Tag: Jesus

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delight desire

Do You Know The Desire Of Your Heart

and how often do you sit calmly for long enough to listen? Or can you only really hear your heart’s desires if you are delighting in God?

Aber Falls footpath March 2016

According to Googlephotos it was ten years ago today that we first walked to Aber Falls. This was a side path so we took it. That’s what we were like back then when Renly was only 4 years old and could walk for miles and miles and miles. Interestingly we’ve not walked this path since that day. Some of that is because Natural Resources Wales have been doing a major replanting scheme so the fir trees that were beyond this path have been removed and new native to the area trees are being replanted.

This morning I was reading Psalm 37 as part of the Bible Society’s Lent readings for today and this verse jumped out at me

Take delight in the LORD,
     and he will give you the desires of your heart.

What struck me was – how many of us really know the desires of our hearts? And how many of us stick to a plan we got 10, 15, 20, 40, etc years ago and keep trying to get there even though we have changed massively since then? This is why I’ve used the above picture. Only ten years ago our dog could walk miles and now, much as he enjoys his walks, he is much slower and cannot walk as far. But also this piece of land looked like it was going to be conifer trees forever but now there are struggling beeches and ash, as a more native forest is re-established. The desires and plans have changed both for my dog and this piece of land.

We moved here 10 years ago. Back then my desire was to run our house as an Airbnb house, offering hospitality to low-budget travellers. Even before Covid the ethos of Airbnb travellers was changing and I was thinking of stopping. The desire of my heart had changed. Also a around that time I was doing lots of work with children and teens around Creative Writing but again my desires have changed.

Though in both my “desires” it was Covid and Lockdown that accentuated my need to relook at my heart and what it really wanted. And as my regular blog readers know I have done a lot of QEC healing since Covid too.

My heart has changed. My desires have changed. My circumstances have changed. My energy levels have changed. So much has changed that I cannot expect to keep slogging on with what I believed my heart wanted back then. I am always changing and always evolving.

I was emailing with someone the other day about relationships and of how hard marriage is because we are in to for a very very long time and yet we are not the same people who got married back then, and neither are our spouses. We have changed. We have evolved. Circumstances have changed us. Circumstances are often a driving force for changing the desires of our hearts.

So back to the verse – I think there is a connection too. I think the psalmist is saying that it is as we delight in the Lord that we learn what the desires of our heart are. Not what we think they ought to be, or what we think they should be, or what we think would please others, but what we really really really desire deep down inside. And I do think we need to do loads of healing to get beyond the “good girl/good boy” scenario and the people pleasing, or the “what would look good to others/friends/family”.

But I honestly believe as we hang out with God, delighting in God, delighting in the fact that we are forgiven, delighting that we are loved unconditionally, and that if we mess up on those desires we can pick ourselves up and start again and that the Creator of the Universe will still be by our side. But we have to give this time. We can’t fit it in around other things. It has to be a part of all that we do, all day, every day. Back to what the Apostle Paul calls “praying continuously”. That’s just hanging out with God and delighting in them, not mithering at them to change things. A bit like something I talk about with my writing group – of not striving but of allowing things to ponder, to touch those Alpha waves, those Eureka moments – all of which come when we are delighting in something not striving to get an answer.

This verse isn’t about telling God what we want them to do but is about being with them and enjoying them. Delighting in them.

It is ok for our desires to change and change and even change back again but if we delight in the Lord then we can step out with confidence and do what will make us glow with joy and peace.

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forgiveness trust

It Should Be This Easy

I’ve just been reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki translated from the Japanese to English by Polly Barton. It is much more than a book about a serial killer and food. It is a book about misogyny supported by other women, about finding one’s true self, of breaking with the norm; a coming of age book but by someone in their 30s.

But the page I am going to share comes towards the end and it is when Rika’s best friend takes her to an end of Ramadam meal put on to help Japanese people learn about Turkish culture.

It is these two pages where the women read from the pamphlet that stuck me

I’m not sure how well you can read it – maybe photographing pages from a book and editing them with a small dog sleeping in the crook of my arm isn’t the best way of doing it but …. well here it is.

I wasn’t sure where to go with these when I thought of this post last night but knew I wanted to share but then this morning the Vicar I work with phoned me up for a chat about a couple of people we know but then we moved on it trusting God and the importance of knowing one is forgiven and how there are many Christians who don’t fully believe that. As we said this hinders them not just in their Christian walk but in how others perceive Christianity to be.

Now I know this pamphlet the women are reading is about Islam but I think this is what God is like in Christianity too. But like way too many religions how we out work the love of God become a rule rather than a love based.

I’ve missed it off that first page but it is when Rika says “…It is enough if the people who can do it do it ….”

And then on the following page Reiko says,

“… God … won’t take joy or satisfaction in the sight of suffering. Which means, you don’t have to go through everything alone. You don’t have to always be growing as a person. The far more important thing is to just get through every day.”

This is what, I feel, we need to keep remembering as Christians. Firstly that God loves and forgives us, that God doesn’t take joy in our suffering, that we need to remember that God is with us so we don’t have to go it alone. Also that God has put precious friends in our way too so it isn’t just us and God, but us and God and our friends, family, those who support and encourage us with no string attached.

Too often in Churches we see rules – of having to go, of having to be involved, of having to be a part of, of having to pray, of even having to be nice to people, and of having to “grow” in God – when, especially after reading this, I think God wants us just to get through every day – and if possible in peace and knowing we are loved and forgiven.

And as happened with the unexpected phone call, God so often has some unexpected plan to help us on our journey if we are willing to stop striving and be willing to let God lead us – which only comes through trusting and believing.

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big three Temptations

Temptations

https://bible.art/gallery/matthew-11:15

I’ve been looking at the Temptations of Jesus for this week’s youth group. I know them off by heart but once again I got a revelation. I feel as if God has shown me what they mean to us all personally.

[The quotes are the bits I’m going to share with my youth group later]

First temptation – turning stones into bread. I think this is where we try to do good things for people that will feed and sustain them but we don’t acknowledge Jesus in what we do. The world is filled with people who do amazing things for other people but often don’t touch their spiritual needs, those deep heart felt things. They are “fed” but not nourished.

taking something hard, like a stone, making it palatable, making it something that will feed the body, but not making it something that will nourish the soul

The second one is about God rescuing no matter what. This got me thinking of things I read recently about how when we pray we expect God will heal, give us a what we have asked for, etc and yet when it doesn’t happen we often ask “where is God?” or “perhaps I didn’t pray enough” Yet Jesus says “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”.

Yes we should pray all the time. Yes we should cast our burdens on to Jesus at all times. Yes we should ask for things. But I do not think that we should expect all things. Too often I know I have thought “if I pray for this person and they get healed then they will want to follow God” or even I have not told them I’m praying for them in case God doesn’t heal them and then what!!! I now truly believe that more often than not God is doing things within our hearts rather than our circumstances.

Always ask God but do not expect God to do something that would make people follow God. Don’t test God!

And that third one about bowing down to worship the devil. I do love the audacity of the devil in this story. Fancy asking the Son of God, part of the whole Trinity/Godhead, to bow down and worship you. Remember the devil totally knows who Jesus is.

But how often do we try to get people to admire, like and maybe not worship us but look to us in a special way that they don’t to someone else; how we love it when someone picks us out. It is seen clearly in social media with celebrities, of that whole 5 minutes of fame, of wanting to be respected, set apart from others. I must be honest and say I get a buzz when the young people I work with call me their “youth leader” or the ones in my writing group say something amazing about me.

Yes people should be given the respect, honour, credence and admiration they deserve but that cannot come from short cuts but must from who they truly are. Too many of our world leaders, major and minor leaders, see themselves as beyond reproach and want to be served and worship without putting in the grunt work to get there.

This is also the temptation Jesus where gets sharp with the devil and banishes him. I wonder if that is because this one is the most subtle and the most appealing? I wonder if Jesus, especially as he knew what his own ending on earth would be, found this one the most tempting and so went for banishing rather than engaging in debate with? And also I wonder if that is why, after this temptation, the angels came down and ministered to him? They could have come at any other point – popped in, ministered a bit then popped out again – but no they wait until this final biggie. This final most subtle one!

know who you are and be wise and humble enough not to take short cuts

I also wonder if these are the BIG THREE that really contain all the other temptations – doing good thingsso we’re noticed and liked; trying to show God in a good light rather than trusting God to be God; and wanting to take short cuts to be honoured and admired? Perhaps that’s why no others are mentioned?

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[Sorry if this is a bit disjointed. Next door’s dogs keep barking in their hallway so the sound is like it is in our house and the wild Willow child is rampaging between leaping on my lap to tell me all about it and rushing round the house trying to find the dogs and fight them. Chaos this morning!!!!]

Willow in the park a few days ago tidying up the ducks and moorhens back into the pond. Thankfully she doesn’t jump in!!!

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creation enjoying

Creation Sunday

Yesterday I asked my youth group a question based around the idea that God made the whole world and gave it to humankind …

If you gave someone something you had made how would you like them to treat it/to be with it?

My favourite, and most thought provoking comment was “to enjoy it”.

Too often we think enjoying our planet is to go and do some recreational activity in some unspoilt place; a way of using our spare time is to “enjoy” the world. But when you think it through this whole idea of mass leisure time is very recent. For many years humans were busy just dealing with surviving. So you couldn’t take a day off to go for a hike or hang out in the garden and read a book because you had to provide food for the family, or you worked in service and maybe you got Sunday morning off, but that was to go to church. Then you’d be back taking care of the family you worked for. This whole idea of a day off for most people is a new thing.

But I’m suspecting God didn’t just wait for the late 20th and 21st century for people to enjoy their creation. I am suspecting God wanted humankind to always be enjoying creation.

On Thursday we went to see Our Town with Michael Sheen in it [a must if you are able to] and two lines towards the end of the play stand out for me and fit in with this whole thing of enjoying creation just for what it is. Both are from Emily who has died in childbirth aged 26 – something that was not uncommon when the play was written in 1938

“Oh Earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you”

and then as she realizes how little people appreciate the simple activities of life

“It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another.”

We need to slow down, to really look at each other, to really look at enjoy our Earth.

The Creation poem ends by saying that God gives all their amazing creation to humankind to fill, to subdue, to care for – and also, as the young girl my youth group said – to enjoy.

So let’s not wait till our next day off – when too often we are rushing round “having to do things” and trying to fit in “quality leisure” – and take a moment to slow things down, to really see, and to really enjoy.

These posts are free but you are welcome to Buy Me a Coffee or similar

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Magi surrender

Wise People’s Gifts

I’ve been looking at different thoughts and things around those wisemen that came to visit Jesus and their gifts. What if those gifts don’t represent what we’ve always been told they represent. There is nothing in the Bible that says why they gave the gifts, it just says

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Matthew 2:11

Then they go home again a different way.

So what if GOLD, to these wisemen, represents their worldly wealth? What if they prophetically looked at this baby and were willing to trust all their worldly wealth, all their earning power to Jesus? These wisemen must have been rich because they travel from Persia to Judea and Herod welcomed them as equals – and he was a proud, image-focused human. These wisemen could afford to take time off of making money to journey for weeks with an entourage – not just the 3 of them that we see on on Christmas cards – but a whole entourage of baggage, of guards, of food, of water [yup you need lots of water to cross a dessert] It says too that they “open their treasures” not that they just slid over a few presents. But they looked in their treasure chests and they decide from there what to give. That took a camel or two of its own to carry plus guards so they weren’t robbed.

So maybe Gold represents trusting God from now on for earnings, for wealth, for the financial security that gold, that jobs, that money brings to us all.

I wonder if FRANKINCENSE represents one of the tools of their trade. These were astrologers, star gazers, fortune tellers. A lot of the people I know who tell fortunes, who do divining, and those sort of things use incenses in many ways – to help with the atmosphere, to help calm, to help even open a portal to another dimension. What if these wisemen were giving this gift to Jesus because they were saying that they no longer needed to create an atmosphere by altering states of mind, they didn’t need to even keep the illusions of their trade up any more? Maybe they were handing the tools of their trade over to Jesus and trusting that God would do whatever with their skills and talents.

Now to MYRRH which we’ve always been told they gave to Jesus foretell his death. Myrrh is an embalmer. They were also a wealthy class of people living in a culture where tombs were built and prepared long before the recipient died, and generally orchestrated by the person who was going to be buried in there. The living person was keeping control of their death and afterlife!! What if they gave myrrh to Jesus because they were saying that their death – the timing, the manner, how they were buried – was no longer in their hands, that they no longer had control over it. That as they had given over control of their wealth, their earnings, their trade to the living God so they were giving control of their death to God.

Maybe all three gifts were to show that, rich and important as they were, they were letting of all that and giving it into the hands of this baby who they knew, through their prophetic eyes, was God Incarnate – someone they could trust not just with their lives but with their deaths?

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being real no agenda

Tis The Season Of The Resolution

I’m randomly scrolling through Facebook and watching TV and entering into 2026 with a sense of chilledness with a dog either side of me snoring gently.

As I Facebook-scrolled I came across two contradictory posts. Now as a Christian I know there is an expectation that I should follow this one

but something in this made me uncomfortable. I also find it amusing because it is posted by a church leader. I wonder how he’d feel if I went into his church and did things to upset him????

Also I do think religious leaders are doing a great job and I wouldn’t want to deliberately upset them. There are times when, yes they do make mistakes, get things wrong, get too caught up in one theology or way of doing things, but I know I wouldn’t like the job. I’d love doing the sermons and hanging out with people but I’d hate to try to lead an organisation full of fallen, sinful, often unpopular people. So yes there are times when I know I’ve upset religious leaders but I didn’t set out to do that. Also I’m not sure Jesus did.

I think Jesus loved those people so much that he wanted to help them see that their rules and religiosity weren’t doing them any favours. Though my daughter used to say that she thought Jesus was upsetting the religious leaders of his time by doing healings on the Sabbath. To me that is a great question to debate. Maybe another blog post???

Also if we take the verse “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” [Romans 3:23] means that everyone we hang out with are sinners. Though I’m sure this person is meaning noticeable sinners, those ones we can chalk up as “look at who I’m being friends with”.

For me I choose my friends by who God places across my path and who I feel led to be with. Some are people others like and some are ones others don’t, but I can’t think of any who would be labelled “unpopular”. Also by the time they are my friends I wouldn’t notice whether they are popular or not. They are just “my friends”, the lovely eclectic mix of them. Also it is why I did personal new year messages to my close friends, because they are not a generic “friendship group”.

Unfortunately this isn’t the post that I reacted to initially but by the time I tried to find it -and it was almost directly opposite of the above about being careful who you’re friends with because you need to look after your own heart and well-being. That old adage of “put your gas mask on first” which I’ve seen many Christians think isn’t “Christ-like” and have charged in hurting and being hurt.

Anyway this the nearest I can find. It’s from Tiny Buddha – and often I find I can relate to the Tiny Buddha posts more than the evangelical Christian ones.

To me this is the God I follow, this is the Jesus I see in the gospels – someone who noticed what was around them, who loved people so much he was willing to give his whole life to them, was grateful always even to the end, saw the beauty in things and took things slowly. I think Jesus did what he did because he was going slow, was deeply observing things, and did as he knew needed to be done at that moment in time. I don’t think Jesus picked his friends because they were “sinners” or unpopular or any other criteria. I think he picked them because he saw them and knew them for what they truly were. And that’s how I want to be.

Yes I will do my best this year to walk with kindness, love and mercy, but also with peace, dignity, gratitude and trust. I’ll be my best not to pick those I see and the things I do with any agenda other than what I notice as I move gracefully through the day – with a manic dog on each arm [Definitely getting a 3 year old chug is a lesson in patience and perseverance!!! 🙂 ]

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Willow and Renly, Newborough Beach 28th December 2025

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Rachel Weeping

Belated thoughts on 28th December – Murder of Innocents

A belated post due to lots of dog training, beach and mountain walking and inertia!

I wrote a really fun play for my youth group which they performed on Christmas Eve looking at the nativity story from the point of view of Mary’s donkey, the Shepherd’s sheep and the wisemen’s camel. I also added in a dragon to show how the enemy tried to thwart God’s plans without success. Though there was always the bit that I had to miss out because it was a family/children’s service – and that was the murder of the innocents by Herod after Jesus and his family escaped to Egypt.

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.”

Matthew 2:16-18

There’s been a lot of talk this year about Jesus being a refugee and how one needs to be generous and supportive to refugees [which is only right and proper] but how do we deal with those babies who got murdered?

Many Bibles headline this piece “the murder of innocents” – so here’s my question “What do we about the continued with the murder of innocence?”

Yes still today, and possibly more so than ever, the innocence of children is being eroded. As I write this I’m also watching TV and seeing the contrast between the innocence of the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the adverts. The adverts are telling me that taking my children to a regular playpark is boring and that I should be taking them to Butlins where there is light and noise and implied fun. The simplicity of swings, slides, overcast days, regular cornflakes, is now seen as boring. The innocence of childhood continues to be eroded.

I read a great piece in a book called “Going Home Another Way” a devotional for the Twixmas time. For the 28th December there was a piece by a man who’d lost his leg when he was five and he talked about the youth he worked with and why it was the more difficult youth who were attracted to him. And he says he believes it is because he lost his innocence at five when he had his leg amputated and they have lost their innocence with things like their home life, their parents, their friends, etc.

These were children in poorer areas but I think so many young people lose their innocence due to expectations, materialism, “having to do well”, and more. I’m sure we can all name things that took away our innocence long before it should have been and it has caused us to make many of the life choices we do.

I got this via an email on 28th December and I think the first bit is great but I’d change the last line

Innocent’s Song by Charles Causley


Who’s that knocking on the window,
Who’s that standing at the door,
What are all those presents
Lying on the kitchen floor?


Who is the smiling stranger
With hair as white as gin,
What is he doing with the children
And who could have let him in?


Why has he rubies on his fingers,
A cold, cold crown on his head,
Why, when he caws his carol,
Does the salty snow run red?


Why does he ferry my fireside
As a spider on a thread,
His fingers made of fuses
And his tongue of gingerbread?


Why does the world before him
Melt in a million suns,
Why do his yellow, yearning eyes
Burn like saffron buns?


Watch where he comes walking
Out of the Christmas flame,
Dancing, double talking:


Herod is his name.

But I think by saying “Herod is his name” we’ve missed out on being responsible for the loss of the innocence of our children – whether we’ve given birth or not. I think “Herod” could easily be changed to “materialism/expectations/being too busy” and I’m sure there are many more.

Perhaps the Rachel’s of this world now need to keep weeping for our son’s who have lost their innocence and refuse to be comforted until something changes?

Categories
Advent joy

Joy

It was interesting on Sunday because our church’s “Joy” candle struggled to light. I think it was a prophetic sign that joy is one of the hardest things we can grasp this year. There’s so much going on – wars and rumours of wars – and has been really since 2020 [the year of perfect vision] things just seem to have been spiralling downwards, or so the media would have us believe.

Even if we don’t grasp it for ourselves I think we find praying for peace and love in the world is something we can and should be doing. I think even when we get to hope we can manage that. But joy when things like the Bondi beach shooting happens, when children are kidnapped to be child soldiers, when sea levels are rising that poorest are losing out, then Joy is a hard, and feels almost callous to pray.

Interesting too that it is a different colour. I wonder if that is because whoever picked the colours in the first place knew that Joy would be of a different nature?

But I do wonder if the reason we have to keep coming back to Love, Peace, Joy and Hope is that we keep forgetting it. And we keep thinking it is up to us to manufacture it. But it isn’t. It is by leaning on God that we find these things. And at this season we need to be leaning into the promised Joy that was promised with the birth of Jesus which gets hidden further and further from the actual Christmas.

Much as I do not agree with the things Tommy Robinson is saying around his slogan of bringing “the Christ back into Christmas” I do agree that we need to bring Christ back into Christmas. When I was young all you seemed to be able to buy were Christmas cards with some from the Nativity story on them. Now it is harder and harder to find anything remotely Nativity based. And it isn’t people of other religions, young people, etc who are shying away from this. I was at a local writing group, made up mainly of white middle class retired men and women and we had 3 writing exercises over a 2 hours workshop, all Christmas based, and yet, apart from one I did, there was not a single nativity based story came from it.

So I do wonder if, in and out of Church, we forget Jesus and we try to muster all these things in our own strength which is why that poor old Joy candle spluttered and went out and had to be relit a few times. I think maybe we need to put the Real Jesus – the one of love, of acceptance, of caring for the poor, the fatherless, the refugee, the one who loved the WHOLE world – back into Christmas.

I’m going to finish with a quote from Christine Sine that helped me make sense of what is being asked with Joy

Then I realized: Is the problem that my understanding of the joy of Advent is all wrong? This is not a joy of happiness or of fulfillment, but a joy of anticipation. It is best expressed in the middle of disaster and heartache and violence that destroys nature and people and cultures. In the midst of these things, our hearts long for the fulfillment promised in the birth of Christ. And in that longing we respond in whatever way we can

Meditation Monday – What’s All This About Joy?

So I will take joy in the anticipation that what was promised at Christ’s birth – the joy to the whole world, the Christ at the beginning, middle and end of Christmas – will come to pass and wars and hatred will cease. In that I place my joy this season.

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light sunrise

Light Banishes Darkness

Sunrise over my park but not this morning

This morning there was a sunrise very much like this over my park as I was walking the dogs this morning. What struck me was that all of us said “wow look at the sunrise” and no one said “look at the darkness”. We were all focused on the light.

I think this is what Jesus wants for us all. Not for us to focus on the darkness within us or within our world but he wants us to focus on his light shining and chasing away the darkness.

One of the things my QEC practitioner suggests is to not try and analyse why we feel a certain way – as in not try to look at where it comes from – and to not blame self or others or our past or our memories or whatever, but to change the now. Basically to look at the light of where we are now, to put in those new beliefs and to move on changed and healed.

I think Jesus, Light of the World, wants us to focus on their light, on the new creation we are growing into, and to let go of the darkness; our fears, anxieties, our not “enoughs”, our shoulds and oughts. Basically to let go of guilt and shame and to walk in the freedom and healing that light brings.

As we all know from dog walking as the sun comes up it is much easier to see not only who else is in the park but also to pick up dog poo when it gets lighter. We focus on the light and things are easier.

So even though the days are getting shorter I am going to do my best to focus on the 8 or less hours of daylight we’re getting but also focus on the light that is Jesus even in the dark.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:5

Categories
Appreciate freedom

Jesus Light Of The World

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:1-5

Too often, I think, we see the “darkness” as the world around us – wars, greed, poverty, world leaders, etc etc and we pray that “they” will change. Yes those things are darkness things. But I think too often we forget the darkness within each one of us, the darkness that makes us fearful, anxious, worrying, not able to give freely, not able to fully lean on God and trust them, that makes us always need answers rather than to live in the mystery.

For me this video from Instagram says much clearer what we can be like when we let the darkness take over and also how we can be. [Do try to watch it all because it helps make this post make better sense if you watch all of it]

So are we willing to do the work, to let Jesus, who is the light of the world, shine into our own dark places? Are we willing to surrender our dark places to a God we cannot see, often cannot understand, and who sometimes seems to do things we rather they didn’t do?

But if we are willing to do that via whatever means that change the thoughts that are so deeply imprinted in our minds then we can be like the guy on the video – at peace and appreciating what is around us.