Hold on to that towel for one more round

Just when you are ready to throw in the towel, someone hands you a clean one and helps you get back in the ring. I have struggled to feel any sort of validation lately in my work. The normal grind has felt like a shredder pulling me through and spitting me out in pieces. I have been negative, vindictive, and overtly irritated and angry. I snap at the smallest sign of disrespect and inconvenience from those I work with. Today it came to a head and I was ready to skip out. Then, right before my day took a dive into complete despair and depression an unlikely angel came to see me. It was very unexpected and I can't help but feel that God touched that girl's heart. She came in and reminded me that even though many may not be on board with what I do and who I am, for those that have a true desire to learn, what I do means something. It wasn't just that she said what she did, but that it was so genuine and real. More than I have seen in a long time. I needed that. BIG TIME. Talk about the tenderest of mercies, especially considering the timing. My heart was softened and strengthened at the same time. We are each others angels and truly can give each other wings to fly.

Señor Lloyd Antes y Ahora

Este blog es una descripción de cómo soy igual y diferente ahora que antes. Yo era más travieso antes que soy ahora. Yo soy igualmente interesado en educación ahora que era antes. Yo soy mucho más alto ahora que era antes. En grado 9 yo medía 5'4" y pesaba 98 libras. Ahora yo mido 6'2" y peso mucho más. Peso más ahora pero soy igualmente flaco ahora que era antes. Cuando era niño yo comía menos verduras y más carne que como ahora. Ahora me interesa más conocer personas de otras culturas que antes me interesaba. Igualmente me gusta usar mi español que antes lo usaba. Yo uso mi español para enseñar clases y tambien para hablar con amigos, vecinos y otras personas que quiero servir. Me gusta hablar el español porque puedo comunicar con, ayudar y conocer muchas más personas.

The Blame Game

Who has the right to say who is at fault? We have ways for established by law that one party or another is, but who makes up the law, and is there such a thing as a perfect judge in our system that won’t be subject to his own incomplete and imperfect understanding and perspective full of biases and slanted views? Yet that is what so many seek, is to point the finger away from themselves and towards others. Is it any wonder that in some cultures one of the greatest offenses is to point or give a single finger? Yet over and over again with our words and actions, and even more so in our minds we point towards something else to free ourselves from the beam that is in our own eye. If you want to blame another whether a person, a religion, a circumstance, whatever it may be think that you are only trying to transfer from yourself that beam of misunderstanding and misjudgment onto another. Doing so may rid you of the emotions attached with such but just because you have turned the finger doesn’t mean you have any more light or understanding to see the truth. The beam is still there but because attention is drawn to something else we can turn the focus elsewhere, the problem is it isn’t turned to a solution. An example would be a woman in labor blaming her husband for all the pain she is going through. The first problem is her focus is still on the pain. The second is there isn’t anything the husband can do about what he may or may not have caused. What they both can do is focus on breathing, which I believe is a key to life after making it through a natural birth and two years of teaching junior high, and use energies on something productive and necessary for life to continue and progress. Maybe the point, ha hope you get that one, isn’t to point anywhere but to look up and look forward. What is accomplished by saying its religions fault, or the lack of, or a political party, or a culture when the problem still remains and the need for a solution remains? On the path of life when you trip because of a rock, what good does it do to lay the blame on the rock being there and you falling? Yet many take it as a bad sign that the path is not good and they should take another route, an easier one, or one that doesn’t have those dumb rocks. Sadly, pointing the finger of blame may only be the beginning. In fact total siege is laid to the route, labeling it as the worst one in the world that everyone should blame for their problems and shouldn’t even attempt to traverse. Once you start the blame game you blamety blame everything until you’ve spent all the blamin’ energy you have and have blamed everything up. Instead of following Mickey’s advice (see Rocky movies), and 'giving and giving until you can’t give no mo’, we blame and we blame until we can’t blame no mo’. I know for me blaming starts when I am unable to handle the consequences and the emotions that come from choices that have been made. Blaming doesn’t help no matter who the finger is pointing at. They say when you point the finger there are four pointing back at you, which is just as unhelpful and really our hands should be used for something better; like to pull the beam out, to lift others, to lend strength, to hold ourselves up firmly and pull ourselves along when we can’t even stand anymore. I say this because I believe we are all seeking to be happy. We all want faith, hope, charity, and love. Our souls cannot live without it. So today is the day where I throw up my hands and my head and say hallelujah! I have today to keep on keepin’ on, and I use my hands and my head and my heart to stay the path that brings happiness to my soul a path towards true and perfect love.

A dealt hand

Every person has their cards. All the same number. All the same game. Life. It's just life and that is all it is. The thing is if you google things to do with cards you will get 103 million hits. So do we only have some playing cards? Do we lose just because someone else has four aces or a royal flush? What if we are all just bluffing anyway? What if the cards really aren't the limits but the opportunities we have to show others a way to make changes to ourselves and we are then supposed to change the game. The only way to really change a game is to change the player.

Givinger

You ever feel like giving up on giving?
Do you actually think about what would happen if you stopped giving or even try it out?
Have you started a bad habit of giving in to rationalizing not giving?
If you answer yes to one, two, or three of these questions then congratulations!...
Your human.

However, we are told that we are to live in this world, but not be of it.
Sounds like our job is to be an angel, because they visit but they aren't a part of it.
So we are here to be angels. We can be good or bad angels.
In the world of angels everyone is a giver. Good or bad you are giving something.
Satan gives us lies and hatred. Jesus gives the truth and love.
The fallen one gives death and destruction. The chosen one gives life and creation.
The Devil gives misery and despair. The Christ gives us joy and hope.
The wicked one gives damnation and hell, the holy one gives us salvation and Zion.
Evil only gives evil. Good only gives good.
To give the right things means being the right person. To be the right person we must be given the right heart. To be given the right heart we must be given the right desire. To be given the right desire we must be given the right hope. To be given the right hope we must be given the right word.

LOVE

Legitimate purpose

You know that sometimes you look so hard that you miss the mark. I like Plato. Nothing on the outside is really real. It is only an external shell, a masquerade. Bodies are a costume for acting in the play of life. We are who we are inside in our feelings and in our thoughts. That is where we truly find truth and aren’t beguiled by the seeming outward appearance of people, places, or things.
I was just thinking that it isn’t what people do or what they do it with so much as how they do it. What are the thoughts that have gone into that action? What are the feelings that are motivating it and what do they feel in retribution for their words or actions? Is it pure and good? Is it strong and lasting? Would it endure all things? If not then it will never endure. Charity is what comes from the depths of the heart. Many times we haven’t dug deep enough to reach that well, but those who have find it a well springing up to everlasting happiness. The reason many haven’t is because alone they cannot dig far enough nor have the power to extract it in sufficient quantities or with purity. Christ is the caretaker of that well who can help those who seek that water of everlasting life. Because life is only lived when we give from the source that created, creates, and will always create life.

Celestial spirits

Medallion Manor is an assisted living facility. Question is, who is being assisted?
The people that I met last night were so happy to see us! They had no anxiety
that some random strangers showed up to their home, they were excited!
They immediately showed affection and love with their smiles, energy, and attention (undivided)!
What incredible examples, and they all liked us without any preconceived notions about who we were
or what we could do for them. My special friend's name was Paul. He saved me a seat for bingo
and wouldn't let anyone even get near it without telling them it was mine. He hugged me from start
to finish. Paul stuck by me through thick and thin and showed me the true nature of love. His was
unconditional and unwavering. He even gave me a few kisses, one day I aspire to kiss the ground at the savior's feet with such tender devotion! I hope one day to reciprocate such compassionate kindness like that which Paul showed me. He truly gave without regret, shame, or fear rather out of pure consideration and because of the joy he felt in doing so.
I also became David's Goliath that he brought tumbling down. He HAPPILY put together a puzzle I couldn't do, came up with a fun and worthwhile activity (a race to the fence and back with playful interference), arm wrestling to demonstrate his strength, and finally genuine and sincere converstation in which he honestly told of his life wihtout resentment or worry about how I might react or view him.
What a celestial place of spiritual giants that helped cut my Goliath down to size and teach me that the true worth of a soul is never diminished by status, position, ability, or all the stuff that sometimes is mistaken as important and praiseworthy. They didn't seek to earn praise, but give it. They didn't seek to be important but to make others feel important. They weren't the poor and needy because they truly gave endlessly. Words do not suffice the praise the angels sing of their hearts and deeds...


They have brought heaven to earth.