Life is difficult. Many of the things we experience we may have made choices that have led us to the result, and some experiences may be no fault of our own we simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Whatever the cause for difficulty and struggle when we place our lives and faith into God’s hands we will have the strength, wisdom and peace to continue on and overcome adversity.
With Respect, Hope, Joy and Love, Carmela
Deep wounds cause pain. Everyone reacts differently to pain, some scream in pain, some lash out and try to inflict pain onto others, some stoically endure pain. If we are unable to explain why some individuals lash out so violently, how then can we ever hope to live in peace with others?
My heart hurts equally for all who have endured pain and loss this week. My heart longs to understand why people react so differently to pain.
Understanding the reaction to pain emotional or physical is what could bring peace.
Fear enrages pain, and Love calms pain. As I am writing this I cannot stop thinking of the elderly lady I met many years ago. The detailed story you can read by clicking here. This beautiful lady lived through the murder of her daughter. Her explanation of the events that she recounted to me seemed too unbearably difficult for anyone to get through.
I talked with her about how she was able to keep the rage, anger and unfairness of the hate filled act that took her daughters life from taking over. Simply hearing the series of events she explained made me wonder how any mother could live through such horror and not be consumed with rage and anger. She very simply said it was my faith that got me through it. Her Gentle spirit continued to explain to me that it was not easy but she had many loving people who supported her and she prayed.
This also makes me think of the Amish School shooting and the reactions of the Amish people after the horrific act, in offering forgiveness.
It is through faith and love from within the heart that cleanses the rage and allows the sorrowful drops that emerge as tears to wash away the need for rage-full acts of revenge.
Humans beings need and long to be heard. Everyone has a story that needs to be told. Expressing our feelings and having another person listen with respect and concern makes us feel valued and loved. When this does not happen our self esteem is compromised. When we do not feel and live with self respect how then can we show and share respect for others and life itself.
It is never to late to reach out for Divine Wisdom Strength and Love. Whenever you feel pain of any kind pray, breath, and Believe in Divine Strength to endure. The answer is never in hurting someone else because you are hurting yourself.
When you give love it comes back to you. Even if you do not feel the love returned from the person you extend love to, your life will still be filled with Love and Peace. No person who acts and gives Love ever lives without Love. Love is multiplies when it is given.
When you are at your lowest and pray for guidance to a higher power outside of your limited human abilities, the strength to act in love will take over to tame the emotional pain and rage.
It is the brokenness of a soul staying stuck within the human confinement of the body, and not looking to heaven for strength and guidance to get through difficult and painful events, that causes a person to want to inflict the same pain they are experiencing on another individual.
Before God we are equally wise—equally foolish. ~ Albert Einstein
Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. For the Lord grants wisdom! ~Proverbs 2:2,6
With Respect, Hope, Joy and Love, Carmela
As individuals we need to quiet the noise of the world and contemplate Love and true Freedom from within. The word freedom can have numerous definitions as any word can. Situations and experiences within individual’s lives hold many different depths of meaning. What one person may explain as imprisonment another person may envision as being free.
Human life and human emotions all vary and take on individual conclusive wisdom relative only to the situation and experiences we grew up within. If we were not exposed witnessed or taught to look outside our limited human abilities and seek wisdom and enlightenment from God/Deity, our experiences will be limited to human ability,conduct, and fear.
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
By seeking out Divine Love and opening your heart and mind to Divine Guidance our hearts are filled with Hope and we are guided to act in Love.
“There is no joy without hardship. If not for death, would we appreciate life? If not for hate, would we know the ultimate goal is love? At these moments you can either hold on to negativity and look for blame, or you can choose to heal and keep on loving.”
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (The Wheel of Life, 1997)
Holy Spirit You Are Welcome Here………. My heart becomes free and my shame is undone…..
Invite Love into your heart. Choose to act in Love, and hold onto Hope.
With Respect, Hope, Joy and Love, Carmela
Increase your Joy by bringing Joy to others.
Light is love, darkness is fear.
A smile is God’s cosmetic. Let your inner light shine brightly, share kindness, love and compassion with a genuine caring smile, and help others find their way out of the darkness and seek Divine Love and Guidance.
There is no room for darkness in a room filled with light.
This post was written for the Daily Post prompt Burn.
With Respect, Hope, Joy, and Love, Carmela
Divine Love, guidance and wisdom become clear to us through our life experiences. My entire life God has introduced me to beautiful people who I have needed to help me better understand myself.
As human beings we all hold wisdom and understanding we have obtained from life’s experiences. We can choose to examine and put words to those events or we can choose to look away, ignore the experience, and continue on never grasping the wisdom we were offered.
Painful feeling and experiences are meant to be shared. This is the only way to fully understand, overcome, move forward, and improve our lives.
Life can be peaceful and full of joy but we have to be brave enough and take steps to fully find it.
Sometimes this means sharing the hurtful, embarrassing, shameful experiences that we have lived through. By doing this our eyes,hearts, and lives are opened to a deeper level of awareness, peace, and connection to humanity.
The words “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned” come to mind as I write this from St.Francis Prayer for Peace Susan Boyle sings it below.
I must tell you that I am so grateful for all of life’s experiences and Truly Thankful for the Many People who God has introduced me to that have helped me find Clarity, True Love For Life and the Longing to Share it with Others.
With Respect, Hope, Joy and Love, Carmela
Every human being has had that OMG moment. A memorable moment of embarrassment. If we are completely honest with ourselves we most likely have several or possibly many of these moments in a lifetime. Yesterday I shared a link to Brene Brown’s Ted talk about vulnerability and shame. She is quite entertaining and informative as well, the link is here.
How we respond to situations where we feel embarrassed or ashamed is very important to our emotional health. When we keep feelings hidden inside they stay with us. It is like renting a room in your house to someone you can’t stand being with because they make you feel bad all the time.
If we share the feeling it looses its power.
Sometimes the feeling of shame may feel SO big that it is hard for you to actually give it a voice. Putting words to it seems harder than keeping it buried deep inside. The world is huge and we all have different backgrounds, and may find comfort responding in very different ways.
I find comfort in prayer. The unconditional Love and Peace we receive from the Love of Jesus comforts me.
We receive a name when we are born however, anyone can steel that name and attempt to sign it, speak it and claim to be you. But we are all created amazingly unique, with a fingerprint that is unlike anyone else, with a heart and soul that no-one else can own or understand! I believe our truest identity is within our heart and soul, our truest and most honest feelings, not in our names.
My heart wishes to be identified with God, as a child of God, an individual who prays for forgiveness, guidance, to know and share unconditional love and gratitude for life.
Unconditional Love means we are Loved and worthy of being Loved even when we do something that makes us want to hide our face in Shame…….
It is OK….. It is not that bad …….. you are still Loved…….
I remember worrying about my grandchildren who were dealing with some very serious life threatening health problems. In order to provide a tangible way in which they could share there feeling and concerns, I bought them Worry Dolls to encourage them to tell their worries to the tiny little dolls.
My grandson Wyatt stated he was only going to tell his worries to the “one that was wearing pants” 🙂
The girls did not express any preference, they were willing to share their worries with any of the dolls.
Myself “Nanny” was worried that the dolls were so tiny they might loose their worry dolls, and then be traumatically upset when they couldn’t find them to tell their worries too!
They used the worry dolls for a little bit, but the greatest comfort for Wyatt when he was faced with fear was praying and wearing our family ring of Peace as a reminder of God’s Unconditional Love and Peace that surpasses all understanding. The link to this story is here.
Searching within our hearts, sharing our deepest and most shameful feelings, forgiving ourselves and understanding that we are Loved and worthy of Love without being perfect will lead you to experiencing true inner Peace and Joy .
As Maya Angelo said…..~ “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better”~
It does not matter how you pray, or where you pray. It just matters that you put words to your feelings, voice them, and understand that you do not need to be perfect to be worthy of Love.
Allow yourself to accept and feel the Unconditional Love that is offered to you.
With Respect, Hope, Joy and Love, Carmela
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/embarrassing/#like-247905
“If you can’t say something nice, Don’t say nothing at all”
I am not sure what made me do research on where the phrase “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” originated from but I was surprised to find out that Mrs. Rabbit reminded Thumper that this is what his father told him in the Walt Disney movie Bambie. You can see the video clip here.
According to Walt Disney, mother and father rabbits teach their youngsters kindness, the use of gentle words and actions (anti-bullying manners). The Movie Bambie was released in 1942.
I found the article fascinating as it explains, that the three youngsters who become friends Thumper, Bambie, and Flower (the skunk) also exhibit another moral lesson in the virtues of tolerance and an easy disposition. Link to text here.
I found an equally surprising lesson reflected in Albert Einstein’s quote below.
“Everyone is a Genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” ~Albert Einstein~
What makes people dwell on differences and challenge, protest, and attempt to set themselves apart from others instead of learning and teaching to coexist with others in a peaceful manor?
There is a beautiful song 525,600 minutes. How do you measure a year in the life? Do you want to find yourself with only a few minutes left in your life only to look back and see that you used so many of your minutes up angrily protesting against someone doing or simply attempting to live differently than you chose to do?
When we are taught or choose to compare ourselves with others and believe we are superior to, and greater than our peers we choose to live negatively. Criticizing others, always attempting to appear better than others, not being supportive or showing interest in others well being and success, leads to a negative, angry, stressful, restless, and irritated existence.
When we are taught or choose to be comfortable in our own skin, appreciate and encourage the differences of others, find our own special uniqueness’s follow and develop those to the greatest potential and support others in their choices and differences, we will lead a peaceful, harmonious life filled with Joy and Peace and free from restlessness, agitation, and anger.
Everyone has a choice in life. You can choose to bring Joy and Peace into your life and others, or you can choose to create distress and anguish within yourself and others. Those who live their lives in Love, wishing no harm for others will prevail. Living in fear and lies will never bring you Peace and Joy.
The world would be so much more enjoyable if everyone chose to learn from and about each other rather than judge and condemn each other because of differences.
No moment is ever wasted if it is spent communicating with another soul. When we exchange words in kindness without expectation we receive great rewards from the Joy that we experience from interacting and showing respect to another human soul.
In order to comprehend the deepest understanding of Love we need to totally be free from shame by standing in total and complete truth. At this level it allows us to feel worthy of accepting Divine Love, Respect and Understanding, it is only then that we feel complete and can in turn share this level of Love and Respect with every living being on earth.
With Respect, Hope, Joy and Love, Carmela
Brave…… Spunky, Strong, Unafraid, Undaunted, Lionhearted, Herolike, Indomitable, Spirited, these are synonyms for the word BRAVE.
How does one become brave? Is it something that we actually contemplate and then act upon? This makes me think of my beautiful grandson Wyatt who was meeting the challenge of living with Mitochondrial Disease. He would often state before having to endure one of the many painful pokes or procedures required for that day “I’ll be brave”.
It is my belief that Bravery comes from within. It is also my Belief that we obtain it from Above. In my opinion as human beings we have limited abilities, knowledge and strength. When we rely on only what our human mind can plan for us we limit ourselves to small minded solutions.
By reaching outside of ourselves and inviting in Divine Solutions, Bravery will come forth from within.
This doesn’t mean we will function as the Incredible Hulk with a visible strength busting out of our clothing and a relentless hardhearted attitude. Boasting and singing our theme song and successes.
You may not know, but as we pray for Divine Support to fill our hearts and Guide us through difficult times, The Divine Spirit within your heart fills you with an endless wealth of Patience, Peace, Joy, Wisdom and Love.
True Bravery is not boastful and loudly visible it is more noticeable as a beautiful, quiet, gentle, nonthreatening calm, peace and comfort that we are able to function with through whatever daily life sends our way. A Brave person filled with the Divine Spirit is someone you want to draw near to, someone who you can tangibly feel their strength and wisdom. Someone you want to be with and get to know and share their secrets from within.
It does not mean though that we will be void of emotions. Even the toughest and bravest individuals even though they live with the assurance that they will have adequate courage to survive the challenges life sometimes deals us will experience sadness and tears from the life struggles we and others witness here on earth.
Pray for those in need, that they may be filled with the Strength and Peace for Above. Pray that the many humans struggling in “human survival mode” reach out for Divine Wisdom, open their hearts to “Be Brave” (as Wyatt so perfectly and simply said it.)
With Respect, Hope, Joy and Love, Carmela
Imagine the beauty of a group of people working, living and interacting side by side totally absent of negative competition, supportive of each other and allowing each other to flourish in a peaceful environment. As beautiful as the thought of individuals blooming and flourishing next to one another in total Peace is, what would it take to actually make this happen?
If you ask one hundred people to explain beautiful you may get one hundred diverse answers. This has also been proven true when asking a group of individuals who witness an event to explain details of the incident. How can it be that two individual that experience a moment in time when asked to describe the moment in detail relay it as two completely different situations?
I am not sure there is one correct answer for this. Have you ever experienced a moment in time when you caught a scent in the air that triggered a memory?
In a moment in time the smell of a familiar fragrance can transport you back to a memory that you experienced in the past. Whether the memory is a fond memory or an unpleasant one “the memory” is written within your previous consciousness in a way that only you would be able to explain.
What may fill one person with good feeling may fill the person standing next to them with bad feelings. What may make one person flourish, may hinder the next person.
I want to believe though that Peace is attainable among human beings apart from total uniformity of thoughts, opinions and perceptions.
In diversity there is also beauty. The quote below helps to envision a thread of hope for changing ones past experiences for the better.
The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering. ~Ben Okri~
I often laugh when I have a moment of forgetfulness. I joke that “every time something new enters my brain, something old must fall out.” In the case of traumatic memories or patterns of negative behaviors, it would be a blessing if we were able to easily make this happen.
I believe the true beginning of healing can not begin until we stop trying to live in survival mode….. believing that we are the only one that knows what we have to do to keep going. As long as we are in “survival mode” we are relying on our own learned behaviors that have been imprinted from our past situations. In doing this we are trapped in a vicious circle of our own demise.
When fear traps us into thinking that we are the only one that we can trust our journey is life will be very limited and lonely.
It is not until we honestly examine our hearts, our life situations and attempt to truly understand how our own actions play a role in every situation we encounter, only then will we be able to play a significant part in our own recovery and journey to experience true Joy and Peace.
We cannot do this on our own. As much as we want to believe that we are the only ones that can know what we need to do, we can not be more confused and wrong. Our view of events is distorted and we are reacting in a defensive manner.
Pray for your heart to be open to the true picture and pray for understanding and help feeling and accepting the Love and Wisdom of God. When you realize you do not have to be perfect to be Loved, that the person you are is the exact person who God made and He loves you exactly as you are, this is when you can except help from others, things will begin to change for the better and you will flourish.
If we feel insecure from within it is impossible to see and appreciate beauty.
When we know and experience unconditional Love from God it is impossible to not share this same Love with others.
I once heard someone say “a flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it, it only blooms.”
Pray for a world where people can live side by side and bloom and flourish in selfless Beauty and Peace as the flowers do.
With Respect, Hope, Joy and Love, Carmela
This post was written in response to the daily post: pensive
This post has been written in response to the Daily Post Challenge: Success
Ultimately the one thing that I wish to accomplish with my words, whether it is through the blog or from within a children’s book, is to use words to teach a child and parents how to treasure life and live with gratitude.
No matter how sad, poor, or unhappy a day may seem there is always something within that day to be grateful for. It is never easy to look past our own hurts and needs but if you make it a point to do this you will always find that there is someone out there, and often times many people out there, who are suffering more greatly than you.
The greatest thing my heart longs for is to teach children to live positively, be thankful, kind, compassionate to others, forgiving when they are treated with less than these, and most importantly to be confident in who they are as a person. “Only you are you” It is OK to be unique:)
Although I may never know if I am successful, I pray that my efforts will touch others in a positive way.
With respect, hope, joy and love, Carmela
Carmela Snelbaker 