself with my verbal whip, when the thought (Yes, the Holy Spirit gentle reminder)would flit through my mind that I was acting in a selfish manner. Now I am able to recognize my growth. And certainly much as Joyce Meyers like to say, “I’m not where I want to be, but thank God, I am not where I used to be.”
And that’s our growth. We read about how we should act and then strive to correct our behaviors. And thankfully, enough of my selfishness has been tapped so I can recognize when I am backsliding and not behaving in a manner I would approve of, never mind that Jesus would approve of. But my walk is a lifelong walk. And this means than my growth is for the rest of my life. And it’s so nice for me to see the steady growth. Longsuffering…..my patience is growing.
Thank God for my walk with you which helps “mybellaviews.”
Hi, I'm Kathy. Welcome to my website!