Look for the beauty

 It is a truly beautiful day outside.  The sun is shining and the temperature is so nice that I have my old farmhouse windows open.  I can feel the breeze as I sit in my kitchen from my table.  My table is an antique from my husband's Aunt.  When we moved to this house we took the table and added 6 1/2 inches to the legs.  Then we painted the bottom half and refinished the top.  This last week we painted the top white instead of trying to refinish it again after 14 years of use.  I don't know if it will last but it's nice for now.  I always seem to put a lot of stuff on top of my table because we don't have a lot of counter space in our kitchen but right now, while I let the table top cure, I'm noticing how nice it is to use the table without so much clutter.

Bruce is out doing lawn jobs for the day and I have a long list of chores that I need to do.  Living on a 2 and a half acre farm with chickens, quail, ducks, and rabbits is a lot of work and of course our all wood 108 year old house is in much need of paint on the outside and a bit of repair to some of the wood trim etc.  Yet it feeds the soul with it's energy and beauty.  

I am a collector of stories.  Many of my stories are sitting about in the form of things that remind me of the story.  It is my biggest flaw that I have so many stories in my house.  Lol.  And yet I find so much joy in looking around and seeing who I have been at each stage in my life and what my story has taught me.  I've learned how to be very peaceful and happy these last few months.  Yesterday I failed horribly but most days I feel as if I'm finally finding my way out of the past traumas my life has used to teach me.  I've learned that the past means nothing now.  It is only a means to learn.  We all learn through our life.  It's what life is for.  But the past is for forgiving and letting go and then only keeping the parts of it that you need to become better.  I saw my parents and how their life played out and I realize that they had to go through what they went through because they needed to learn.  I see how my mom was raised by two people who also needed to learn something.  She raised me with what she knew at the time.  I raised my children with what I knew at the time.  But now I'm learning to forgive.  Not the kind of forgiveness we talk about that still makes the other person out to be the bad guy but true forgiveness that absolves the other person of everything.  I'm learning that God created us all perfect and then there was the fall into the Ego mind that made a mess of it all.  It's like a child who says, "I do it myself".  We told God, "I do it myself" and he is letting us.  That is the fall.  But God still sees us as having a perfect soul with human error.  He does not punish, we do.  We believe in guilt and fear and that is our downfall.  If we were to see the perfection in every soul and look beyond the error that the world has created within our human mind, then it is easy to forgive.  

I was thinking of our president and how he has such a defensive nature that puts people off.  We do not see that he is a man who feels insecure with judgement and that is why he is so defensive.  He is not a bad man but a man who wants to do something good and yet has the same issues with self love that we all have.  He shows it in a way that is defensive because it's what he knows.  We are all so very flawed but not because we are bad.  It's all conditioning from the world's views and how we may have been raised by others who have flaws in their thinking.  We were not born with sin.  We were born with perfection and then learned to miscreate our life.  We live a life loving the drama and then complain we have no peace.  

These are the things that I feel are true until God tells me otherwise.

I've read and studied the bible for years.  I don't know it all and I don't know if everything I think is correct.  I try not to put God in a box.  I feel like we do too much of that.  I believe God is beyond our understanding and to hold to a belief because it is what everyone is teaching based on a very old book but not continuing to allow God to teach us is a catastrophic plan.  So I keep a very open mind and I keep praying that God will continue to teach me no matter how uncomfortable it is and no matter how upsetting it may be to my years of Christian upbringing. I choose to allow Jesus to teach me.  I choose to allow the Holy Spirit to guide me... no matter how strange it may seem.  I am having so much fun learning.  I'm enjoying seeing the world through new eyes that give me peace and joy.  I see the beauty in what others may see as chaos.  

I lost one of my favorite roosters a couple of days ago.  His name was cookie monster.  He was the sweetest most beautiful fluffy pillow of a boy who I could pick up and cuddle at any time because his fluff on his head made it so he couldn't see me coming.  When I lose a bird it can be so upsetting but recently I realized that they will all die at some point because everything dies.  To get upset about it is foolish.  I will miss him but I'm so grateful that I got to experience having that beautiful bird.  So I am choosing to be happy for him that his energy now gets to be a part of something else and praying that whatever that is is beautiful.  Life is what we make of it.  We have to see things with different perception.  If we look for the bad we will find it.  But if we look for the beauty..... That is what we will find.

Hugs

Shannon