Weekend Challenge

Weekend challenge: Enjoy something of nature this weekend....a walk outside; listen to the birds sing; go sit by a lake, river, stream, or ocean and just be quiet; take in a sunrise and/or sunset; go geocaching; take a bike ride.

While taking in nature, leave your phone and electronic devices alone! Turn them off, don't take them with you. Experience REAL LIFE, not virtual life. 

If you take the challenge, share here what you did.

30 Days of Thanks, Day 26

Today I am thankful for sunsets and lakes, both of which help me to relax and unwind, and focus on how God truly blesses my life in the simplest, most beautiful ways.  

Gifts for Today

Today

find and savor 

3 gifts of time

Take Time To Disconnect

Take time to disconnect this weekend. Connect with your loved ones. Look people in the eye. Talk face to face. Enjoy the beauty around you!  Don't let life pass you by while staring at a screen.  The world is filled with amazing beauty and gifts.  Take some time to enjoy them!  

Gifts For Today

A gift silent, a gift still, a gift strong. 




Silent leaves tumbling to the ground and dancing across the landscape. The stillness in a lake, calm and peaceful. Strong coffee.

September Challenge, See the Gifts, Day 22

Gift Challenge

3 Gifts Quiet

Time on the prairie watching the sunset 

Morning time connecting with God, reading, & drinking coffee

Sitting next to a lake, just listening

Slow Down and See The Beauty

There are many ways to take time to slow down enough to see and appreciate  the wonderful gifts of beauty that surround you each day.  We have to be intentional about taking the time to slow down.  If we don't, our days get away from us and we find ourselves at the end of a day, realizing we didn't really enjoy any part of it.  If this pattern continues because we allow our busy lives to keep us from enjoying life, the beauty of the world slips away from us until we forget to even look for it.  

Slowing down enough to see and appreciate the wonderful gifts of beauty that surround us each day also involves being intentional about looking for it.  It means disconnecting from social media sites long enough to really look around at the world that surrounds us, seeing the small details in a flower petal, a dragonflies wings, or seeing something larger like a sunset or a sunrise, a smiling face, the sparkle in the eyes of a young child.  

Don't let life just pass by.  Take it in.  Find hope in the beauty of creation.  Find hope in the Creator who gave you those gifts.  

Take Care Of You

Taking time for yourself is essential.  Do you make time to take care of yourself each week? What's your favorite way to relax?

Take A Look

Slow down, look around, breathe it in.  See the beauty around you each and every day.  

Dare to Simplify

Take some time this weekend to relax, slow down, enjoy the sights and sounds of Summer.  When is the last time you were quiet enough to hear the birds sing? I am listening to several right now.  Stop and look at some flowers and see the intricate details woven through their petals and leaves.  Creation is filled with many wonderful gifts, open them up and enjoy the gifts you have been given.  

Yesterday, I enjoyed a slower day than what my schedule usually allows.  I thoroughly enjoyed sitting on my front porch, listening to water flow through our fountain, reading a book, sipping iced coffee, petting my dog, and looking at the flowers.  We all need to take some down time in our week and just soak life in.  Busyness tends to rob us of the simple gifts that surround us.  Taking time to unplug and unwind can calm our hearts, and help us to find joy in the simple things.  Take some time to put technology aside this weekend, and unplug.  Listen.  Relax.  See the beauty that surrounds you. Be intentional about enjoying the little things in life.  

Unplug

Silence.  Stillness

When you think of those words, what do you feel?  Relief?  Tension?  Uneasy?  Peace?  Desire to have, or the need to run far from anything resembling them?

In our loud and busy world, silence and stillness are something we tend to forget about, and on a rare occasion when we do have a moment of complete silence, I have noticed it can make many people uneasy, they don't know how to just sit and be still in silence and enjoy the peace that surrounds them.  

The book of Psalm's tells us to BE STILL....   If we are running around, filling our heads with continual media outlets, always connected to social media, gaming, noise, we can't be still.  The verse in Psalm 46:10 goes on to say: "be still and know I am God." To me, that makes sense because if our minds are always busy, always connected, how can it be quiet and focused on anything.  Instead, it becomes numb because we put it on overload, we don't think, we don't read, we don't put down the phones, computers, tablets, or shut off the TV, to just be, to reconnect with ourselves, our loved ones, and God.  If we did disconnect for a day or two, we would realize how absolutely exhausted our minds truly are, because they were not designed to have continual noise and input.  They were designed to rest.

"We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is the friend of silence.  See how nature--trees, flowers, grass--grows in silence; see the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence.  We need silence to be able to touch souls."   ~Mother Teresa 

We all need to get some silence and stillness in our lives, to disconnect and reconnect with ourselves, others, and God.  The more we clutter our brains with social media, gaming, TV, noise, the less we know how to think logically because we are being influenced by all the voices going in our head on a continual basis.    The more we fill our heads with noise, the less we hear the beauty of creation-birds singing, children laughing, the wind howling, waves crashing into the shoreline.  The busier we are, the less we notice beauty..sunsets, glistening snow, flowers, eagles soaring, the beauty in a smile. When we quiet the noise and still the busyness, we can see and appreciate God's creation, we can think clearly, and we can connect with others and with God.

Take some time and put in your schedule time for YOU.  Time for you to disconnect.  Turn your phone off, or leave it somewhere away from where you are.  Leave all devices that connect you to noise behind.  Take time to just sit and be quiet.  Time to listen.  Time to observe beauty.  Time to connect with loved ones, and with God.  During this time, don't go over your to do lists, just sit and be still.  Look around and find the beauty that God has placed around you.  It's not easy at first, it can actually be uncomfortable, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes.  

We all need this in our lives.  I disconnected some last week, not completely, but took some aspects of social media away, and I must say I really enjoyed it.  I had more time, so much more time.  I read a book.  I thought.  I wrote. I was quiet.  I enjoyed the beauty of creation. I found some of the creative outlets that being over-connected shuts down in us.  I spent time with loved ones.  I chose to do it.  I chose to disconnect.  It is a choice.  It's worth it.   

One small step of disconnection can make a difference.  What step will you take this week to disconnect, and reconnect with your thoughts, with others, with God?  





"I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction.  The world will have a generation of idiots." ~ Albert Einstein