Spirituality/Angel Messages

[MajestyJo]

Spirituality

When I am at peace with myself and my Higher Power, there's no greater force. No person, place, or situation has power over me. I will ask my Higher Power to grant me the strength I will need to be the best I can be today. I will take in my Higher Power until my whole being is filled with the strength I need to face what today has in store for me.

What have I allowed to have power over me lately? How can I better use the strength my Higher Power has to offer me today?

You are reading from the book:

Help for Helpers by Anonymous

From my site The Five As, posted in 2005

I am powerless over people, places, and things. When I surrender, give my day to my God, He leads and guides me. The thing that I can do for others is pray. The power of prayer links our spirit to what I call the Divine Triangle.

[MajestyJo]

As long as we think dugout canoes are the only possibility-all that is real or can be real-we will never see the ship, we will never feel the wind blow.

- Sonia Johnson

Women who do too much have grown afraid to dream. We know how to lust-after power, after money, after security, after relationships-but we have forgotten how to dream.

Dreaming is not limited to the unreal. Dreaming is stretching the real beyond he limits of the present. Dreaming is not being bound by the merely possible. Dreaming is not safe for our illusion of control and it is infinitely safe for our soul.

When we deprive ourselves of our hopes and dreams, we relegate ourselves to keeping our eyes to the ground, carefully calculating every step, and missing the picture in the clouds and the double rainbows.

To hope and dream is not to ignore the practical. It is to dream it in colors and rainbows.

[MajestyJo]

A day that dawns bright and optimistic, can unravel as quickly and completely as one that begins with a tangle of trouble.

Whether I see it coming, or not, whether the undoing is of my own doing, or not, there are days when I find myself on the backside of the bright side.

Life sends everyone for a ride on the backside. People let you down. You disappoint yourself or someone else. Things hoped for, don't materialize. Jobs disappear. Finances escalate. Health deteriorates. Loved ones pass away.

Unless you live in an insulated bubble, a ride on the backside is inevitable.

Experience on the backside has taught me not to run to the company of misery -- those faithless, open, outstretched arms of self pity & hopelessness. I am not pitiful. I am not without hope and I am faith-filled. I have returned, victorious, to the bright side after every experience on the backside.

Where I am, is never as important as, who I am, while I'm there.

I can sit in darkness and I can despair over being there. I can moan and groan, pick up the phone and wail about my troubles to everyone who will listen. I can pound people with my problems every chance I get. I can seek out the company of those who enjoy misery's embrace and learn nothing from the experience.

Or...

I can poke a hole in the veil that separates the backside from the bright side and create a small stream of light to serve as reminder of the victory ahead. I can pray, and I can work my way through trials with ever increasing patience and ever growing strength of endurance. I can pay attention to the parts of my character that show up during difficult times and acknowledge the areas of weakness that need building up.

I can stand straighter and taller each step of the way, until the day I can rip the veil from top to bottom and claim my victory.

Even when life is at its darkest, you are never on the backside of nowhere. The bright side is always there, waiting for you to step back into it and experience your victory.


I AM
The Ancient One-Lordès

(Used with permission)

Written in 2004

It is nice to go back to old posts and find what you need for in the moment.

Today is a day I hope I never have to repeat anytime soon. Nothing that I can point a finger to, just a day like this reading which started with sunshine and promise and ended up with me fighting myself, feeling very alone with no desire to much of anything, certainly not going to a meeting and being with people, and no one came to mind that I really wanted to talk to.

My son was here for a short time, he even cooked supper. I laid down for a couple of hours while he watch a movie because I was in pain.

In the last hour since he left, I have been reading old posts and feeling a little better. I think part of the problem has been depression. I have been taking nothing for my pain, my new doctor refuses to give me the medication that has worked for me for the past twelve years, and I think I am just sick and tired of fighting the pain. Just for today, I have had problems being strong. This piece gives me a lot of strength. It was written by a very special lady who is on tour and I don't get to correspond much any more. I am grateful for the lessons she taught me and started me on a new spiritual awareness many years ago.

Thanks for letting me share.

The key for me when I read this tonight was getting out of my own way.

[MajestyJo]

One of my bygone recollections,
As I recall the days of yore.
Is the little house, behind the house,
With the crescent over the door.

'Twas a place to sit and ponder
With your head bowed down low;
Knowing that you wouldn't be there,
If you didn't have to go.

Ours was a three-holer,
With a size for every one.
You left there feeling better,
After your usual job was done.

You had to make these frequent trips,
Whether snow, rain, sleet, or fog,
To the little house where you usually
Found the Sears-Roebuck catalog.

Oft times in dead of winter,
The seat was covered with snow.
'Twas then with much reluctance,
To the little house you'd go.

With a swish you'd clear the seat,
Bend low, with dreadful fear.
You'd blink your eyes and grit your teeth
As you settled on your rear.

I recall the day Granddad,
Who stayed with us one summer,
Made a trip to the shanty
Which proved to be a hummer.

'Twas the same day my Dad
Finished painting the kitchen green.
He'd just cleaned up the mess he's made
With rags and gasoline.

He tossed the rags in the shanty hole
And went on his usual way,
Not knowing that by doing so,
He would eventually rue the day.

Now Granddad had an urgent call,
I never will forget!
This trip he made to the little house
Lingers in my memory yet.

He sat down on the shanty seat,
With both feet on the floor.
Then filled his pipe with tobacco
And struck a match on the outhouse door.

After the Tobacco began to glow,
He slowly raised his rear:
Tossed flaming match in the open hole,
With not a sign of fear.

The Blast that followed, I am sure,
Was heard for miles around;
And left poor grandpa
Just sitting on the ground.

The smoldering pipe was still in his mouth,
His suspenders he held tight;
The celebrated three-holer
Was blown clear out of sight.

When we asked him what had happened,
His answer I'll never forget.
He thought it must be something
That he had recently et!

Next day we had a new one,
Which my Dad built with ease.
With a sign on the entrance door
Which read: No Smoking, Please!

Now that's the end of the story,
With memories of long ago,
Of the little house behind the house
Where we went when we had to go!


Received from my friend Carey. I was one of the lucky ones, I got to experience this. In today, it is more modern but it does help when you need quiet time in the midst of the 'busy' of today.

God is everywhere!

I have a direct line on a mobile phone!

This reminds me of what my sponsor said in early recovery. Stop looking up, start looking in.

Everywhere you go you take with you. Every where you go, God is with you.

It is my strong belief that when I go to a meeting, I am visiting a God Village.

Many times when I have had a healing or a change in my life, a monarch butterfly appeared. I was given gifts by friends in recovery at my anniversaries in the shape of a butterfly because I was so sick when I got here, and the person that was, is no more. I still have issues today, but even with my pain, I am not that lost soul I was when I came into recovery. Today my God is with me.

One of the times I seem to be able to connect with Him/Her is when I am sitting on the throne or in the bathtub. I also have a little prayer I say when I am in the shower, asking God to cleanse me of negativity and help me to let go of what isn't mine.

[MajestyJo]

MAKING CHOICES IS YOUR GREATEST POWER

While your character is formed by your circumstances, your desires can shape those circumstances.
The one thing over which you have absolute control is your own thoughts.
It is this that puts you in a position to control your own destiny.

Nature is constantly at work around you.
Character and destiny are her handiwork.
She gives you love and hate, jealousy and reverence.
You have the power to choose which impulse you follow.

At any time you can decide to alter the course of your life.
No one can ever take that away from you.
You can do what you want to do and be who you want to be.

Your greatest power is the power to choose.

Unknown

This reminds me that I must bring things out of the darkness into the Light!

From my old site The Gathering of Eagles. This is the name of an AA convention in Texas. They asked me to design a flyer for them. They chose my eagles and kept their old flyer, so I used the name for a new site. It is now gone and glad when I find old posts from the site, that I posted on other people's sites.

[MajestyJo]

“Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with
my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak.
Probably so we can think twice.” - - Bill Watterson
Have found over the years that I have learned to hesitate and meditate before I speak. That is a real departure from the old me, even in recovery, I wanted to tell people, who it should be done!

For me to walk away and not react was and is a big step for me. I still may come back and share my own experience, strength, and hope. It just won't be done with resentment and anger. I have always been a person who has believed in standing up for what she believes in. For too many years, mum was the word and it all festered inside, only to explode in anger and hate. I am a firm believer in it isn't about what you say, it is about how you say it. When you let go of the anger and always having to be right, things can be stated in truth. Agreeing to disagree was a wonderful tool in recovery.

I use to tell my ex-husband, you just took your foot out of your mouth to put the other one in. My tongue was a real weapon. In today, I try to use it for healing, instead of tearing people apart and forgetting to put them back together after ward.

I have had a lot of deep seated anger of the years. It was buried very deep and I didn't realize it was there until I heard myself speak.

[MajestyJo]

GIVING CHOICE

"Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give."
-- David O. McKay

I want to choose the details of my life. Fortunately, I've come to appreciate how important it is to give others the freedom to choose their own paths.

None of us wants our choice robbed from us. I can't know what's best for anyone but me. So why give unsolicited advice to others and expect them to follow it?

"The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, and pride and arrogance."
-- Samuel Butler

"What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that may cost and wherever it may lead."
-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

From Higher Awareness - used with permission

So many times we don't make healthy choices and our humanness comes out because we have not made contact to our Higher Power or applied our program to our life. We have left it in the rooms of recovery and forgot to take it with us into today.

We can share our experience, strength and hope, that doesn't mean people have to follow it, but hopefully they will find a little bit of it that is applicable to them. The Big Book says, "I can't keep my sobriety unless I give it away. What others do with it is none of my business.

[MajestyJo]

The Bible can be a good recovery tool. So often man reads into something they want it to say and often take things out of context. They see a few words and forget the rest.

http://biblehub.com/james/1-19.htm

For many years, I feared the wrath of God, because I did not obey the laws of the church. I was very angry at the "thou shall nots" not the 10 commandments, but the the ones that stopped me from dancing, movies, playing cards, etc. I felt like I might as well get hung as a sheep as a lamp and tried drinking, smoking and looking for love in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons.

Today I am slower to anger, although this morning I got a little ticked off when a man came in the front door, saw me coming with my walker from the mall door and didn't wait for me, hold the door open for the elevator. He went up to 10. It wasn't a long wait and wasn't really all his fault, I was cold and waited a long time for my bus. I was going to visit a person in the coffee area and I was going to take myself out for lunch, but decided to do neither. I won't mention the name that I called him. Suffice to say, I said a 'little' prayer for him and me.

The opposite example was patience. It says slow to wrath. In order to be slow, that means I need to be patient. Not too good with that one either. I am certainly a whole lot happier when I don't go around mad. Mad at the world, mad at myself, just makes me a very unhappy person with no peace and serenity.

Still working on this anger thing, have a couple of issues that I need to pray on.

Get a biblical perspective on dealing with anger and how to handle emotions. Read Bible quotes about being angry and not sinning. Discover how to live free from the control of anger.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/topic...-bible-verses/

I have found that it is alright to be angry, but it is how I deal with it and how long I hang onto it that is important. An angry moment should not spoil a whole day.

[MajestyJo]

Like the Eagle I fly,
I soar with the clouds on High.
Wind in my feathers,
like a breeze blowing through heather.

I ride the wind with out thought or care,
wishing this feeling I could share.
The higher i soar the cord stretches thin,
I disconnect from Mother Earth, leaving my Kin.

I long to fly, to the Sun...beyond,
this earthly body leave behind with the flick of a wand.
Fly on and on to new places and worlds,
a messenger of love, a peace hearald.

I reach the end of the cord feel it pull,
I look back at my home that tiny world.
The more I look the futher back I fall
Then I slam back into my body in no time at all.

As I catch my breath, taking my journey to mind.
I realise only glimpses leaving the bulk behind.
The feelings however are held deep in my heart,
Which is still soaring the heavens, never the two shall part .

~EagleShadow 2006

Originally posted at Spirit of Rain

[MajestyJo]

I never met a spring day I didn't like...
Or summer, autumn and winter, too.
You've turned the prettiest flowers the color of the rainbow...
And the sky the most beautiful blue.

Oh nature, Mother Nature
What would we do without you?

You knew just what you were doing
When you blessed the earth with rain.
You knew it would cause the grass to grow...
And the flowers to bloom again.

You sent summer's soft warm breezes
And sunshine shore to shore...
Working miracles
For mankind to explore!

Fall's magic paintbrush soon transforms
Tree's crowns to crimson and gold.
And winter works His magic...
Turning the wind to crystal snowflakes...
Each one like the rarest diamond...I'm told.

And spring...Oh beautiful spring!
A time to pray, perhaps to dream.
A time to work with our hands
In earth's warm sod....
Oh Nature...Mother Nature...
When will we all realize
That you must surely
Walk hand in hand with God?

Written by: Elizabeth Durney

[MajestyJo]

Let us pray:
God and Father of all people,
never let me look down on others
or make anyone feel inferior.
Show me how to remove any prejudices
so that
I may appreciate individuals more
for who they are.
Inspire me to live in such a way
that I may discover you
in the people I will meet today.
Amen.



Gandhi said:
“If you don’t find God
in the very next person you meet,
it is a waste of time
looking for him further.

Had a similar thought this morning, if you can`t find God in the people and things around you, what are you looking for, a burning bush? Your blessing will be few and far between.

[MajestyJo]

~ Have You Hugged A Friend Today? ~



No moving parts, no batteries.
No monthly payments and no fees;
Inflation proof, non-taxable,
In fact, it's quite relaxable.


It can't be stolen, won't pollute,
One size fits all, do not dilute.
It uses little energy,
But yields results enormously.


Relieves your tension and your stress,
Invigorate your happiness;
Combats depression, makes you beam,
And elevates your self esteem.


Your circulation it corrects
Without unpleasant side effects
It is, I think, the perfect drug
May I, prescribe, my friend..The Hug!
(and, of course, fully returnable!)

Pass this Hug to everyone you care about...
And hopefully you'll get lots in return!



Someone Thought About You Today
In A Very Special Way
Someone Who Cares About You
And Is Reaching Out To Touch Your Heart
Bet You Have Someone That You Care About Also
Let Them Know That They Are In Your Thoughts.

[MajestyJo]

The Creator is my companion; I shall not hurry.

He helps me pause in pleasant places;

He gives me moments of renewal.

He calms my anxiety.

He keeps me in the path of quietness for His love's sake.

Yes, though I am surrounded by rush and stress and worry,

I will not be overwhelmed; for You are with me.

Your calmness protects and comforts me.

You have refreshed my soul even in in the middle of my busy life.

You have eased my mind with inner peace.

Surely quietness and kindness shall follow me all the days of my life

And I will dwell in the care of the Creator for ever.

This modern interpretation and adaptation of Psalm 23 helps me when I am overworking and not taking care of myself.

Celia Haddon - The Yearbook of and Wisdom

[MajestyJo]

The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention. The smallest kindness is better than the best pitch.

It's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice.

- Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote

Like this, like even better that we are suppose to do nice things and not tell people what we did. I remember thinking that I had to tell because you wouldn't know I was working a good program if you didn't see me do it. LOL! The Egotist, the Self-centered alcoholic/addict who thinks it is all about them. Not knowing that the people on the other side of the street are just as sick if not sicker from being around them and picking up their bad habits.

My intention was to do good, often though it was to get back, get attention, get recognition, and/or strokes and have you like me. I felt unloved, unwanted, rejected, abandoned, and hurt by the actions of others, and full of fear.

It is difficult some days when you are at war with yourself. Coming from both sides of the track, it is about looking at the whole picture. It is about the good of the whole, not always about what is good for me.

AA says get out of self and help others. Al-Anon says, you have always taken care of others, take care of yourself. What I found was: I need to take care of myself so I could help others.

[MajestyJo]

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

===

2 Corinthians 5:7
We live by faith, not by sight.