You're a blogger Contest
Imagine if you will,- life (your activities, experiences, memories made, sucesses, challenges) is a moving train, moving from station to station in a continuous track. As you leave out of your current station (in spite of all you know and have experienced), the train slows and then stops near an open field, green from the recent rains. Looking out the window, you reflect on a time earlier in your life when you felt free, spacious, open.
This could have been when you were younger, and you embraced the reality of your senses-you were able to FEEL--your entire future with unlimited possibilities — in front of you. Maybe your most expansive time was during college, before marriage and children, when you could make your own decisions. For some a work career represented not drudgery but creativity.
PROMPT:
Write about the time or place in your life when you felt the most open to possibilities and the most freedom to pursue them. Be detailed and specific in your description.
Basic Requirements:
1-Blogger uses details, specific language, vivid and descriptive language that inspire, encourages readers.
2-Bloggers written entries are clear, to the point, structurally and grammatically sound.
3-Blogger's Entry generates comments. (Spread the Word , invite friends, family to go to the blog and comment)
Prizes of Encouragement :
1st Place :Retreat, Refresh & Renew Spa package valued at $50
2nd place : Gift card valued at $25
*Announcement of winner will be at our March meeting.
Comments
“When I eat a York Peppermint Patty, I get the sensation of a cool breeze blowing through my hair.” Remember that? Well that’s certainly what came to my mind when I initially read the prompt for this writing challenge. What a sensation that is. Even if you do not enjoy York Peppermint Patties you certainly can imagine the newness and refreshing impression that a cool breeze blowing through your hair can bring.
When I consider a time or place in my life when I felt most open to possibilities and the freedom to pursue them I must admit it is not limited to a particular time or place. Rather, I am open to possibilities and free to pursue them when I am totally in the will of God. I am not talking about a foot-stomping, tongue-talking, Holy Ghost frenzy moment in time. (Albeit, there’s nothing wrong with that for there’s a time and place for all things.) For me, to be totally in the will of God involves a consistent intimacy as it pertains to my relationship and fellowship with Him. That is, He is my highest priority. Make no mistake about it, I am not referring to the intimate relationship I say I have with God. (Talk is cheap!) I’m talking about the kind of intimate relationship that I live and experience with God. I don’t just talk about it; I am about it.
I’ve been there before. I’ve been in such sync with God that He’d speak to me in my sleep and I’d awaken having conversation with Him in my heavenly language. There has been such synergy between God and me that when unctioned by the Holy Spirit to say or do something, BOOM, just like that I’d say or do it without question or doubt. Why? Because I totally trusted Him and where He’d lead, I would follow.
To be perfectly honest, (Or should I say transparent?) I’ve had all that before. But, sadly, it hasn’t been like that lately. Somewhere along life’s journey, I allowed … life – you know the husband, kids, job, church, (cause God ain’t always in church, you know) etc. – to hi-jack that intimacy with God. Now, I find myself at a barren place; I am drained, empty, depleted. I’m desperate for Him. I’m so hungry. Oh, how I long for His presence all around me, His touch and stroke of my heart, His whisper in my ear, the aroma of His presence. (Have you ever smelled God when He was near? It’s awesome!) Have your taste buds ever been saturated and seasoned by The Anointing? (You don’t know what you’re missing. Umm, umm, good!)
W.I.F.E., I am presently fighting these hi-jackers and demons for my life. Amidst the hustle and bustle I’ve missed His presence, His touch, His whisper, His scent and His taste. Can you, will you, encourage me (to restructure my priorities) and help me recapture the cool breeze, that intimacy with Him …. my York Peppermint Patty?
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Entry 2
January, 1996.
I was twenty-three years old that winter. Twenty-three years old with no money, few friends, no career, and, from what I could see, no future. I was young and alone in what turned out to be one of the snowiest, iciest winters on record. That was the winter that a triple whammy ice storm hit the Philadelphia region and made everything but time stop. When God allowed the skies to open up and bathe cold gray streets with thick sub-zero precipitation to the point that one day only the underground subway trains ran consistently.
Call it the constant ice storms or just plain craziness, but every Sunday that winter I got dressed up and headed out to visit a friend's church in North Philadelphia. It made no sense at all for me to pull on a wool skirt, sweater and coat and insist on waiting on corners for slow-moving buses so I could get to the church and find...what? Meaning? Relationships? A chance to hear a pastor provide a word that might crack through the emptiness in my life, take away the gray and give me hope for sunshine? Who knew. But every Sunday that winter, without fail, I traveled to that small church, sat in the back row,listened and just...waited. Nothing happened.
That changed one week in February. The streets had begun to thaw out the Friday that I came home from my dead end job, sat alone on my worn futon, grabbed the small Bible a friend had given me, pressed it close to my heart and just said, “Okay.” And that's when it happened. I felt two large, strong arms wrap around my body and hold it. Whatever and whoever I'd been waiting for had just arrived. Jesus had embraced me and all I could say was “Okay, okay, okay”, over and over again like a tearful two-year old.
Supernatural. Silly. Strange. Whatever you call it, two seconds after I opened my eyes and stopped saying, “Okay”, I knew my life was going somewhere. I opened that Bible in my hands and was able to read and understand it with new eyes. Suddenly, I knew why he'd allowed me to be in a place where I had nothing...it was so He could rebuild me and give me everything He wanted me to have. I had no friends to offend, no career to protect, no assets to hoard, and no one to answer to. My life was like a fresh clean page, and God was going to take control and write my story. He was going to use me. He was going to use ME! And the sky was the limit. I'd do anything for Him.
The term “born-again” has been so overused in American culture that it almost has no meaning. But after I said yes to God, I knew what it meant. It meant being born into a new purpose, with a new shepherd and new guidelines. It meant being born into usefulness. So in my life, being born again represented more possibilities than I could have ever imagined.
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A Dream by Angela Marie
Written February 22, 2011@ 2:25 p.m.
Like a rose budding around me…
Beautiful,
Pleasant to the senses,
And
Thorny to the touch,
Was my dream…
Like effervescent laughter,
And
Disappearing smiles…
Was my ability to
Reach
And
More
Dream…
Then,
I prayed,
And fell on my knee
And Exalted The Father God
For He is Holy
Then,
I spoke my heart and dreamed…
And my voice arose
And tears came forth.
And the thorns,
And grimaces,
And lashing tongues that caused my hands to
Wither and withdraw…
Disappeared with growing silence
My Hands
Reached and Stretched
As the possibilities for me
To teach
To speak
To write
To dream
Multiplied.
I cried.
I prayed.
I praised, and worshipped, and adored…
And when I arose….
There were…
in process,
open doors.
Like roses budding around me
Beautiful,
Pleasant to the senses,
And
Thorny to the touch
Was my dream…
Given to me with careful direction
And dreamy perfection
Was the multifaceted possibility to execute the purpose of me…
To give God Glory…
Given to me with careful direction
And dreamy perfection
Were the possibilities to dream…
And execute them…
Bonita