Some months later....

So, here I am--still that girl I guess....

I just re read my last post, as I think back on that time-- I realize I am still that girl and not so much that girl anymore....

What has changed?  My outlook on life...and life itself.

Since my last post I moved to the high desert of Reno, Nevada....leaving the securities, and insecurities I had developed living in California behind. I leaped!

And life has changed greatly....some things wonderfully, and some things not so wonderfully, but in and of it all I am at peace.  I came to Reno to start a new life...this was my primary objective...and I have done this.  Was it like I imagined at first?  NO WAY!!!  I am still single, my son still lives with me, I have just two dogs out of the original five....I am still unemployed...sigh.  But what has changed most of all is how I see it all...that quiet, and not so quiet desperation I used to feel, rarely rears it's head anymore.  Fear does not rule my life...

I have gone through a lot these months...moving, losing friends and loved ones now still in California...the transition of my father in June, an auto accident last month, the adoption of my three puppies....most people would have thrown up their hands and just given up....NOT ME!

Is it because I am so much stronger than everyone else?  Is it because as some people, even close friends claim--that I am crazy?  No, it is because my faith in God who loves me, whom I feel with everything that I am, keeps me from despair.  His strength sustains me.  His love enfolds me.  His might and power emboldens me. I know that even before I came here to Reno, he made a way for me.  I know without a doubt that he knew that with his help, I would forge onward, that my Pioneer spirit, would make it through.

I have learned a lot in these months.  I have learned to depend on the God who made me just as I am.  I have learned to love myself in all of my imperfectness...to value that in his infinite wisdom, he made only one me, EVER...that I am unique, and the world would be a different place without me.  When you come to this realization, it changes everything about your life.

Where once I thought I was just a cog in the machine of life, I now know that this is a lie.  I have an opportunity to make a difference, to change the lives of others, to make choices that set in motion positivity for generations to come.  Small, not so insignificant acts of kindness that have a ripple effect...

Since I came here to Reno, I was impressed to go and help the homeless, poor, and those feeling lost and unloved.  I volunteer three nights a week for the Reno/Sparks Gospel Mission, feeding up to 350 people at "Tent City" a hot meal prepared at the mission, and I then I and other volunteers supplement with side dishes to complete the meal.  I also volunteer about 30 hours a week with the Mission's kitchen helping to prepare the meals for not only "Tent City" but the Women's shelter, Family Shelter, and the men and women in the drug and alcohol recovery program at the Mission.

It is not just food that nourishes those who show up for a meal each night at "Tent City"...it is hope.  It is knowing someone cares enough to show up...to be there for them.  So many have lost ties with their families over the years of living on the streets...many are ashamed of where they have ended up on this journey called "life"...they cut themselves off from society, believing they are unworthy...

I have been there...I know that mindset.  I have never lived on the streets, but you know there are people in mega mansions who have felt unworthy.  We are sold that lie every day.  Commercialism, mass media, even some churches preach that we are just an unworthy sinner, never being able to meet the gaze of God...we are but filthy rags, and there is nothing we can do to redeem ourselves....sheesh!

If you think like this, if you let fear and a sense of  being lost and unloved fill your mind....even if in your heart, God lives, just waiting for you to recognize his presence in you, you will lower your head, and grovel through life, looking at every little stumble as God's wrath and punishment for not being perfect.

I have earth shaking news....God does not expect you to be perfect...he could have made man from a million different things, but he chose dust of the earth...dirt.  He breathed his life, his soul, his spirit into us...and yet made our bodies and minds out of dirt.  How perfect is that?  Do you understand what I am saying here?  He knew we would not be perfect, that was not his plan...his plan was for us to be just as we are, perfectly imperfect.  Someone perfectly imperfect makes mistakes, learns lessons the hard way, makes hard choices and fails...but God did not make us out of dirt alone...he gave us his spirit, his loving guidance, our feelings and emotions...a beautiful GPS system that if we pay attention to it, tune it in, will guide us all our days...He gave us his unconditional LOVE.  He never stops loving us...he sees us as his whole and perfect children just as we are, without sin or blemish.  We are harder on ourselves, than he will ever be.



He did not remove his spirit from them....he did not leave them...they in their mind left him.

Over and over, you will read of God's reconciliation with man...all you have to do is turn inside yourself, and visit that core where God is, and always will be...his spirit lives in and through us, if only we visit with him there...

Sometimes we don't pay attention, or maybe we have been taught differently...maybe we have been lied to.  You see, if everyone listened to that "still small voice" if we used our feelings for the GPS they were meant to serve as, if we just looked within and ignored all of the crap going on around us, we would need less...and we would instinctively depend on God as our source...not out of desperation, because we are "unworthy" but, because we look to God as the loving source he is, and always will be...he is all we need.  I want to be with God, in his loving presence.

Ahhhh... "do it unto the least of these, and you have done it unto me"...

yeah...

I have been given a gift beyond measure.  I have the privilege of serving God, by serving my brothers and sisters.  By loving the least, in the world's eyes...by sharing what I know to be true-- that the spirit of God is in all of us...the so called "sinners" of the world have just as much God in them as the so called "saints"...they just don't know it.

So, here I AM, and where I am-- God IS.

It's been a bumpy road, an emotional roller coaster at times....but I am not alone in this, God is, and always will be with me...