Peace is the harvest of an honest life. Getting there requires examining oneself while acting on each subsequent self-evaluation with enlightenment. Obviously, it takes discipline to live this way. At the time, it can be excruciatingly painful, but if I follow through the stations of vulnerability, to epiphany, to service, I become trained by the process, and enjoy the resulting privileged benefits of reaping the peaceful harvest of an honest life.
One of my favorite things we did as a family growing up in Lebanon was go on picnics. My parents weren’t into spending money on going out to eat, or the movies, but they sure could entertain with scrumptious picnic food and picturesque rest stops. Daddy loved to drive up and down the Lebanon mountain ranges discovering hidden archaeological ruins in obscure villages.
Look how broccoli flourishes in the dead of winter in Texas! It’s its time and season to do so. I know it sounds silly, but today, I’m grateful for broccoli!
February is the shortest month of the year, but because of it being in the middle of winter, it tends to be dark and moody. We ache for someone, something, to call our name and jar us out of the gloominess. Sometimes we need to be called out of our dreariness and startled into the promise of tomorrow.
Silence is an answer to prayer, if we allow ourselves to recognize it as such. Visualize a time when you were frantically launching prayer darts at God demanding immediate answers and solutions. Did you compulsively zero in on one circumstance after another asking yourself, “is that a sign? No. Over there, that’s a sign! Wait a minute, I think this is a sign.”
Stop! Reclaim your peace.
I come to the Garden Alone is my theme song, my personal anthem. Early morning is my favorite time of the day and strolling my garden paths alone at dawn, sipping my first cup of jasmine green tea, is the perfect start to any new day for me.