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This last weekend, my husband and I went away for the weekend. We know it’s good for us to get away periodically and so we try to plan them as often as we can. But as we got away this weekend, we were reminded how important they are. You have time to re-connect, dream, cuddle, and really hear each other. The one thing that really hit me this weekend as we enjoyed the beauty of the ocean, was when we DO get away and quiet, God will use that time to speak to us. So I am always excited to see what it is that He has to say to me when we go. I ASK for it. Here are a few things He brought to mind.

1. This time, God’s theme seemed to be on friendships and divine connections. Funny how God does that. I have been dealing with a very dear friend of 33 years who is suffering with her health right now and I would like to make the trip to see her. I have come to grips with the fact that it may not happen. How am I going to respond to that? Will I be mad? Hurt? Hold a grudge because I can’t go? God reminded me of the faithful friend that I have been TO HER over the last 33 years. I found comfort in that. I have called, sent a card and been in touch with her almost every week of our 33 years together. We are 1500 miles apart. She has every card. We often think of those things as not being a big deal. It is.

2. The importance of taking time to develop my friendships and be there for them. It’s not just talking about them as my friends, but really connecting with them, praying for them, and lifting them up. I have always tried to do that. But this time, God spoke to me about doing more through the power of prayer. As I was at the ocean, I called one of my friends and asked her to listen as I held my phone out for her to hear the ocean. She loves it also and I wanted to share that moment with her even though she couldn’t be there. It took a couple of minutes of my time, but made her minute! Then just a little while later, God had me pray for her. I wasn’t sure what I was praying for but God knew and it  turned out to be BIG!

3. I look at the ocean waves and I am thankful that, just like those waves come in and move the sand so you can’t see the footprints left behind, God also removes from my heart and life the sins that I have committed. They are washed away, clean just like the ocean waves take the footprints back out to the sea.  I really wanted to run out into the surf and let God do that all over again for me, but I didn’t have the extra clothing to do that!  However, I loved the feeling of that thought 🙂

4. We attended church on Sunday, and even the sermon was for me regarding Connection Power Relationships! He talked about life rising and falling based on relationships. We never know who God is going to use in our lives and for what purpose. So true! I recognized once again how God has used relationships and divine connections in my life over and over. I am so thankful for those who have told me what I need to be told, built bridges where they needed building, and how much has been given to me based how I have given to friendships. Thanks Pastor  Doug! That was a great sermon. 

5. Lastly, I learned life is short once again as I learned of a another friend and couple who are dealing with a health issue that has affected how they spend the rest of their life together. I think that is why God wants us to live for today and worry not about tomorrow. So I really am making a conscious effort to live that way so that I don’t miss out on today, because of the worry of tomorrow. In the reality of life, I need to be so thankful for what I have each day and don’t put off the things I should do in order to think I MIGHT have tomorrow to enjoy it.

So, you may not be able to go to the ocean, but I can bring some of it to you through photos. Stop your life for a minute and look at the photos. Ask God what He would have you to do with your friendships, relationships or divine connections. Ask Him to teach you the importance of each one. And then, don’t forget to bring them before God and hold them up in prayer. Elevate those friends to a higher level and then watch what happens when you don’t care who gets the credit. You do it just because you want to build them up and serve them. As Pastor Doug said in his sermon, “The mantle is always passed down. It is never passed up.” So lift others up before yourself, give in a bigger measure then ever before, and watch what double blessings await you. Don’t wait. Live for what God has for you to do and be TODAY.

If you are interested in more ocean photos, you can visit my photo blog at http://www.keymomentsphotography.blogspot.com

The other day I was out for my walk, and this idea came to me about taking a photo of a dandelion against the backdrop of the sunset. I have been having fun with my photography this year as I learn more and more about it. So the idea of something fun and different appealed to me. But as I looked at this photo, I started to think about its feathering spores. They looked so intricate and intertwined. I felt as though God asked me if my life looked like that. What have you gotten enmeshed in? What has you all tangled up? Humm…that is a BIG question for all of us I think. We tend you get ourselves so busy so we look successful or important, and yet inside, our hearts cry out for some peace, calm, harmony and quiet time.

I am learning to enjoy my days and moments as they come this year more than ever. It has been a journey I have found challenging and exhilarating! I know as a child, it was fun to pull off the dandelions and blow on them and see those feathery spores fly out with the wind. Some of us enjoyed it enough that we blew until there were no dandelions left. So, is this how we approach change in our lives? The change that will give us the peace and calm that we secretly desire? Are we just floating around the idea of having more time for what’s important? I don’t think that is what any of us wants. But it takes discipline to make change and say no to a project or idea even if it’s a good one in order that we might have more time.  It has to be me who says I won’t do that anymore in order to have some quiet moments for myself to reflect. I don’t want to be like the feathery dandelions that float out into the “where ever”. I want to be strong and stand where God has placed me and be balanced enough to have my life be about the things and people who are important to me. Even good things can pull us away from what is important to our daily lives.

But there is an exciting part for me about the visual of the dandelion also. What if we think about the good acts we can do in a day as something that goes out as blessings just like the feathery dandelion? It doesn’t just touch one person or situation. It is likely that it touches many as your kindness plays out in the lives of where it lands. We all know how those dandelions populate themselves all over our yards. But now, you can have a different perspective or visual of what that can mean in your lives. Isn’t that an exciting picture? I love it! I won’t look at a dandelion quite the same way anymore.

So as one dandelion blower to another, let’s unite!  Be about making time for quiet and listening; something that is scheduled into your day. God can do some amazing things as we listen to Him. Where might His Wind be taking you next?

As I use and learn more and more about social media, I often ask myself, who am I? I want to be me. I want people to know the real me. I don’t try to be someone else, look like someone else, or put out there on Twitter, Facebook or my blog anything but just who I am and what I think, feel or have passion about. I share the journeys of my heart. I think it is a good thing to re-examine ourselves once in a while to see what we really are putting out before the eyes of people.  I make mistakes and I don’t mind admitting to them or sharing them. I think that is what makes me real. But I am mindful that as I do share, that I don’t want to say or do anything that would lead someone off the path by what I  represent from my presence in social media. I love social media and technology. I like to use it to encourage and inform people on ways to live life to the fullest. Others can see who we really are by our words and actions, but we can also say who we are by the pictures we put up. So, I ask myself, what kind of image am I presenting to people who read my Facebook page, my Tweets or my blogs?  Am I building something as I live authentically through media? I think that when I live my life authentically, then I can better empower others to live that same way.

So as you read this today, I challenge you to consider what you write or put up on your social media sites. I love to meet people through media that are just themselves. It is refreshing to know that God has brought new friends into my life through this venue and that we can all encourage each other on to a higher standard. What a joy we can have with this opportunity to reach across lines and the world, to touch the hearts of those we haven’t met face to face. I love how God orchestrates our lives and then stands back to enjoy the symphony! Stop by and say hello!

I just recently gave a talk to our Praise and Coffee Night gals on Living the Dash. I had read a book a few months ago called One Month To Live by Kerry Shook, and it really made me think. He wrote about living the dash in this book and based it on this question: “How would you live your life if you only had a month to live?” In other words, how then shall you live? How would you live YOUR dash? So I put together a coffee chat on that subject and brought it before the group to talk about.

We may not have control over the birth date or the death date, but we DO have control over how we live our dash. What do we live for? What passions move us forward? Do we have dreams or regrets? How do we live that out? In our microwave world, we want everything to be quick, easy and FAST. We live our lives like we are in fast forward everyday. Psalm 102:3 talks about my days disappearing like smoke. I feel like that sometimes. Are we dashing around to live, spending precious time chasing things that won’t matter in the end? I don’t think that is the way God intended us to live out our days.  I can choose to take back my days and live them out in excitement and joy for the next thing God is doing in my life. Evaluate what is trivial. Is that going to matter to me six months from now? A year from now? There are things God wants us to do and fulfill in our life time. I want to be there doing everything I can to get the most out of my life. God will ask me what I did with what He gave me. I want to say I used it all up! All the gifts, all the blessings, all the relationships…whatever it is. I want to use them up.

It’s never to late to begin. Grab onto those moments! Start now. Begin today! How will you live YOUR dash? Let me know by leaving comments. I want to hear your thoughts. God bless you!

Do you ever find yourself talking with certain people and your self-talk goes wild? You wish you would have taken the time to put on make-up because you know you always meet people you know when you don’t take the time to do it. Sure enough, it happened. Or, I should have worn that other outfit. I would have looked SO much better if I did. She has such NICE clothes. We talk to each other all the time. We all struggle with it sometimes. But why is that we make this argument with ourselves as we talk with certain ones? Here’s the deal…no matter if I wore makeup that day or had my best outfit on, there isn’t anything that is going to help my insecurities or my desire to be accepted on my own power. We have to get a proper perspective on those feelings. What can I do? I can fill my heart and mind with God’s love and find out how to operate in that love that He has for me. I can find out what makes me feel insecure or inadequate and share that with the Lord. If I stop looking to others to validate myself, then I can control more what goes on in my mind. Only God can reassure me and help me. He will do that through His Word.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” Isaiah 43:18. I need to interrupt my thinking with a different pattern. Let Him be the One who gives me my security. Pray about it with Him and ask Him to give me an inner confidence that will exude a peace and joy that only comes from Him. Maybe in my insecurities, I will find that God will use that to help me understand others who may themselves experience that same thing. I then can come along side them and give them support. Funny the paths that God takes me on just so I can learn to understand another person’s needs.

If I want to feel my best when I see others, it always helps to take the time to make myself as presentable as possible. It does help us feel a bit more confident when we see people. But that alone is not where my confidence lies. So my question to myself now is, “What do you want to me to learn from this exchange?” and “How can I show love to this person?” God has been faithful to show me each time. I don’t think people are too surprised to see me without my make up. I may scare them a bit,  and they may even think of am not feeling well, (that has happened to me!) but they might be a bit hurt if I ducked down another aisle just so I wouldn’t see them. So let those insecurities go and ask God to let your light shine among those you meet, that He might be glorified. He will honor your prayer and take you on a journey that will delight and surprise you! Lead on O King Eternal!

What gives us true happiness? How do we judge if we are happy or content? What does that feel like? If you asked me if I wanted to be happy or content, I would shout YES! I could even tell you lots of things that make me happy and feel content. Let me see…I love the sunshine, but not too hot. That makes me happy.  I am happy and content when taking pictures of things and people around me that remind me that I am happy to be alive. I love to sit with a mocha and God’s Word in the morning to start my day. I feel content then.  I am happy and content when my kids make good decisions and experience success. I love to do things with my husband; that makes me feel content.

But what if all those things aren’t happening? What if everything that CAN go wrong IS? What if I don’t feel God is answering my prayer even though I have faithfully prayed for it everyday and sometimes more than once as it comes to mind often? This is where knowing what gives true happiness and contentment meets with my attitude. I have been reading Andrew Murray’s Book On Prayer and he has a lot to say about abiding in Christ. If we are abiding in CHRIST, that means that Christ is abiding in US. So He didn’t disappear just because things took a turn south. He is still in us abiding as He always did. Andrew Murray says, ” The first requirement of a salvation that should really bring blessedness to us was peace. And peace can only come with right. Where everything is as God would have it, in God’s order and in harmony with His will, there alone can peace reign.” So in order for this to happen in myself, I must keep peace as my personal companion. Of course satan doesn’t want us to have peace. He knows if we carry the shoes of peace, that it would surpass our current relationship with Jesus and out in the deep we would go with Jesus!

Well, I say let’s go! Let’s walk out into the deep where we are happy and content because THAT comes from Jesus. Yield yourself to the Holy Spirit so you can know God’s grace that will permit you to draw near to Him and to receive that white robe of righteousness. You can live knowing that you bring pleasure to Him!  Hard times can make us turn TO Him or turn AWAY from Him. I keep choosing daily to turn TO Him no matter what is going on in my earthly life. I know He cares and still abides inside of me. I am so thankful for that!

So? What do you say? Are you happy and content where you are by trying to do it yourself? Or will you cultivate that happiness and contentment by joining hands with me and Jesus and walking out into the deep with Him? I was just thinking… I’m going to get my towel and bathing suit! Hey! I may just jump in!

This last week, I was studying for a coffee chat that I was giving on how to handle hard times and still have joy. Wow! What a tough lesson to learn! We know it is the right behavior to have joy at all times, but I don’t about you, it doesn’t make it any easier to walk out. But in Ecclesiastes 3:12 it says, “There is nothing better…then to be happy and do good.” What are the things that bring you joy, peace and hope? Do you work at making them happen yourself or do they “just happen”?  I have learned to cultivate my joy by what I do on a daily basis.

And Peter tells us that suffering teaches us to be done with sin and to live for God’s purposes rather than our own pleasures and evil desires. (I Peter 4:1-5)  Why does Peter say that do you think? From my experience, when I am going through hard times and it just doesn’t seem to change, I have to give up what I might be expecting to happen and be real about what is. When I give that up, I am more free to live my life how God wants to me live. I am living in what is now, rather than what I think should be. Now I can say that and work toward it, but that doesn’t mean its going to be easy. How I handle my emotions in the midst of the crisis is what can keep me from big disappointments. We have to have the right mental outlook toward it. God has all things planned for us and so we need to stick to Him and walk through it together. God says he disciplines those He loves in Hebrews 12:6. So we arm ourselves with the armor of God and become a warrior! Sometimes the pain we go through because of the crisis will heighten our awareness in other areas of our lives too. So what can we do? Go to prayer. Sometimes the first thing we do is get mad and then we separate ourselves from God and pull away. Don’t stop helping others, or stop teaching or leading. But instead, go to Him and ask Him if there is anything you need to change, get right, or deal with. Ask God, “What do you want me to do?” Get in the Word and see what He wants to give you. In conclusion, guard your mind and behavior, life is short, do something for another person, and give God glory in spite of what you are going through. It’s pretty hard for satan to get an inroad when you are praising your Lord and Savior! Do we always FEEL like doing that? Nope. But it sure is the best way to end the cycle of discouragement and confusion that satan likes to keep us on.

I have a project called JoAnn’s Photoscapes 365 Project that I have been doing on Facebook, where I post a photo a day there and often times write what God is teaching me through that photo. After going through my own hard times, God led me to the study about His grace in hard times. In doing so, a phrase popped out at me and it seemed clear God wanted me to change my project name to Life Through A Different Lens. I think that is how God wants us to look at things; through a different lens.  He wants our situations to be viewed through HIS LENS, HIS FOCUS, and HIS COLORS. I am doing that through my experiences.  So I hope this encourages you to do the same. Get out that camera of His, the Bible, and look through and read it with His lens instead of yours. See what beautiful photography He makes with you! God bless.

During a struggle in my spirit, I “happened” to look out the window and there in the middle of my front yard was this flower, heads up, and all by itself. It was even sitting right in the middle of a big weed. I thought well…what is God trying to say? He often speaks to me through the things He helps me to notice.

I felt like God was saying I am not like that flower, alone, when the weeds of life are choking some of the joy from my life. Instead, God sent that little flower out into my yard to be noticed. To remind me that there is beauty in the lone flower, even amongst the weed. He will make beauty come from this struggle if I am willing to notice. In the middle of a big yard this flower has a lesson to teach.

How did ONE flower get out in the middle of my yard when there are dozens on the ground around the bush? Only God knows…

This last weekend for Memorial Day, as we celebrated the freedom that we have on a daily basis, I am reminded to be thankful for it and all those who served and are currently serving to make that freedom possible. I know I was taken back when we visited a cemetary and my grandson knew what to do when he saw the flag. I caught it in a photo. You know, we talk about things with our family around and we think it might not matter. But I have found new answers to that question. It DOES matter. They ARE listening. Ethan is showing me that everyday I am with him.

So think about the influence that you have around you and use it. Share it. It matters. You affect others. You may not see as I did that day, but it will present itself. So go ahead. Share what is important to you so just as you have memories of your parents or grandparents sharing their lives with you, or things you remember about their home or lifestyle, that you can now be that generation that will give a legacy of memories to our current generation. Thank you Ethan for that reminder! Stand tall, with honor; salute!

This last weekend was my brother’s wedding. I did the ceremony for them and all the event planning. There is a lot of work and details that go into a wedding…a lot of work! But that is just the beginning of the work. Relationships are work. Its like a dance; back and forth, around the obstacles but always back in the arms of the one we love. In a husband and wife relationship you are like grinding stones for each other so that you become polished and your character is changed over time. You improve each other. Communication and active listening are so key in living out your marriage relationship together. Remember how all the little things you did for each other in courting, are even MORE important once you are married. Life can take over and you forget to show your love in all those small ways that mean so much to each other.

Then you have all the family and friends that come to celebrate with you. That is so special. I wish…..hummm…what do I wish? I wish that family and friends didn’t wait until there is a wedding or funeral to go to before spending time together. They are our connection with life. We are also teaching our children and grandchildren what their lives are going to be like by the way we spend our lives. I know I want mine to know the value of family and friendships and to see them as a treasure to explore in order that they may know more about themselves and enjoying their life every day. Take the time.

So once again, my daily journey has taken me on a detour of some great learning. I hope my journey challenges yours!