Dare

My Painting- Paradise walls

Inside of my heart

I hear that word

I say it to myself,

Asking

If I have what it takes

To dare…

Dare to be bold

Dare to reach out

Dare to let my guard down

I realize that I am beginning to do those things

and

Everyday I dare a little more

To dream 
Grasp the vision
 and explore

Why I was created

Using the key to unlock the door and see

Just how I will fulfill my destiny

There is so much more

Than where I am right now

I feel it!

I have felt it so strong

For a very long time

and

I feel like the closer that I get

To reaching out and taking hold of my purpose

It is squeezing me so tight

Trying to force me forward

Into the unknown

Do I take the dare?

And let go…when I couldn’t tell you

What tomorrow would bring?

Do I choose to take hold of who I am inside

with complete certainty

Can I dare to walk into an unknown freedom

Or

Stay back in a known bondage

to the past that held me for so long?

Take a deep breath

Hold it

Make sure you don’t let go yet

Are you ready?

Now…

Just let go, and dare!

Authored by: Elizabeth Walker

Mess or Masterpiece?

My Painting- Wysterious Forest

Not long ago it was New Year’s Eve. It was the last night of 2013 with only a few hours before 2013 was going to become another memory. However, I was excited that a new year was being ushered in. 

For me, 2014 was a totally clean canvas upon which I was already planning with the guidance of my Lord, to create the masterpiece of my life. I have come to see in my own life that every thought I have & action I take are the brush strokes that define and blend every line, and every choice I make becomes the color that breathes life into the canvas of my life. I am the painter and it is up to me to decide whether I will create a mess or breathtaking masterpiece. 

It is amazing to me how they are both created out of the very same materials. What is even more amazing is how the mess can be transformed into a masterpiece. What is the difference? I'm going to go with perspective on this one. The whole beauty is in the eye of the beholder rings true to me when I think about it.

I am working on sharing the story of my life and as I travel through my life from the position and perspective of wellness I find myself going across the spectrum from inspiration and chronic paralyzation and back again. So much of my life is spent in reflection now. I am both mortified at the life I once lived and amazed that I after all that I have chosen and been through that I really have changed in every way. This is why my first blog post was dedicated to sharing how I had a memorial celebration to bury the “old” me. Because who I have become is so far removed from any of who I used to be, and I couldn't think of a greater gift than to give the old me rest for all it took for me to get here.

I am not afraid to share all of the amazing and horrific things and challenges that I have experienced. I have been over taken in some places and in others I have overcome everything against all odds. To be totally honest with you, I am in awe that I am even here to write about my story. I am a miracle and I am only here because of love!

There is so much that has happened in my life coupled with such epic and unimaginable twists, turns and being flipped inside out that it has been difficult for me to figure out where to begin and what to include. I am finally willing to just begin. I can’t say that I have any idea or clue how this is going to go, but I do know that the season of what “once was” has already come to a close just like New Year’s Eve did when I said goodbye to 2013.

This is the end of the “me” that I spent my entire life being, and as I close the book on the last 40 years of my life, I have been given the greatest gift I have ever known. I am beginning a brand new chapter in a totally new book of my life!

I finally see that the end and the beginning are the same. They both give way to new life, and one must pass for the other to begin. This is more than just closure. This is the evolution of me, myself and I. My life has come full circle and in this circle is the story of us.

I remember when I was growing up that I always wanted to be an amazing artist. I used to love to color with my mommy. Her pictures were incredible because she would outline the picture before she would color it in. By tracing over the outlines it made the pictures look so beautiful because it framed everything in. My life has become like the color books that I used to color in. My life has been framed in, and colored by my choices, emotions, attitudes and actions.

Before I discovered that I could paint on canvas paper was my canvas., and writing was the paint that colored the pictures I was hoping to create. There is something amazing that happens when you read. Your imagination begins to paint the scenes and colors the pictures. Seeing the vivid colors within your mind is magical and to be able to experience the journey as it unfolds just as if you were there at the very moment it was actually happening is a gift.

I invite you to take a walk with me upon the pages of my heart. My heart holds the pictures, the memories, and the keys of my life. My heart has been the prison where I spent the majority of my life. Even now there are things are happening in my life that try to pull me down into the shameful reminders of the past because the pictures I spent my life painting upon the canvas of my heart though no longer on display are still stored in the deep recesses of my mind. My journey is one of seeing, clearing, healing, restoration, light, love and repeating the process as I descend and climb to each and every new level of my life both inside and out.

My heart is a collection of my life’s experiences and it is here that I have come to let the light into the darkest of places. It is this light of love that gives me the strength to travel through this museum within. This is where all of the created works of my past have been stored, displayed and are being restored.

We all have a past. We all have gone through things that have rocked our worlds, threatened our lives and relentlessly pushed us to the end of our sanity. Or maybe I’m the only one, but I don’t think so. My life has been filled with unfathomable twists and turns and I am amazed that I have been given the words to express how these inexpressible nightmares and life shattering devastation have brought me here.

This is more than just a journey for me. It is the love story about how my despair and brokenness met hope, healing and infinite possibility!

I know that there are many books that will tell you how “their” way is the best method to get better, to heal, and how to rise above the hopelessness in life when you have traveled the road to hell and are trying to make it back. I am here simply to share my life with you and to let you know that no matter what you are going through or have experienced in your life that you are not alone. More than anything I am sharing that it is possible to survive yourself.

I have discovered the hard way that there is nobody who can ever take me down like I can. Nobody knows me like I do, and nobody has spent more time in my life with me than me. Deep within I know all of my own triggers even if I don’t know I know, and it’s way too easy to look out and see what is wrong, and then believe that everything happening is because of everyone else. It’s much more intense to see that everything happening all around is simply reflecting back to me what I can’t or refuse to see is happening inside of me. Everything outside of me is simply the mirror of me. We can only reflect what we are.

My journey continues to lead me to places that I never imagined were possible but always hoped that they were. I have gone through my life navigating everything in fight or flight mode. Everything I thought I saw was distorted and every clue that I thought I was supposed to “get” was nothing more than a desperate attempt to figure out how to get anyone else to tell me how to choose because I was so scared.

Here I am 40 years old and suddenly I have found myself once again swept away by a wave of what seems to be unending remnants of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

I have found myself struggling with feeling embarrassed because I felt like by now I should have been able to “overcome” and “conquer” what I'm feeling and everything I feel is happening all around me. Yet I am certain that once again I am fighting within myself against myself. Call it ego, call it fear, trauma or any other label, but what it is has brought me here. At this moment this is what I am. Though I am convinced that what my life looks and feels like in this moment won’t always be this way, I am giving all I’ve got to simply stop resisting the truth of what it is right now, and make friends with the biology within. 

After all, there is something powerful about understanding that my body's interpretations and responses (my biology) has been responsible for protecting me throughout my tumultuous life and keeping me alive. I am who I am. Embarrassing or not, it is what it is

The truth is that with everything I have experienced in my life from the time I was a little girl, I had to push everything down or block the hellish traumatic moments just to keep getting back up and not die. Nearly everything I have done in my life has been chosen in some kind of a survival mode and I never even realized that.

My life was spent believing that nobody else was going to make sure I was ok or safe because everyone who ever said or promised that it was ok to just be me always changed, left or decided that I was just too much to handle. That's when everything I thought I could finally trust and count on was shattered all over again.

Being out for the count wasn’t an option for me. There was too much I wanted to do and so many things that I wanted to do for others. I wanted to help families and women and children so that they never had to suffer just because they didn’t have money. This is still my heart, and even when things look so huge and impossible, I know that all it takes is one to believe that with God everything that looks impossible becomes more than possible. It becomes reality!

I spent most of my adult years rebelling against deeply ingrained coping mechanisms and triggers. They constantly sent me spiraling into the emotional pain I was never able to find a way to shut down or get rid of. I never knew how to care about my own life. That is why I always looked to everyone else to “love me” and care. I can say with all of my heart that I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to be a needy, high maintenance, miserably angry fanatical control freak. There were so many circumstances that happened far before I even turned 2 years old that had already shaped my life and how I would grow up experiencing life.

It wasn’t really until I turned 39 that I finally got to the place where I realized that if I didn’t throw myself into my own healing and wellness then that the chances of me ever really doing it “for real” were probably slim. For the first time ever I had been given the ability to regroup and just focus on healing&rebuilding my life from the inside out. I felt like I would never have the chance to do things like that again and so I dedicated myself to my own wellness & healing for the very first time in all of my life. 

I was willing to put absolutely everything else on hold that could be a distraction or cause me to lose focus. I was determined to finally get something right in my life and I was willing to be the one to do for myself, my children and our family what nobody in my life had ever been willing to do for me.

I am the very first person in my family who has been willing to lay “everything on the line” to finally face myself. I am facing all of my demons that have haunted me and lingered around in ever morphing hiding places inside of my mind since as far back as I can remember.

What I am learning and doing may be starting with me but I am creating a legacy and designing the blueprint of my life that will remain for all generations to come. No matter what I go on to accomplish, there is nothing greater that I could do than to love myself and my family enough to live this love.

Love is teaching me how to be courageous and do whatever it takes to let the light shine into the places I have never even been inside because they were always so dark and scary. And it is this same light of love that has warmed the frozen coldness within my heart and brought me to life for the very first time! I've discovered that the light lives within and when it's so dark that I can't see, I remember that it's in living love that the light shines from the inside out and onto the path so that we can walk together.

Sometimes its hard to see and feelings color what we see making us think that we’re all alone in this big world of uncertainty called life. No matter how it feels, I want you to know that you are never alone and more than that, you are loved unconditionally!

Unwritten Journey

My Painting- Italian Villa

I am amazed. I am amazing. It is easy for me to write that I am amazed. It is a little bit more difficult for me to write that I am amazing because somewhere deep within myself it feels like it is arrogant to say that about yourself. I am amazed that I am amazing. Hmmmm. 

That was still strange for me to write, but it is this duality that makes these two halves whole and complete. Without them, all there will be is an incomplete hole.

I am inspired by so many things and people and moments, but I never thought I could be inspired and re-inspired by my own writing and experiences. I have spent the majority of my life looking out for the answers that are supposed to tell me who I am or how to become everything I dream of. The only thing with this is that I am still discovering how life is made up of moments that ultimately become a collection of clues. Not so much the clues that tell me which way to go or what to do next, but they always point me in the direction that leads me back to me. This has been my biggest problem in my journey of this life. I couldn’t believe that little me could possibly have any answers. If I did then why the heck would my life have turned out this way?

It seems that I give myself my own answers. For instance, take the question I wrote just 2 sentences before this. I asked if I have the answers then why the heck would my life have turned out this way. Immediately I was clued into the words “turned out.” My life was turned inside out because I never really went inside to take care of myself, and for the most part I grew up having to listen to everyone else. Which meant that there was very little room for learning how to think or trust myself.

As I go through and read the things I have written, I am truly reignited inside and my heart is moved. It’s amazing to me how much of my life was spent writing for everyone else. Writing for me was my escape. It was my place to go where I could feel alive and for a moment inspired because beyond that the feelings faded and in order to feel that way again I'd write another piece or article. I loved everything about how I felt when I would write. The feelings were so strong and so deep that just by writing about the things that move me and that I have experienced along this unwritten journey I actually believed that I was living the things that I was writing about.

Writing was my resource for external validation and worth. I wanted to be wanted. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be great. I wanted to color everything that I wrote with the paint of my passion through the brush strokes of perspective. Why? Because I believed in the beauty of inspiring others.

Once upon a time, writing was the only way I could access my heart. I loved the way it felt when I was able to pour myself out onto the pages, and for a brief moment the inescapable torment of darkness within my life was transformed into the light of understanding, compassion and connectedness.

Writing for me was safe. I was able to say what I wanted to say and figure out the best ways to get my point or thought across without being shut down or rejected. Well, at least while I was writing it anyway. I was never comfortable trying to talk about things that hurt because I was very shy and scared of people. Or it could have something to do with the fact that since I was 2 years old I had “professionals” prying and probing me to talk to them about my life.

I had my first experience with one of these professionals was when I was only 2. My mom was at the end of her rope with me because I was constantly throwing temper tantrums and she didn’t know how to handle me or what to do. So she brought me to a shrink. Apparently in our first session I was trying to psychoanalyze the doctor, and my tantrums didn’t really get much better. Needless to say I didn’t have to see him too many times.

When I was 5 I used to get into trouble at school because I wouldn’t stay sitting and I liked to get up and try to run around and kiss the little boys who were in my class! I wasn’t very cooperative and so more often than not I used to get a sad face on my daily card that would go home to my mom at the end of the day. My mom used to ask me why I was misbehaving in class. I didn't know what to say when I got in trouble and I was afraid of getting spanked. I didn't know why I was being a "bad girl."But in all seriousness I looked up at her and told her “I’m thinking.”

For always “thinking” so much I grew up not really having a clue how to think at all. I learned how to react, and I learned how to do as I was told mostly because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t. I have learned that when you are afraid there is no thinking going on. Well, I mean there is thinking going on but that is more like obsessing over ruminating thoughts about whatever it is that is happening, has happened or is going to happen.

I remember growing up constantly afraid. There were 2 different kinds of afraid though. There was the fear of the unknown like being afraid of the dark. Nothing ever really happened but imagining something "could" happen gave me creepy feelings and that felt really icky.

The other kind of afraid is the one where you have personal experience and know what is going to happen. Like when my mom used to try and hold me upside down by my ankles and spank me with a wooden spoon. When I was little I either got spanked, my mouth washed out with soap or I had to kneel on a pile of uncooked rice in a corner holding a heavy phone book on the top of my head. The thing with punishment is that none of that really changed me or stopped me from doing the “bad” and “naughty” things. I just got better at hiding and hoping not to get caught.

I was raised in the “Children are to be seen and not heard” era. As a child being silent was associated with obedience, and it determined what other people thought about how well you were doing as a parent. “Acting up” and embarrassing your parent(s) was an absolute no-no.

I didn’t have much of an outlet for any of the anger, pain and fear that I remember stuffing down inside. That's why once I learned how to write it was like opening the floodgates of my soul. It was more therapeutic than all of the counseling I had ever gone to put together, and writing became my greatest friend.

Through the years I have learned so much about myself through my writing, but it is only over the past year and a half or so that I have stripped away the security blanket that I used to cover up the real me. My writing used to be a way for me to appear to have it all “together.” I developed a large vocabulary when I was pretty young so one of the perks of using big words was that it made others think I was really smart. That made me feel really good about myself. As with everything else in my life, my vocabulary became nothing more than just another cover to hide behind.

As I have undergone transformation after transformation I find that rather than just writing about things and hoping to become that some day, I finally discovered how to live the things that I write. This has changed everything! I used to cringe when I read things that I have written over the years because I used to think I was some kind of expert about everything I have gone through. I wrote like I had overcome everything when the truth is I hadn't even gotten started. Instead of judging myself and being critical, I have learned to read my work and see just how much I have grown throughout every step of each process and season of my life. I have learned to simplify everything that I write and just be myself. My real self.

I am not concerned anymore about whether I sound smart or not. It is most important to me that I am real. I have worked very hard to face myself and learn how to live a totally transparent life so that what you see is really what you get. I don't live one way in front of people and another behind closed doors anymore. Everything I have ever hidden has been exposed, and all that I spent my life hiding and hiding behind has come to light. I have nothing left covering me except the life giving light of love! This is a miracle I never imagined could really happen in my life! Reconciling me with myself has been the most epic road of my journey and I have never been the same!

I am completely committed to being honest especially about the person I used to be, who I am today, and what the process from there to here looks and feels like. I have become authentic, real and trustworthy. I am also exposed, vulnerable, and totally alive for the very first time in all of my life!

I am in a place that I have never been before and it seems everything I am facing is outside of my comfort zone. However, I have learned quite recently that a comfort zone is not something that has a negative connotation to it as I always thought it did. Being in your comfort zone is being in any place where you are gifted or have a developed ability to do a particular thing well and fairly effortlessly. Which means you don’t really have to exert yourself to face the challenge in order to do it.

I am challenged every time I write because the “old” me who tried to sound super smart and complex knew the words and could make them sound impressive. I wanted everyone to think that I had all the answers, meanwhile my entire life was spinning in all directions and I was totally out of control. I was a hypocrite and I didn’t even realize it. So I made a decision almost a year and a half ago that I am done trying to hide how flawed I am or trying to sidestep the embarrassment and humiliation from all of the things I have chosen, caused and experienced just because it would be easier to just “leave those things out.”

Rather than just writing from my head and what I “know” I continue diving deeply so that every time I write my heart has been poured out into every word that I have written on every page. Love is the only reason I am and I am certain more than anything else that love is the only way true life and transformation is possible. In the end which is the beginning, the only thing that is more powerful than all of the negativity and fear rampant in life is the awesome power of never ending love!

I have been scarred from the inside out and maybe I always will be. I am learning to accept every scar as a reminder that I have fought in the battle of my life, I have won and now I have the scars to prove it! I am still here, and that is a miracle that I can’t sit back and just keep to myself. Because healing is only a belief away! Everything is possible when you are inspired to believe!

Time is Frozen

*My Painting- Girl in thought*

What is time?

Eternity has no such thing

Only one

Only now

We are told we are of time

That the clock is forever ticking

So we age and we believe we are

We tell ourselves this is true

and so it is

Until it's not

I don't believe 

I was ever created to be “on the clock”

So I live

and the older I get
The younger I become

Though younger doesn't mean I haven't learned...

Wisdom is Eternal

Form is not

So I continue transforming

In this beautiful gift called time

For time and time again I am amazed

To experience the power

That has always been alive inside of me

Time is nothing more than a grand illusion

Living by time

Means the clock can run out

Living in time as the eternal that we are

Stops the clock

Freezes time

and

we still are

It's hard to tell if time is still going

or paused like a stop watch...

click and stop to watch

Belief is created by our perceptions

Of what we think we are seeing

We are easily influenced

By the universal slight of hand

Yet when you know who you are

That you are in everything and everyone

That there is no such thing as separation

Regardless of how much our mind tells our eyes that there is

You can never lose yourself 

For all you need to do is look all around you

and you will see that everything you thought about everyone else

Is nothing more than the reflection 

Mirroring back to you what is actually inside ...

of you 

Your mind is nothing more than the time machine

 Created within us … before time began

and your mind can transport you

To any place your imagination can carry you

Faster than the speed of thought

Into what we call past, present and all that could be

Because you're here and already there

at the very same time

I've taken the time to return

To the places where I was destroyed

Vaporized, Terminated

Only to realize once again

That I'm still here

  

My heart is the keeper and healer of those times

Though I will tell you

It takes being out of your mind

To see and think with your heart

This is the gift we have been given

Free to use

Free to create

From the inner life

That worlds are created from

but only activated by the willingness

To believe

We have not because we ask not

but though we think we're always asking

Maybe, just maybe we are so busy asking

For the things we think we want

That we don't even realize

We've been asking all the wrong questions

and

If we haven't been asking questions at all

How will we ever know

Whether we have gotten any of what we're asking for

or not?

Dreams are constructed

One thought at a time

and

While they may come fully assembled

In the realms that only we can see

When we look through our own eyes

Upon the movie screen of our mind

We think and our dream puzzle

Arrives into our world one piece at a time

It is up to us to figure out

What pieces we have

What pieces we need

and how to put it together

For you are the blueprint to your own dream

and that means you are also the key

To bringing what you see into the world

Where others can share in your magnificent vision

and become inspired to never stop reaching for their own

For our dreams were given to us

By the one who created us and gave us our life

We were His dream

Before He shaped us in His image

Made us just like Him

and then breathed His own life

Into all that we are

Our gift back to the creator of all

and the greatest gift we can give ourselves

Is not just to live our dreams

but to live them out as we share them

In every step of this journey we make!

Authored by: Elizabeth Walker

Mirror Mirror

My painting- Kauai Footbridge

Looking in the mirror the reflection is not just me anymore, and the mirror is not one that hangs on wall for there’s no wall large enough to fit the mirror that illuminates the beauty in the reminders that no longer haunt me when I look at the image shining back at me. 

For this is the reflection that I’ve never yet seen until now, and it makes me think with wonder…how I have always been created to be who I am, and even though I have never seen myself this way until now, my creator, the one who made me, has never seen me as anything else than the perfection within His reflection for I was created just like Him...we all are!

I’ve looked in every mirror as far back as I can remember, always wondering when I would become the me I always dreamed was possible to be.  But as far back as I can remember, every moment felt like it took forever, and I never even knew that when your dreams are bigger than you are, that you were never created to do it alone … 

As a little girl, “grownups” told me fairy tales don’t really come true, but I never gave up believing, striving, passionately pursuing, studying, and overcoming every obstacle and opposition of those who tried to convince me that I needed to stop living in a "fantasy world" and come back to reality. 

What amazes me is how perception alters our reality, and most of the time all the facts and what we think we see co-mingles who we believe we are within the guilt, shame and ego of who we once were. And in order to face the world, and ourselves hiding behind the curtain that we call “another day” self - justification takes place inside to subdue the emotional agony that grips every fiber of our being…

I have felt incapacitated throughout my life, all while whirling deep within the emotional and dizzying spiral into the abyss of hopelessness with every moment that goes by because I stood behind the curtain rather than just stepping out underneath the brilliant lights and walking out onto the big breathtaking  stage of life.

It is our survival instinct that kicks in. The fight, flight or total paralyzation like a deer caught in headlights that resorts to primal fear; a strangulating force which is accursed and interwoven throughout the infinite generations that have preceded us.

From our beginning, to be still for even a moment, was certain death, and to be the one responsible for masterminding the “trouble” was even worse.

Humanity is filled with unsung heroes and misfits just trying to find a way to become old enough to take the plunge into the freedom to really call our own shots…to take the dare- you know the one where your heart can hear in the warm summer breeze as it whispers to you that anything is possible!

Within the unexpected there lies the myriad of variables too numerous to have backup and exit plans established so that if we leap and land funny, that we don’t as they say in the industry, “Break a leg”…we’re not blindsided and left open and totally defenseless in a moment where we feel we’re going to die;

Overwhelmed by pain that overloads the motherboard of our human circuitry, and we are rendered frozen all over again by the reminder of past and fear of the unknown we call future.

When everything comes to a screeching halt regardless of whether it’s an emotion or physiological sensory malfunction, our brain interprets what has just happened as a life and death situation…  And to be perfectly honest, it is! 

Because it is within that moment, and what you choose in the next moments that follow are crucial to the outcome. There is nothing that you can’t do if you believe that you can, and nothing you can do if you believe that you can’t…never forget that for it has the power to remind you of exactly how powerful the Master Jehovah, Lord Almighty actually created you to be in every moment including this one right now…not someday! 

You see, each moment that is spent just going through the motions, means that you are totally on autopilot. I found that the more on autopilot I was, the more fear there was. Fear became the awareness that I was thinking too much and doing too little. Each moment of my life it didn’t matter how hard I worked, how much I knew, or how perfectly I tried to do everything I was told to do. I found that I could never meet anyone’s expectations because I was covertly furious that I had absolutely no idea how to meet my own.

For what seems like forever, this way of thinking and struggling only resulted in immeasurable pain, loss, and the self imposed judgments that never seem to quiet and make everything open to critique.

Ultimately the judgment which is always built upon the foundation of doubt and unbelief does have its own “belief systems,”…and there is absolutely nobody who can shatter the impenetrable power that is only found in the unity of belief...except you! 

You are stronger than you realize, and more amazing than you will ever know unless you are willing to leap into the unknown. For this is the place where even though there are no guarantees, you will never know how awesome life has really been created to be unless you are willing to live vulnerably, and trust in yourself and the one who made you. You were created for such a time as this, right now! 

You are not ordinary, you are amazing and the one who made you  designed you so uniquely that there is nobody in all of creation who can do what you can do the way you were created to do it! Dare to believe in yourself, dare to discover who you are beyond everything you think you see or know. You are more than enough, and you are the Master's greatest work of art!

You are love and you are loved!

His Reflection

I wrote something I decided to call "His Reflection" because I was deeply searching for my purpose. I wanted to know exactly why I was put here on this earth. What is my destiny and above all who am I? 

I had to know! 

 

So one night early in January 2004, I lit my room full of candles and put my favorite song on repeat. Everything was perfect and I was excited to sit down, get cozy and write a heart filled masterpiece. I crawled onto my bed and piled my pillows behind me where I was sitting Indian style. I realized that I was blank. I couldn't find any words. How could this be? The words usually pour out of my heart like a flowing river of life. I scribbled some words that made sense to me when I was thinking them. But then once I wrote them on the paper, no matter how hard I wanted them to make sense, they didn’t. Then without warning, the hot tears began to stream down my face.

I felt the overwhelming pain leaking out through my eyeballs, and yet the tears only seemed to be the gateway that would light the way into my heart. It was a place that overflowed just like the tears that were pouring uncontrollably down my face. However, what overflowed from within my heart was everything I had spent my entire life doing everything possible to shut down, change, overcome, and avoid. Here I was, face to face with myself. I had a choice to make. I could either continue walking through the gripping pain and suffocating fear in order to reach my heart, or I could get frustrated that I was numb and couldn’t seem to connect to the inspiration I so desperately wanted.

I was desperate to know who I was, and what it was going to take for me to bravely journey into my own heart and find out what was really holding me back! Then it hit me. Who I am has everything to do with the one who created me, and without acknowledging Him I would never truly be able to tap into my life's purpose and meaning.

I love God, and I have always known I was “supposed” to love Him. But there were pieces of me that really believed that I could “do” this life on my own. My ego and foolish pride only masked my deep rooted fears and I really began to think that confidence & determination were the keys that would open the door to making all of my dreams come true.

What I didn’t realize was that without character and integrity as my foundation, just having confidence and determination is enough to make you rise to the top, but not enough to keep you from falling. In fact, I continue to see just how dangerous it is to rely on confidence and determination to lead the way!

Without integrity there is no regard for others or creating lasting, healthy relationships in life and business. Without character, there is no standard; there is no ethic, and usually little use for things like loyalty and honor! While being confident and having determination are very important, it takes character and integrity to create the lifeline’s that you will not cross under any circumstance or at any cost! I was tired of selling out. I always had what it took to get me just so far, and then when it came time to keeping my word or living everything I professed to be who I was, I choked every time. I made excuses, and I tried to find the easiest way that would still take me to where I wanted to go.

I started thinking about all of the opportunities that I have been given throughout my life and how many times I let them slip right through my hands. Despite my passion and determination for living life to the fullest, my heart was still empty and no matter what I did, or where I went, there were parts of me that still remained empty and lifeless. I “knew” that I was given the ability to conquer anything that came my way, but the ultimate quest was to figure out what my life meant, and who I really am.

I began to write.

As I remembered how many things have come and gone, I also remembered how many times I really believed that “this would be the one” that was going to launch me to the top! I dreamed of great successes and stardom.

The words began flowing faster than I could legibly jot onto my notebook paper. For the first time ever, I finally began to see the bigger picture within my life. I saw that success is not what I thought it was. I understood that success isn’t found in how much money you make, the kind of car you drive or how accomplished you are. It is not about how long you have worked at your job, your tenure or how big your house is. It isn’t even about how well behaved your children are and it has nothing to do with their achievements or your hopes for them becoming reality.

For pretty much all of my life I believed that you know you have become successful when you finally have and can do “xyz.” I guess that is why I was always focused on getting somewhere as if making it there was the grand finale; the Holy Grail. My life continues to change as I remember that true success is not a final destination where I’m all done once I “arrive.” That’s more like booking a vacation to Tahiti!

True success I have found comes moment by moment, and thought by thought. It comes when you are willing to stop looking at everything you don’t have and all that you think you “can’t do” to look through your life and see everything you do have and can do. Success is learning how to look in the mirror and love what you see-even when it feels uncomfortable to see something other than what you dream of being or know you “used” to be.

Success is when you decide to do the quality of work you “know” you would give if you were making $100k a year while you making $7.50 an hour or maybe nothing at all. Success comes when you find things that you really like about yourself and spend your time thinking about those things.

Success can be found in humbling yourself when you have acted like an ass to your children and instead of only going to them to say I’m sorry, you work to never forget how they felt when you did whatever it was-and then you live the “sorry” by changing what you do instead of just blanketing behavior with some words that make us feel better about ourselves.

Who I am has nothing to do with whether I succeed at “things.” I am alive. The miracle of life I believe is the greatest success of all! Because only from life, can life be born, but the flip side of that is that life also springs up from the very place where there is death. In fact, there can be no resurrection until there is a death.

God shaped us and then breathed His life into us so that we could live. So it is with us and everything we think, do, and desire. We are constantly creating, breathing our life into everything and everyone around us. Everything we have, feel, and are responsible for is a success. Success is usually thought to be something that can only be “good.” However, what we think about, we give life to. What we don’t realize we think about, we also breathe our life into. If something is miserable it is still a success because it is working to make you miserable. It grows and begins affecting everything as if it has been given a life of its own.

Once I realized that I was responsible for the very things that I was so irritated by or hated more than anything, I knew that I was the only one who would ever be able to change how I felt. Beyond that, if things in my life were ever going to be different and not just look different, I was going to have to get the help I needed so that I would have the tools to change the direction of my current “success!”

It wasn’t until I was finally willing to see how I had “successfully” ripped my entire life and family apart that I saw just how powerful we have been created to be. I had no idea that everything in my life was the result of my creation. I chose. I gave it life, and yet I wanted to blame someone else when things went south.

All of this time and I had become ultra successful in pretty much every area of my life and never even knew it. Of course it wasn’t the kind of success I had always wanted, but sadly, I was living the powerful success of misery, destruction, and everything that eventually becomes your worst nightmare! That threw me! I had created the monster and that monster wasn’t anyone or anything else. It was me!

But that isn’t who or what I wanted to be! At least that’s what I spent most of my life telling myself and everyone else. Because the truth is always simple, and it is usually the last thing we really want because knowing the truth prompts action. So it was always easier for me to say I wanted things to change than it was for me to do whatever it would take to face my past, immerse myself in the present, stop lying to myself and understand that the only one I was in a battle for my life against, was me!

What I discovered about myself was that my habits, reactions and being on autopilot was more in control of me than I was of myself. That is a very scary place to live. No wonder why I always felt that I was a victim at the hands of everything and everyone else. I live in my own body, yet I was totally out of control! But since I believed my problem(s) were because of everyone else, I never imagined how “getting help” was going to make a difference. After all, they were the problem, not me. What I didn’t know was that until I was willing to see the truth about myself I would never really be able to know who I am.

I thought about how strongly I believed that I had a purpose I had been created to fulfill and just how far away from any of it I was. I finally saw that it would be up to me and my choices to discover each and every gift, talent, and ability that has been placed within me. Suddenly, things started to make sense. My desires, thoughts, ideas, dreams, longings, questions and hopes have permeated every fiber of my being for what feels more like an eternity than just a lifetime. I’m pretty sure that regardless of how awesome all of the things were that I hoped to do or be in my life, that there was no amount of hoping, wishing, or dreaming that was ever going to drop my dreams into my lap fully assembled.

Just like with puzzles, you take each piece, find where it fits and after you are all finished the puzzle reveals a breathtaking picture. I believe that this is exactly the way life works.

All of the pieces are part of the puzzle no matter how unimportant or unrelated they may look compared to any of the others. There are even those pieces that look so bizarre and misshaped that it is almost unfathomable how in the world something that looks like that could ever be part of “this puzzle.” It isn’t until you are almost finished with the puzzle and down to the last pieces that you realize the piece that looked so bizarre and worthless at the beginning, just happens to be the one that connects to the final piece to complete the puzzle!

Sometimes puzzles can be tricky. Especially when you’re putting one together that has water with any kind of reflection. It can be hard to tell the difference between what is the “real thing” and it’s reflection on the water since they practically look identical. When you see what is in the reflection, you undoubtedly know what the original looks like 
since the reflection can only mirror what is directly in its light.

“His Reflection” continues to pave the way with each new step forward through this journey into what we call destiny! No matter where I may be in my life, “His Reflection” reminds me that no matter what, I am exactly where I need to be in this moment and for this time. As I remember that, the brutal self judgment and “shoulda, woulda, coulda’s” fade because you cannot judge and accept at the same time!

In that very second, it was like the blinders that had covered the eyes of my heart for pretty much all of my life lifted and I realized that I can share the passion, and the love, that is within me with others who have and haven't quite found their way. From that moment on, I knew more than anything else, that I wanted to be the hands and heart of my Lord in this life, but it wasn’t until I discovered that it’s impossible to give your heart to anyone else before you open your heart to yourself. That was my beginning; this is where I began learning about who I really am.

For all of these years I was waiting for someone else to unlock those rooms within my heart so I could finally begin the journey that would take me through the course of my natural lifetime and beyond. What I didn’t know was that regardless of how many people really wanted to help me or journey alongside me, I was the only one who could unlock any of the doors, for I was the one with the master key!

From my desire to know, His Reflection was born. It was then I finally started to see why I am here. My question, “why” was followed with the answer: I am here. My question contained my answer all along! The answer, though penned by my hand, is written with His Heart! I love you Lord!

His Reflection

From the beginning
Before you were conceived
God had a special plan for you...

He wrote each day,
especially for you,
designed with joy...

As you grew in your mommy's tummy,

He had his hand on you,
keeping you safe, loving you
and counting the days
Until He knew you'd arrive!

He selected your parents

Even before they were conceived

They were handpicked to touch your heart with His
that was God's plan, as they were His gift to you
for you are the very best part of them!

He filled you with His love, creativity and imagination

You are specifically designed,
Hand embroidered,
and tailored by His heart
To give, to love, and to teach

Though sometimes it's hard to see His plan
it’s as intricate as when He created you
He knit you together, hand woven with purpose
and breathed His life into you

Each one of your days is God’s gift to you

Sometimes unclear, even confusing and painful
He knew what each day would bring

He trusts you to open each of the gifts
that He placed on the inside of you

From the day you were born
Until the day you go home to Him

He has given you so many gifts and talents
which will you open next?
Do you know which of His blessed gifts
you have already opened?

You are exactly where He knew you'd be...
In this day, at this time, for this moment
and
He is eagerly, yet patiently watching you

Proudly!
 
For you have opened gifts

He knows you will use for His glory

You have been broken, and reshaped with His eyes
and His heart
No limitations, only pure imagination!

His passion flows through you

With each step you've taken
He has held your hand just as your baby did
as she learned how to walk-
Discovering, Exploring, Completely fascinated
by endless possibilities
of what you will do, or where you will go

As you step, He is there
as you fall

He catches you gently in His strong arms
Full of Grace, Mercy, Love
and
Full of encouragement!

As He sets you onto your feet

To take another step
into each new step of your life
He can't wait to see your face
As you find & open another gift
Discovering yet another piece 
To this puzzle of life-
Your life, and learning who you are

He will love through you,
He will use others to change you,
develop you,
and 
Remind you of your purpose

Did you know

You are the answer to someone's prayer?
You have been created for such a time as this!
For as you hear His voice
and
step out in faith
All confusion, uncertainty, and fear
fade away

Your path was chosen just for you
just like your fingerprints
and
there is no one else like you in all of creation!
No one can do what you can...
Not the way you can do it!

Your faith has moved mountains
and
Your love changes the lives of those you know

You are a miracle,

A reflection of your Heavenly Father
who spends each moment, in each day, with you
creating a continuous adventure
exploring new ideas and dreams
your purpose is so great!
 
The question is do you know it?

Only you can do what He created you for
one step at a time
with each beat of your heart...

He opens doors for you
and
Holds your hand as you walk through them

Your thankfulness and adoration for your Father
Shape each new moment of your life

You are the one

That God knew He could trust
To reflect His image
His love,
and His compassion

For you reflect the light of His love
to those you have met
already know
and
to those you will meet in the future

This is your purpose
Designed from before the beginning of time
for you to reflect your Heavenly Fathers image
through your life, as He shows you who you are!