A Healthy Helping of Beans ~ and a Change is Coming!

My Sweet Beans, Khloe will become 

a big sister in September!!

We are all so excited.

 ~

All of a sudden Khloe looks so big to me...

I suppose it's due to the thought of a newborn,

I mean,

wasn't she just a new born ???

So today I'm providing you all a healthy dose of Beans!

Okay, so it's for me

but you can watch :-)

If you've seen enough ~ exit now :-)

She is at the stage where she likes to play

pretend with her dolls and stuffed animals.

She loves this little mask I paid .99 for :-)

Her best buddies, Doc McStuffins and Toto.

She felt the baby need a cell phone....

 

I just love her in hats....

One day soon I hope to be showing off her hair.

So far,

 not so much......

 

She loves the camouflage fishing hat her Daddy brought her from his business trip....

Notice the photo below,

her looking to see if I can see what she's doing

without really looking at me....she has this look a lot lately....

You know your short on one end when your high tops almost touch your mini skirt :-)

We recently got in to building indoor forts...so like her Daddy was.

I was surprised to look over and see her sitting on my new couch and realized how big it is,

 so when 

I want her little I sit her on the couch!!

Today she arrived to some new friends.....Spring is knocking on the door.

A welcome kiss to each bunny she spied throughout the house....

There, 

I feel better after that good dose of the sweet beans....

Enjoying every moment with her one on one....

yep

a change is coming.....

Full heart, it's what echos from my heart today!!

Rain ~

We have rain in Southern California today,

not a common thing for us.

The rain gets it all nice and clean,

leaving behind a sense of 

all things fresh and new.

Life, 

better after a good rain,

even better after a good storm!

Remember that after your walking in it for awhile, 

there will be a rainbow when it stops.....

Have a great day!

“...I don't just wish you rain, Beloved - I wish you the beauty of storms...”
― John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

 ~

knowing there is an "after" the storm, it's what echos from my heart today...

On What is Hidden ~

 Read this quote slowly, read it again....

 ~

 Keep clear of concealment,

keep clear of the need of concealment.

 It is an awful hour when the first necessity of hiding something comes.

 The whole life is different thenceforth.

 When there are questions to be feared and eyes to be avoided

 and subjects which must not be touched,
 the bloom of life is gone.

Phillips Brooks

 I found the above to be such a powerful, strong quote.

It made my heart a bit heavy as I have known and know people who have 

concealed parts of their lives, attempted to keep so much of it hidden.
(Concealment and privacy are not the same)

I have also seen what it has done to them.

Eventually they do avoid....

avoid the questions

avoid the eyes

avoid conversation...
I've seen the bloom of life leave them.

I know of what I write,
I lived a portion of my life with things hidden,
at which time
there was certainly no "bloom" in my life!

  ~

A little lie is like a little pregnancy, it doesn't take long before everyone knows.

C. S. Lewis

 I've written about lies in prior blogs...

It's my pet peeve.

If something is hidden it often requires a lie(s).

Once a lie is spoken it generally requires another lie, 

which requires another....you get the point.

Soon there are so many lies one can't keep them straight.

Which then leads to having to avoid those you have lied to.

Why, because one can only keep so many lies straight.

 ~

Let your words be the genuine picture of your heart.

John Wesley 

 I think lies and things hidden are from, empty hurting hearts.

I believe both stem from insecurity and or shame.

 Insecure about their own goodness, a need to feel important,

to have a sense of being valued.

The saddest thing is this,

those who are fabricating facts are fooling few.

My heart becomes heavy because I see in them

 what they can't see in themselves.

I see good hearts, a willingness to help others,

the fun personalities,
much to offer of themselves.

I see value in them, just as they are.

I want to scream,

You will be liked 

You will be loved

Just as you are!
It's enough to be you .

 ~

There is so much freedom with truth.

Freedom and a sense of peaceful calm

that comes when those

 parts of life are no longer hidden.

The realization that those hidden things

should have been released long ago.

Carried  by you way to long......

The release your body feels when you finally set down the load.

Peace.

No need to carry it any longer, ever again.

Freedom

Once freedom and peace are sensed, you won't pick up that load again.

It's the luggage you can do with out.

It's choosing freedom and peace over the luggage.

There is no better feeling than that first realization

you're free, you have peace at last....

~

"So do not be afraid of them.

 There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed,

 or 

hidden that will not be made known.

Matthew 10:26

For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, 

and 

whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.

Mark 4:22 

Some hide the fact that they are believers in Christ for various reasons.

Christains are to be lights unto the world.

The study notes in my Bible say it well.

"Such a Christian is like a brand new light that never leaves the carton it came in.

If a lamp doesn't help people see, it isn't worth much."

     New International Version

So, whatever is hidden, good or bad is not a good thing. 

It will be brought out into the open....

If what your hiding isn't a good thing, 

I hope you put it down.

Put it down and walk away bathed in freedom and peace.

 

Wishing you peace and freedom if your load is heavy.

~

I'm hoping the others will

 take that light out of the carton.

Nothing concealed,

 it's what echos from my heart today..    

Authenticity ~

 As I've gotten older more flaws come to the surface.

I'm not talking visual things.

I'm speaking of the heart, of the words I use, in the behaviors I practice.
Those things that had followed me through my history,
those things keeping me from being authentic.

For many years I claimed to be a Christian yet not much in my life would

have indicated that to anyone.

My decision to become a Christian was sincere.

What I didn't know is that without learning more about

my faith, there wouldn't likely be growth,

therefore no reason to  

 changing attitudes and behaviors and starting healthier ones.
Becoming authentic.

People from my past that knew me...you really did know me.

What you likely didn't see was the me I wanted to be, the me I 

was trying to be when I was with my "Church friends".

I hadn't invested myself in the time it took to discover
 that growing in my Christianity was my road to authenticity

  If you put it to the test the belief couldn't be more true.

Hard to deny something when it actually works.

~

Among the many great things about admitting 

your weakness and vulnerability  is that it is so relaxing.

 I don't have to be a fake any more.

Dan Hayes

 I was disguised as living the good life with my friends.

I was in another on Sundays at church.

My heart felt it, but nothing much reflected my faith to others.
I wasn't allowing it to grow in me,
which prevented me from being authentic in my faith.

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others

 that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

 ~

Would I lose friends because of my faith if they saw the new reflection?
 As I began to grow in my faith and lose the disguise,
I have lost some friends.

They weren't comfortable with "the new me".

My authentic friendships are still around,

happy they can see a happier me!

I'm still me, I had just become more authentic.

Because I have a strong faith doesn't mean I'm not me any more,
I'm still the same kind of friend to you now as then....

I'm just a happier me.
I let go of the old things about me and put on the new.
A fresh start if you will.....

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, 
the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost 
and the bottles destroyed; but new wine is to be put in new (fresh) wineskins. –
Mark 2:22

 Jesus the something new in me, (the new wine)

which would be lost if nothing about me became new in order to hold on to it.

 Expecting the new to thrive in the old ways of me.

Not likely....

 ~

I'm real, I'm becoming more authentic daily.

Because I have stepped up to my faith,

does not, by the way,

mean that I am judging anyone else.

Yet,

 some will judge me because I am secure

 in talking about my faith and living it.

I'm not pushing it on you,

I'm not

 insisting you believe.
I've just no desire to be hypocritical about it.
 Allow me to believe, 

allow me 

to be the real me....

the happier me!

I want my faith to be reflected in how I live my life.

In the things I say, in my heart and in my behaviors.

 ~

 You want to mess up the minds of your children? Here's how - guaranteed!

 Rear them in a legalistic, tight context of external religion,

 where performance is more important than reality. 

Fake your faith. Sneak around and pretend your spirituality.

 Train your children to do the same. 

Embrace a long list of do's and don'ts publicly

  but

 hypocritically practice them privately... 

yet never own up to the fact that its hypocrisy.

 Act one way but live another. 

And you can count on it - 

 emotional and spiritual damage will occur.

Charles (Chuck) Swindoll

~

Oh how I wish I had read that so many, many years ago.......

~

I hear from many that they feel

 those in the church are hypocrites.

They are partially correct, some are.

There are hypocrites everywhere,

 including in the church, and

what a perfect place for them to be!

The hope is they are learning what their
 faith is really all about. 

When one attempts to really live it,

authentically,

the hypocricsy begins to leave....

at which time they too become " a happier them".

As I did...

So full of the truth,

they no longer have to fake anything.

~

Hypocrites in the Church? 

Yes, and in the lodge and at the home.

 Don't hunt through the Church for a hypocrite. 

Go home and look in the mirror. 

 Hypocrites? 

Yes. 
See that you make the number one less.

Billy Sunday 

~

If you practice anything, I hope it's being authentic 

in what you say you are.

Saying what we are doesn't not make it so,

walking what you talk,

that is authentic.

Thankful I chose a fresh start on the new me.

 The same publicly,

 as privately.

Doesn't make me perfect and doesn't mean I think I am.
I've still plenty of work to do on me.....

 Simply me striving to be more authentic daily....
"Making the number one less!"

 Authenticity, is what echos from my heart today.