I go to the Ocean usually every year, but it has been a couple years since the last time,
the time of THE FOG. As I sat in my car, window down, feeling the gentle misty breeze caressing the side of my face, I didn’t need to close my eyes to ‘just listen’ I was truly sightless. I knew the ocean was there, I could hear it, I could feel it – I just could not SEE it. So I sat and truly rested, walked on the damp beach with the water shrouded in fog, a white type of darkness or separation from what I KNEW was there. I decided to step into the moment and listen.
Listen to the waves, hear the ocean,, feel the breeze on my face. Just BE. I can’t see the sky, I can’t see the ocean waves, but I know they are there. Just BE. I didn’t ask myself where to go or what to do. I just took the moment to BE. Be silent, listen and BE.
I was reminded of this scripture written by a wise man of God.
“But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shalll walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
(Bible Old Testament – English Standard Version)
Stacey Britton | Journal Entry | July 26, 2021 | Just BE
The thought: “Funny Bone Activated” first came to my thoughts to title this silliness unbridled banter. Then the Question: What in the world is the purpose of the Funny Bone anyway? Is it real, imagined or just a term for the ‘Funny Zone’ through words?
Nonsense comes to mind, favorites list wildly in my head, abstract words, pictures and well quite frankly, silly, foolish, nonsense, gullible, fruitless banter crashes on the sides of my grey matter, jingle jangling in silly thoughts and wondrous Fourth of July Fireworks.
Through space and time funny things randomly hit the funny bone in each person. What is funny to one is stupid to others. What is funny to most, some totally miss – context, context, context.
Does anyone really care what is funny to the masses if it is funny to you?
Does a sense of humor, random triggers and cultural history of word fun and shared experiences effect the funny bone? Again, does ‘it’ really exist?
I’ve decided the funny bone is just an expression to categorize those things that trigger a person’s individual sense of humor and once activated (sense of humor) the funny bone is activated.
Laughter is an important component of “funny bone” activation, it is the outward demonstration of the inner funny bone activation.
If you have gotten this far in the post, either you are totally confused, mad or your funny, ironic funny bone has actually been activated and a ‘chuckle’ results…the beginning step for full ‘funny bone’ activation.
Smile.
I’m just being silly and random, playing with words and thoughts on the page.
A vacation in word play form, a funny bone weird reflection.
Enjoy your own spin on the ‘funny bone’ reflection in your own life.
Stace | weird blog on laughter | Tis the season for merriment and silliness with no rhyme or reason…
What’s Important? Knowing Jesus. You might be rolling your eyes at this point, I get that. You might want to click escape and erase these sentences from your mind. But they will stick, because Jesus gently calls, consistently calls and guides us whether we like it, want it or think we need it 🙂 He is LOVE, love calls to the dark parts, the holes deep within that we try to fill with so many other things.
What’s important? Who’s important this Christmas? Might be a better question.
I’ve been in survival mode for awhile now, healing really, becoming, reclaiming what I thought was lost and realizing it wasn’t really lost at all. I was in a ‘pause’ mode for a year. A year of solitude and literal silence.
A year ago, last Christmas I was in the grips of a deep, survival struggle.
I began this 50newbeginnings site in December 2013. Ten years to date, writing each year, adding pages and stories, chapter books in edit form, sharing my life with a world I did not know and may never know. You might be reading this thinking – where is she going with this post? Hang in there with me!
December 2013 I held my breath and began this website journey with a Christmas snap shot of my family’s traditions and moments of sacred community. Last year, the ninth year, I was silent, I was silent for more months than I would like to admit. Not only in writing but also in communicating, strengths and freedoms had become difficult and physically painful. My life stripped down to the daily check off list so I would and could remember what I had accomplished. Hours segmented and ordered with repetition to rebuild the synapses connecting thoughts and motions in my brain that had been changed. I was rebuilding, or maybe just building.
This Christmas 2023 I begin again the journey of sharing and being known through words and thoughts.
Today I choose to share a message of HOPE for all of you reading this today – what ever day it is. The bottom line? Don’t give up!
Healing comes in surprise packages and sometimes in ways we do not see nor do we recognize. I’m learning another name for healing is growth. Like a plant when it is pruned and shaped by a Master Gardner, so I too, am shaped each day by my Maker, the God and only creator of the Universe, his son Jesus, guides my path – through the thick and thin of life – through times of change and drastic ‘make-overs’ not unlike the type accomplished at a SPA 🙂 and similar in purpose. A pause, a buffing, moisturizing applied to dry spots, steaming out the impurities of the flesh and renewing with moments of rest whether by message, quiet meditation or listening to music. My soul needed a re-set just as the break provided at said SPA experiences.
I’m not the person I was a year ago, or even yesterday, that is healthy!
It is as it is supposed to be, growing, and expanding, learning from mistakes. Each day becomes a battle for me even yet, life is not easy, nor should it be. Struggles build us, mold us, teach us what we need to know.
Who we need to know.
Why we need to know.
Jesus is the way the truth and the life, waiting for you, calling you to come.
Hear His voice calling you to come, receive His love purchased by dying on a cross to take all the guilt and sin in your life upon Himself, to make the way clear to Himself. No barriers, no need to do a better job, no need to try to be perfect in your own strength but become excellent receivers of HIS strength, HIS power, HIS joy – receiving and giving hope in the deepest, darkest pit of separation from the Living God, the one who created you, the one who calls you with the HOPE of eternal life of peace, no suffering, no more crying no more pain. In this world we will have all of those things, but Jesus showed us the way. God becoming human, knowing and experiencing life outside of heaven. Jesus stands in heaven now, beside the Father God, reminding God the Father of the price HE paid, to cover and cleanse our souls so we could
Know WHO is important this Christmas. Jesus.
He came to His own people and His own people rejected Him, but to anyone – anyone – who believes in His name, that He is the Son of the Living God, to this person He will give eternal life.
don’t miss the WHY of Christmas -learning of the one who loves you
don’t miss the WHAT of Christmas-the fact that Jesus is your ticket to eternal living life abundantly
don’t miss the WHO of Christmas – Jesus
In the Bible, different versions use language that describes and tells the story – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, found in the middle of the collection of stories are a great place to start, they told His story – THE Story of Jesus, come to earth for YOU and ME. The other books point to Jesus’ coming and how God tried for so many centuries to love a people that did not understand Him, Jesus came so we could SEE the Father God’s love for us.
For God so loved the world that he gave is only son, Jesus, that whoever believes in Him will not die to an eternal place of separation from God, but that they would have eternal life WITH God – beginning NOW with the step of belief. (John 3:16 in The Bible)
What’s Important THIS Christmas? Knowing that Jesus is waiting just for you, completely seeing and hearing your cries for something more in this life here on earth and offering so much more beyond what we see and hear. Believe. Receive His love. Read His story in the Bible.
Don’t miss the place of growth when you are focused on the myopic view of tasks that need to be accomplished.
What’s your focus?
Spring Cleaning in all areas of your life?
Setting new goals for a new year?
What areas need an ‘about face’ action?
Stop doing what your doing and heading in the direction your heading.
STOP, just turn around and ask for directions.
The frantic pace of searching in the wrong directions, turning left then turning right in the panicked mindset of trying to do your best or ‘getting things right’ Just press pause. Ask and seek guidance, don’t get caught in the habit of trying to figure things out on your own.
Where do I go when I am confused, tired, happy, joyful? At all times where do I know the greatest source of wisdom is for deciding the next steps in the journey called life?
Wisdom found in the life of Jesus, recorded in the Bible. Guidance found in these timeless and life giving words. Encouragement, guidance, hope and the way through is found on each page. The recorded history of God seeing, hearing and responding to His created beings. The road map. The gas station. The gas to fuel the journey. AND Peace for each step.
Pause, consider His road map, listen to the still small voice that calls you to the place of peace. Enter through the doorway Jesus provides and receive all that you need for your journey in life.
stop, look and listen – timeless simple instructions 🙂
When I am Afraid, not much can trigger me out of the process I mentally go through to peace. But there is one place I go that consistently changes my mind – set.
Deuteronomy 31:6 says
Be strong (in the Lord) and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you are forsake you.
These words speak to me in several ways:
1. I am an only child, this verse specifically deals with my fear of being alone
2. I am instructed clearly who to depend upon – not myself!
3. I instructed to BE
Scripture is a place of refuge and strength for me because it reminds me of whose I am and where I can go WHEN I am afraid. It acknowledges the weakness I have for fear and encourages me to be strong.
Long Journey Home By Stacey Britton | Blog July 28, 2021 | posted November 21, 2021
Bring to me every concern, every failure, every hope, every dream -everything. Remember, I am your creator and comfort. I am your’s, child. I am your source, without me you are nothing? Even if you don’t acknowledge me I am your source. -Father
I’ve taken many trips of mental thought about how God works in my life. The foundation has always come back to the fact that I am not God, even though I would really like to control things, my life, suffering and so forth. Then I listen to those thoughts and laugh. “As if” I could run the world, create the Universe and imagine the Tucan bird. My view is so small and God is so big.
Even though my base belief is that God exists, I find myself doubting His existence when pain enters my life. I try to take care of my pain instead of letting it go, trusting God, and believing that I am deeply loved, completely forgiven, totally accepted and absolutely complete in God because of Jesus Christ. (The Search for Significance by Robert S McGee)
I know these things, but when I am hurting I don’t always believe or feel these wonderful truths.
I come to the point where I have to
CHOOSE
to believe what I know to be true – in the midst of the messes of life.
Joy comes eventually, trust is reborn, hope emerges and brings life and direction.
SOMETIMES, I just get STUCK, frozen like a deer in headlights. Other times I walk in fear, stand fast during the storm and learn to trust even though I don’t feel like I can even trust my own thoughts.
MAYBE I am the only one that struggles so, when loss, pain, loneliness, isolation and illness enters my life, but then maybe more that I suppose can relate to this raw telling of an inner walk of faith. Maybe.
One thing I do know. No matter how awful life lessons are and how much I do not understand or handle them in the moment…
the very first day of my 55th year was, wild, fun, silly, surprising and humbling all wrapped up in one a ‘day’ box!
i woke up with the stressed out realization that I forgot to renew my driver’s license- a first time offense! Three hours later, job done!!
the ‘stack’ of books came next, along with ‘just a little something’ both statements were amazingly understated. I picked up so many precious books and a birthday gift and other items that began to help me understand words that had been spoken.
speechless, blessed, overcome with thoughtfulness was my first day of 55
