Linking Blueberries, Riverdance, and Eat, Pray, Love

I made blueberry muffins this morning.

I know, hold the horses, and pick yourself off the floor. I baked! From a box of course.

The point is, as I was gently lifting the smoking hot muffins out of the pan, my daughter was beside me doing the I-can't-wait-to-eat-a-muffin-dance. It looked a lot like the chimps doing Riverdance to me.

As she danced about in excitement and impatience she said, "Mom, I want the muffin with the MOST blueberries, because blueberries are soooo good!"

And I had the opening of my post...

Because don't we all want the MOST goodness in our lives. Oh, we may go about it completely the wrong way, but what we each want is the MOST goodness. The MOST love, the MOST happiness, the MOST joy, the MOST peace. Unfortunately we sometimes confuse ourselves by thinking if we have the MOST stuff or the MOST attention, we'll have the MOST love that we desire.

We can look so many places for that inner peace and love we are hardwired to desire. Often the last place we look is to God who lives in our hearts and changes our lives. Calling us to love him, so he can fill us with a love that never ends.

I finished reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert the other day. While I do not claim to subscribe to all her thoughts on God and life, I found many quotes in her book worth marking such as this one.

"Imagine the universe is a great spinning engine," he said. "You want
to stay near the core of the thing - right in the hub of the wheel - not
out at the edges where all the wild whirling takes place, where you get can
(sic) frayed and crazy. The hub of calmness - that's your heart.
That's where God lives within you. So stop looking for answers in the
world. Just keep coming back to that center and you'll always find peace."

We are made in God's image, and He is a part of us. If we seek him with all our hearts we will find him...in our hearts.

"You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13

Have a great weekend. Enjoy all the goodness that God provides in your life.

Thankful Sunday 4

This week I'd thought I'd thank God for some of the books I love. These are in no particular order and don't include all my favorites.

1. The Bible - of course
2. The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
3. Praying the Scriptures for Your Children by Jodie Berndt
4. The First Princess of Wales by Karen Harger
5. I Take Thee Serenity by Daisy Newman
6. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
7. Night by Ellie Wiesel
8. The Diary of Anne Frank
9. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
10. The Laura Ingalls Wilder series
11. The Harry Potter Series
12. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
13. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
14. Mary Called Magdalen by Margaret George

A Day with a Perfect Stranger

What a great little book! I read A Day with a Perfect Stranger by David Gregory in less than a hour yesterday. In a quick 101 pages, Gregory describes how and why God wants to fill your heart with love through the dialogue between a frustrated wife and the stranger who sits down beside her. It speaks to your heart just as God wishes to speak with you.

In this book, Mattie despises religion and thinks she doesn't believe in God. She opens up to the stranger beside her as he ever so casually helps her clarify her deepest longings and what she truly wants and needs from life.

I've spent the last year, and even this morning, asking God, "What do you want me to do (with my life)?" (I can get stuck on one subject.)

This book helped clarify, once again, that God wants us to love him and have an ongoing relationship with him. Everything else is gravy.

Just the other night I looked at my son and told him I missed spending time with him - after we'd spent all day together. We'd been physically together in the same rooms all day, but we hadn't truly talked or connected. I needed some Little Man time.

We, or at least I, do the same thing with God. We know He's there, we say the Our Father and our nightly prayers, but are we truly connecting with Him? Luckily God is always there waiting. He keeps calling to our hearts, making us search for the one and only thing that will completely fulfill us. Him.

Check out A Day with a Perfect Stranger and it's prequel Dinner with a Perfect Stranger. You have to love a quick, feel good book.