Blessings from a grateful place!

I am blessed to have celebrated another year. I'm learning its not about the age or about the # on the scale. Its more about the focus of my heart. its a learning process....maybe it begins with a grateful heart. Choosing to look beyond my failures to see the joy and gifts that God gives. i stumble a lot and often lose my purpose. I often second guess my abilities. But i find that God is always waiting to show me treasures in the dark times, secret riches stored for me. They are life altering and God breathed. That is what keeps me grounded. its in the painful times that we are deepened, it is there that we are invited to the table of grace! It's where we can stay till we are full! There's more than enough..... The blessings from a grateful place!

Confident and Connected!

Have you ever lost your confidence?  It happens often in life.  Our confidence gets trampled at times.  It was a few days ago, I left my phone in the bathroom stall at Target.  I completely forgot about it and I began to do my shopping.  As I was shopping, I remembered I needed to text my daughter to ask her a question.  So I began to look for my phone in my purse.   It was then that I remembered that I had left my phone in the bathroom.  Is it just me that does these things?  It was a big ugh.....my heart sank.  What do I do now?  I quickly ran back to the bathroom.  It wasn't there.  Oh no.....did someone really steal my phone?   I then ran to the front desk and asked if anyone had turned in a hot pink phone.  She looked around but she found nothing.  Now I didn't know what to do.  I began to lose my confidence....I couldn't remember any phone numbers.  How would I get a hold of anyone?  I was disconnected.  Well, in the mean time while I am ready to cry and wondering what to do.  I begin to wander around the front of the store.  Basically I'm pacing.  I soon look up and see a young woman I recognized, Maureen.  As I greeted her, I realized she was holding my phone.  I asked her if she had found my phone, but she said no that a woman had called her from my phone and said she found this phone and her number was the last number that was called on it.  Yes, Maureen was the last call I had made.  So Maureen sweetly came to Target to get my phone from the woman who found it in the bathroom, to give to me.  I was so surprised at the kindness of strangers and from sweet Maureen.  As I said, my confidence was shaken and I felt for a few minutes a huge disconnect.  In the mean time though Maureen had called my daughter in law, who called my son, and he called my husband, who then called my friend Debbie, who I was going to have lunch with that afternoon.  So by the time I got my phone back, everyone already knew.  Talk about being connected.  I'm thankful for the connectedness we have with each other and the confidence we have in our technology.  As I was thinking about how we need our phones to stay connected, we also need the word to stay connected to God.   I need to open the word and allow God to speak and connect my heart to His.  He does that when I take the time to read and study His word.  Our church has been doing a series called "40 days in the word."   I have loved being refreshed through this devotional method of studying God's word.  What a wonderful series.  I am so encouraged and blessed to have the word to study and stay connected to God.  Finding our connectedness to Christ through the studying of the word is exactly what we need to find our confidence in Him.

Philippians 1:6

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.