"Home, home on the range..."

Happy New Year Friends!

     A new year--a new day!  Each morning can be a new start if we choose--and I do--today can be an opportunity to extend a helping hand to a stranger, better yet to family and friends--to help them out by offering grace, a smile, or an encouraging word, one tiny step at a time.

"...where seldom is heard, a discouraging word..."

     But, an encouraging word will first have to be alive in my own heart. Where will I find that?  Who will fill me with grace, with warm fuzzies, put a smile on my face, show me the way?  Do I have to admit that deep down, I don't often feel all the mushy goodwill?  I don't always have a smile to give---I have my own lot of troubles, thank you.

     Hold on... I've been in that place of receiving, <the quiet place.>  Sometimes I find it before my feet hit the floor in the morning, or during a shower, yes, a subtle burp of time in the midst of busyness, where I'm able to stop, to call on the One who smiles on me no matter what condition I'm in, Who sticks by me even when I don't remember to acknowledge Him, Who'll never leave me because I've asked Him not to, but more accurately, because He is faithful, He is waiting with loving arms extended to each one of us on an up-close-and-personal basis.

     My New Year's Day resolution is to recognize daily my own emptiness, fall on knobby knees and beg Him (with every sincere nerve of my being), to fill up the holes in my heart with the putty of His gentle expertise, His peace and joy, and then allow me to be His emissary to each person I meet along the way.

     If each of us could only stop, shift down a gear, and choose to focus on Him.  If we could leave behind our own agendas and tune into His, what a change we'd see in ourselves, around us, and in our troubled world.  It's all about Him.

     "...and the skies are not cloudy all day."