Just BE

How the Ocean Retreat walk scene usually looked…

How It looked on my last Retreat?

… FOG EVERYWHERE AND UP TO THE WATERLINE!

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

Just Being SILLY

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…


Funny Bird Picture code name: Funny Bone 🙂

What’s Important this Christmas?

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.

Long Journey Home

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…

God loves me, this I know and I am HOME.


Sing Out!

30.April.2020 | By Stacey Britton | Blog Sing out

Psalm 101:1 I will sing of your love and justice, Lord. I will praise out with songs.

While this verse declares that part of worshipping the Lord requires singing and praising with songs.

I am ashamed, my voice has gone silent and when I do sing my pitch is off and the quality of my voice is not clear or beautiful. I long for stronger vocal chords. I am older and I have not participated with other singers so my muscles are not in shape. I am not qualified, not since a long time, 2004 maybe. You do not use your muscles you lose your muscles.

I weep.

I WILL sing … again.
Listen to the song of the Lord and sing back to Him – this is healing to you and a love song to God. Do not be afraid that the song will not be good enough – sing.

The Path

The Path

The stone walkway was uneven and the sharp edges of the uncut rocks scraped the bottom of her naked feet.

This was the path?

This was the direction?

As she continued the way of obedience she pondered why she was led down a path of suffering before a new assignment?

Just give up and give in…

Learn to give in to joy! Stop analyzing every step, trust the Shepherd and follow his lead.

Receive!

She stumbled at these words, they cut her heart, just as the rough rock sliced her feet.

Tiny drops of blood marked her path. Anyone could clearly follow, her path of surrender.

As darkness gave way to the light of day she remembered the age old sacred words of comfort.

Weeping may last for the night,
But joy comes in the morning! (Psalm)

She smiled.

Table Within Series | The Adventure Outward | The Path | 17Aug2017

Stacey

A Sanctuary

A place of refuge is my Lord.
In silence I go out to greet Him.
I long to be known and to be fully known.
My inner desire is for Jesus.

Jesus the Master of my soul,
Each day is new before Him.
Oh how sweet is His presence and
His daily LOVE,
Moment by moment with Him.

Stace
JE4.16.17

Homeward

I.could.hardly.WAIT.to.leave…

Now, I can hardly wait to get home!

PERFECT!

It only took a few days to fill my ‘tank’.

Beautiful ocean scenes,

Walking on the beach,

Sleeping in a rustic room…

 

Only a few simple things really, but combined with purposely dwelling in a place of silence, writing and ‘leaving my cares behind’ has amazingly rejuvenated my personhood – mind, body, soul and spirit. Aligning them anew in the correct placement under my creator and best friend.❤️?

The significance of three days is not lost on me.

I remember how long FRIDAY to SUNDAY took to change the entire world.

Just.three.days!

Complete death, complete surrender, complete resurrection to new life.

Jesus did this for ALL! (and for ONE)

Resting in the knowledge that His death was personal – for all of us…

It was relational restoration for all of us…

So we can enter His REST, not working to earn our salvation, not striving to please and impress!

Only…

REST

Stace❤️??

JE7.20.17

Mountains

Many Mountains

Many Mountains

Why so stinking many Mountains?

“I feel like I am in a big bowl, caught, I can hardly breathe, the mountains are closing me in. I want to go home, to the flat prairie land where I can see for miles.”

I could hear my grandmother’s voice speaking these words, even though the story was told with my mother’s voice and from her point of view. It was from this vantage that my memories found their source. Grandma’s words took me back to 1964, my mother needed extended care for me, a two year old, while she underwent major surgery, not the first and certainly not the last of many medical procedures my mother suffered.

It was in this context that my grandmother came to spend several week at our home in Chewelah, Washington. The land of the bowl edge of mountains. Gma was 60 or 61 years old at the time. She was never sure when she was born, as the youngest of 13 children and one who was kicked out of her own home at the age of 7 by her step-mother, records of her birth didn’t seem to be important either.

Grandma Judith’s life was a sad tale, not far different to the story of Cinderella, Grandpa Henry acting his part as the Prince that freed her from bondage at the age of 16 when he was 21 years old. It was the 1920’s so the child labor laws were not in effect, but in essence Grandma Judith had worked for her keep from age 7 to age 16, then as a young bride began establishing her own home on the homestead farm north of Okeene, Oklahoma.

Her tale before that was ever so sad, her mother died in childbirth, her father was working the farm, and Judith was watched over by her brothers, until Great-Grandfather Jacob sent for a mail order bride and when she arrived she had her own children in tow, as I said, Cinderella. After a few months Gma Judith was sent packing of to live with one brother and family and then another brother. Never really finding a home, Gma, worked hard and was a fighter, sassy, even to her 96th year, when she left this earth.

So into my two year old life my sassy grandma arrived. It was not long after her time with our family that the name “bullet butt” was tagged to my name of Stacey. It was and is fitting to the type of personality traits that I possess. I love running, love speed, being fast, accomplishing much and doing my own thing – alone. “Bullet” from a rifle, not buck shot from a shot gun. Grandma Judith was up for the task, I kicked her in the face, bent her glasses and left a lasting scar on her nose, for her efforts. Don’t judge me too harshly I was only two at the time, Gma never let me live down the scar on her nose, heehee. I guess I left a lasting mark, not on purpose.

So what part of the story do I tell first? My mother’s surgery, grandma’s farm life which merges with my mother’s younger years then fades into my parent’s meeting? Shall I focus on my story from age 2 or merge the three into one tale interweaving the threads of story within one tale? I think I will begin chronologically and with Judith.

Many of the stories that my Gma told me were thirty years ago, when as a college student I spent a considerable time in her home. She and I ate, watched TV and shared stories together. It is from this long ago memory that I will re-tell her version of her story. I will begin when she was seven she was sent to live with her older brother, whose wife resented the imposition and therefore made life miserable for Gma. Not long afterwards she was sent to live with another brother, in this home Gma found some solace, while she was given many chores to accomplish resulting in her education being cut short at third grade, never the less, grandma learned how to run a household well.

She had her own money, independence and a temper to ‘beat the band’ these qualities were attractive to men that needed strong women to work side by side on the farms, hard labor in the early 1900’s. The best part: grandma could cook! She was a terrific cook up until she moved from her home in her late 80’s, no one – no one could make homemade noodles, fried chicken (from a live chicken, break the neck, feather, cut and fry in bacon grease) and several dishes passed down to her from her German family members.

The great mountain of how will grandma live as a seven year old, alone, not really loved or cared for, yet despite all odds grandma thrived in the midst of adversity. Until one evening when she was standing on the corner of main and the highway, outside the bank where her brother worked, Gpa Henry asked her to join him on a date. She accepted and a few months later they were married. Even then she and her Prince had sorrow the very first year of marriage with the cradle death of their first son.

Even as a woman in her 80’s she grieved this loss, probably SIDS, I remember talking with her at length about where her child would be and if she would ever meet him again. This grief revealed the depth of my grandmother’s feelings towards her children, though in life she kept those feelings close inside her, fearing they would or could be used against her. No doubt a coping habit from living with those that did not truly love her unconditionally. Suffering takes many forms. Emotional suffering marked my grandmother’s life, while her body was strong and healthy, there are always those places in us where weakness dwells.

This weakness, the need to hide her true feelings and a tendency not to trust those close to her, plagued gma’s relationship with gpa Henry and her children. I was so very fortunate to see a side of gma Judith that no one saw, her vulnerability. We wrote back and forth when I was in school, then I would also visit as I mentioned before. I am not totally sure why she opened up and shared her heart with me, unconditional love has a way to build trust, and encouragement and valuing also heal old wounds.

So many wounds remained unhealed with Gma Judith, these were very old wounds that a loving God was slowly healing. At the writing of this story I was unaware of the special moments that the two of us shared and I am unsure of the reasons. But this I do know, my mother endured cruelties at the hands of my gma and chose to love and forgive in return. Love is powerful, prayer changes things, situations, attitudes, and can heal wounds deeper and more hopeless that any one person could imagine. God is love.

So? Why so stinking many mountains? Mountains define us, mountains mold us, mountains create depth of character, mountains used in the hands of a loving God help create in us the very qualities and character traits that we need for life here on earth. We are eternal beings, Revelations the end book found in the Bible, refers to a new heaven and a new earth where we will dwell as the eternal beings we are – spirit, new bodies. I could use a new body about now, but I digress. The problem is, if Jesus is not a part of your life a new heaven and a new earth is not in your future.

These were the types of conversations I had with Grandma Judith, tough no nonsense talks about life after death. Only two options, heaven or hell. This concerned Gma, she wanted to know where her first child would be. A heart grieved, set free by the truth that if her relationship with Jesus was secure, she would most definitely meet up with her child. Praise the Lord in freedom and in forgiveness.

Mountains laid low and valleys made straight, the things that cause us pain, suffering and doubt, the mountains and challenges in our life will all remain firmly behind us. Heaven: no tears, no pain.

Stacey Britton October 31, 2016

ive-got-so-many-mountains

The Next Step

stepping stones“Mom, I need help.”
My emotions froze when I heard his voice.
“Mom, I don’t know where I am, I need help.”
I quickly went into survival mode, teacher mode.
“Look around you, what do you see?”
My voice was calm, soothing, I was in savior mode.
“I don’t know, I see…”

What do you do when you know your son is lost, literally and figuratively?

Lost in the sense of not knowing where he is so you can find him and lost in the matter of not knowing what step to take next in life.

Then I thought of my own place in life, how the last six years have been that same struggle, feeling lost.

My son and I eventually connected and I was reminded of the story of the good shepherd that left the 99 sheep safe at home to go out and find the lost sheep. For that is exactly what I had done that night, left everyone at home, late at night, in the dark, to find my son. It was the conversation early that morning that sealed the trust and faith between the two of us – both on a journey going in the same direction, yet miles apart. For so long it had seemed we would never connect again, but the moment of finding him on the side of the road, in the dark, scared, and totally lost until I found him sealed in us a moment of trust.

A great place to take the next step.