Calm

The mind never puts forth greater power over itself than when, in great trials or difficulties, it yields up calmly its desire, affections, and personal interests to God. There are seasons when to be still demands immeasurably higher strength that to act. Composure is often the highest result of power.

Do you think it demands no power to calm the stormy elements of passion, to moderate the vehemence of desire, to throw off the load of dejection, to suppress every “poor-me” thought? When the dearest hopes are withered do you think that it does not require power to turn the wounded spirit from dangerous and self-defeating thoughts and quietly go about ordinary duties?

Is there no power put forth when a person, stripped of his or her property or of the fruits of life’s labours, quells discontent and gloomy foreboding, and serenely and patiently returns to the tasks which God assigns?

When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to Thee.

Wonderful Moments

So wonderful are those times when the soul draws away from the world to be alone with God. God’s voice is everywhere but we don’t always notice or hear. The noise of the world around us and the busyness of our own lives and minds deafens our inward ears. If we learn to communicate with God in stillness then that stillness goes with us when we go out into our busy lives.

Unite, my roving thoughts, unite

In silence soft and sweet;

And you, my soul, sit gently down

At my Saviour’s feet.

www.lusciousplaceresources.com

I’m Back

Wow! Lots has happened since I last posted to this blog. Some good, some great, some not so good. Anyway, no point dwelling on the past no matter what has happened because a new year has begun and with it new opportunities and possibilities.

The apostle Paul once said that he was forgetting what was behind and pushing forward to the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus. That seems to me like a pretty good attitude.

What is the high calling, though? Or more importantly, what is your high calling? What is mine? And what is the mark of that high calling?

I believe that we all know in our hearts, at least to a degree, what we are called by God to do. Sometimes that picture is not clear because we have clouded our vision with other things. But when we get alone with God and ask him to reveal to us what he really wants for us, it will come. Not usually like a bolt of lightning or even a lightbulb, but more likely his truth will be revealed in little ways.

Something will continue to show up either in our minds or in our circumstances. We might have a dream or more than one that seems to be telling us something. The important thing is to ask for more information until your vision is clear. Keep asking God to reveal his plan for you and he will do it. It might not happen in a way you expect, but it will happen.

Have faith.

Step by Step

Crawling out of the whole website hacking mess has taken some time, but step by step things are moving into place. This has been a hard lesson, but I always want to come out of difficulty asking, what have I learned that I can use and share?

Here are a few of them:

• The world does not end when a website crashes
• You find out who is really on your side and is there to help you
• This might give you the chance to re-evaluate what you are doing and why
• When you can’t do anything but wait for things to get fixed, it gives you time to focus on other issues
• There’s no point crying over what might have been. Just get up and get on with it.

My new website is up and being added to regularly as I detail my new services and create new products. I’m very excited about focussing on one of my life-long passions, writing. I am now offering several options in ghostwriting, business writing, and with some special packages coming soon where the writing is ‘done for you’.

I am also thrilled to offer art and design services in the form of branding identity design. Need help creating a logo or business card that makes you stand out in the crowd. I can work with you so that your collateral materials clearly reflect and express who you are and what you do.

Visit me at www.lusciousplaceresources.com.

Love and lusciousness,

Wendy

Getting back on my feet

Unthinkable, unthinkable! But it happened not once, but twice, that my site was hacked into. Never mind, it is behind me now and I’m getting my internet world back up and running again.

Little by little, I am picking up the pieces and putting them back together in a whole new way. Please take a look at the new work-in-progress at www.lusciousplaceresources.com. Similar look, same great products and more to come, brand new outlook.

Subscribe to the Luscious Spirit Ezine while you are there for more inspiration for lusciousness.

The unthinkable

You hear about it, but it happens out there in cyberspace somewhere, maybe to someone else, but not to you, not to me. Well, I’m one of those ones ‘out there’ that it happened to. Someone hacked into one of my websites, and through certain criminal actions brought everything down.

So rather than cry over spilled milk, or keep paying and paying and paying for website fixes, I’m here on wordpress for my web presence at the moment. I can’t even suggest you take a look at my  great gift products, my spirit-lifting programs or my many, many articles and blog posts at this time, because there is nowhere to send you.

Luscious Place Resources will soon be resurrected along with my e-store and products. Please visit again soon for upcoming developments.

Wendy

Courage at the Falls

One weekend a few years ago, my husband and I visited a nearby waterfall. Though we’ve lived only a ten-minute drive away from it for many years, we had never taken the time to actually stop and take a look.

We parked the car and walked the short hike up to the viewing area below the base of the falls where a rail enclosure had been built to discourage visitors from climbing higher. In spite of the signage, people clambered all over the stones on the slope above.

“Let’s go up,” I said, ducking through the rails of the fence. After a moment’s hesitation, my husband followed. We picked our way over the rocky terrain and mounted the steep slope, being careful of loose stones and wet rocks. In a few minutes we were standing in the refreshing mist of the waterfall.

“I’m going higher,” I told my husband as I searched for firm footing.

“You want to see the pool, don’t you?” he said, squinting up at me. “It’s really not much of a pool, you know.” But by then I was nearly there and didn’t want to stop.

He was right. The pool was tiny but exquisite and the sun sparkled through the trees at the top of the falls lighting a glittering mist that sprinkled my camera lens as I sized up a few picturesque shots. Then I washed my hands in the cool stream and climbed slowly back down the slope.

Near the bottom, a father explained emphatically to his tearful young son that the reason he could not allow the child to climb up higher was because the child could get hurt. Just then, I had to stand aside to allow a tiny girl of about four years old to climb past me. She was aided by her mother, who was also diminutive, and followed by the petite grandmother, carrying a toddler in diapers and a tiny pink jacket. Evidently, they did not share that father’s fear of falling or getting hurt.

Courage and fear, usually learned from others when we are young, can be purposely taught or thoughtlessly communicated. However we absorb these powerful emotions, we need to examine how their presence or absence affects us.

I could not help but wonder if the small boy, whose father was convinced something bad would happen to him, will go through life afraid to try new things for fear of the worst. And will those two tiny girls, whose mother and grandmother helped them climb the challenging slope, be even more brave as they grow older?

When I think about my own life, I know I have courage because I so often say to myself, “Let’s try that and see” or, “I want to go ahead and do that; I’m sure I will be fine.” Then I do and I’m fine. Even when things don’t work out exactly as I plan, I’m still fine.

Do I experience an absence of fear? Yes, very often. But there are also times when I decide to proceed even in the presence of fear. Fear has to move aside when faced with courage. The choice to move it is entirely mine.

I encourage you to pluck up some nerve and fearlessness. If you want to develop more courage, tell yourself more often, “I’m going to try that and see what happens.” Then go ahead; you’ll be fine. When you give yourself permission to go higher, you too will see things like that beautiful pool at the base of the falls.

Kite Flying Days

I remember those days in springtime when winter had finally loosened its icy grip and the snow in the ditches and along the fence lines had been reduced to grubby, rapidly-shrinking crusts. The days got longer, and the birds returning from a winter in southern climates began to sing in the budding trees. The air quivered with the promise of warmth to come and the first tiny shoots of green grass pushed up through the cold earth to greet a new season.

That’s when the kites came out. I’m not sure why we only fly kites in springtime, but the sight of a colourful kite against a clear, blue sky is synonymous with springtime, warm weather, and bright days. It’s a sight that lifts the heart with the expectation of good times to come.

I don’t know about you, but I often experienced the thrill of running with my new kite, the wind in my hair, only to be followed within minutes by disappointment when the silly thing would not fly. You remember… you hold the spool of string in one hand and the kite overhead in the other and run like crazy into the wind. If you do it just right, the moving air will catch the wings of the kite and lift it aloft. The lift unravels the string from the spool in your hands and it’s away. But sometimes instead of flying, the kite flips sideways and nosedives into the mud – disappointingly again and again.

Doesn’t this experience seem like a metaphor for growing a business, creating something new, or changing your life? You start off with lofty expectations. This is going to be great! You run like the wind but the thing just won’t lift off. Or it takes off and begins to fly and the string gets tangled up and sends your project or your plans spinning to the ground.

This has certainly happened to me. I can think of so many ideas that glowed with bright promise, but for one reason or another never flew. So many projects begin with high hopes and unlimited possibility, only to tangle up in tree branches, fences, or other impossible obstacles. And I don’t even want to think about the work that I’ve put into some ventures then watched in horror as the economy stumbled and took my craft down with it.

That’s why, after my years spent growing a business (and living a life!), I’ve come to recognize how important it is so have a clear idea of the objective of the operation. This applies to every other area of life as well. Questions like these need to be answered:

1. What am I here to do?

2. Who am I here to help?

3. How can I best to do that?

I can answer these questions myself, but I’ve done that before and my kite crashed. I have learned that my plans fly much better when I have better advice. So I asked God for the answers to the questions and got these answers:

1. I am here to brighten lives, and to inspire and encourage profound spiritual and personal development. My mission is to help others develop more confidence, creativity, courage, and joy, and a deep and meaningful relationship with God, to spread light and light-heartedness.

2. I’m here to work primarily with women, but anyone who has a need in the above areas will be helped. If you have a longing for more knowledge of God’s ways and how they can change your life, I can help.

3. How I best do this is by writing and creating books, courses, programs, teleclasses, and other materials that teach how to develop a luscious personal, spiritual life. I also speak to audiences, lead workshops and retreats, and design and create products that lift the spirit, help you laugh, or support your dreams.

When you allow God to determine the answers to these life questions, you can be assured that your kite will be tied with a good, strong string. It will be lifted by just the right breeze and as you let God design the course, your pretty kite will soar into the future on the wings of his Spirit.

Faith is Simple

Do you know that God is very interested in your success and he is thrilled by how you go after things? Don’t hesitate to ask him for what you need. Sometimes we don’t ask because we think certain things are our own responsibility and he won’t be interested in helping us. This could not be further from the truth. He is intensely interested and wants to be involved in every detail of our lives.

You and God can be a team, a partnership, so as in any partnership, you should never move without discussion with him. He is not a silent partner. In fact, if you listen you’ll find that he is quite a vocal partner. Not only that, he is the partner with all the money, so if you choose to rely on your own efforts in the financial realm you are really making a mistake because all you need do is ask and he will give you what you need.

Faith is simple – ask, believe, receive. But if you take your eyes off God as the source of your money, and look instead at your circumstances or the market or other business considerations you will miss the help he is able to give you. As you grow in trust and faith in God, your rewards increase exponentially.

Don’t stay where you are when there is so much more available to you. When you sense a faith challenge, just choose to believe; choose to trust him. Each step brings you closer to God and increases the blessings in your life.

What would your miracle be?

What would happen if you woke up tomorrow morning and a miracle had happened? What if everything you have ever dreamed about had come true overnight? Imagine that in the same way as you woke up to Christmas morning as a child – with excitement, keen anticipation, wide eyes and a big smile – you awoke to find your adult dreams had come true while you slept.

 

What if, overnight, your life had become exactly what you wanted it to be? Now take a couple of minutes and imagine this:

             What is different?

            Where are you?

            What are you surrounded by?

            Who are your friends?

            What do you hear?

            How do you feel?

            What does your bank account look like?

            What’s your health like?

            Where are you going today or this year?

 While we can all agree that not all wishes can come true (I’ll never be a prima ballerina, for example), a great many dreams, desires and aspirations definitely can come true and often as a result of making only a few changes.

 

My experience has shown me that usually the biggest obstacles preventing us from achieving what we hope for are not external, but reside within us. These obstacles are a result of how we think and how our thoughts have become shaped into beliefs along the course of life.

 

It’s the beliefs we hold that dictate our actions, and our actions determine our results. So if we look at what we want from the perspective of having already achieved our dreams, and move in reverse toward our actions, then our beliefs, and finally our thoughts, we can determine how we need to change our thoughts to create the results that bring about our miracles.

 

Let me give you an example. Some years ago my dream was to take my family and live in France. Far-fetched, you say? Perhaps, but not impossible. In order for me to achieve this dream, I first had to think it was possible. Then I had to believe that I could do it, no matter what my circumstances were or what other people might have to say about it. I believed that it was possible for me to move to France. Once I believed that I could actually achieve this objective, I naturally took action to move in the direction of its fulfillment.

 

What happened? Well, my family and I went and lived in France, of course. You can’t tell me it’s not possible, because I have done it. In fact, once I believed that it was possible, no one could convince me that it was not.

So here’s the plan: Think it, believe it, act upon it, achieve it. Honey, if I can do it, so can you. Go and get your miracle.