Today God has blessed me with another year of life and I am not only grateful to Him for that but I also want to celebrate all that He had done in me.

As you know, I was born in October, the tenth month of the year, what we know as the Fall Season.   However, October really means eight and not ten and I was born in Argentina, not the USA and October is really the Spring Season.

Isn’t it funny how things aren’t always the way they appear?

As I reflect on my life I see how the enemy didn’t want me to succeed but God did and He has the final say in my life. Why?

Because it’s the way that I choose to live my life!

I choose to put Him in the driver’s seat. I choose to allow Him to guide me. I choose to allow the people that he has placed in my life to love on me and speak into my life. It’s a choice that I need to make daily!

I feel that this year has been a year of challenges, a year of personal growth and a year of many blessings and many opportunities!

Here are a “few” of the blessings that he has gifted me with this year:

1) My husband that is still healthy and able to walk. He brings joy into my life, he makes me laugh!

2) My first born is still home and God has been blessing her. She brings hope to my life.

3) My middle child has been faithful to her career of choice. She has also stepped into actively helping me in ministry by serving in our local church. She brings peace into my life.

4) My youngest child is doing well as she entered her second year of High School.  She has also started serving in the children ministry. She brings laughter into my life

5) My mother is closer to me and I am able to see her and share life with her.

6) My father is continuing to bless others with his gift of teaching

7) My middle sister is ministering to lives with her gift of singing

8) My brother in love is ministering into many lives as more doors are opening for him to serve as a pastor

9) My nephew is an example at his school and has been baptized in water and by His Holy Spirit

10) My niece continues to grow into a beautiful young lady also baptized this year of my life

11) God allowed me to start writing this blog.  A forum to be able to voice the things He gives me and shows me

12) He has showered me with many books

13) He has allowed me to be employed another year

14) He has allowed me to facilitate three book club sessions during this year

15) He has blessed me with deeper healthy friendships in my life, who value me for who I am

16) He has blessed be with taking unhealthy people out of my life

17) My youngest sister continues to bless me with her love

18) My brother in law continues to make me proud as he serves our country.

19) He has brought me to a church family that celebrates my gifts and desires to release me into my God-given destiny

20) Pastors/Shepard that are authentic and loving

21) A team of women that are passionate in their gifting and service

22) Coworkers that genuinely care about me although I am over a thousand miles away.

23) Mentors and leaders that pour into my life

24) Facebook friends that actually “like” me and my status updates

25) A wonderful prayer partner who lives clearly across the country but is faithful in her prayers on my life.

26) A roof over my head and a bank that reached out to us to lower our interest rate

27) A brother and sister in law who gifted me the trip of my life time! Spain and France.

28) A healthy marriage of 24 years

29) Countless answered prayers!!!!!

30) Being able to celebrate 30 years of ministry with one of my life long mentors

31) For belly laughs!

32) My grandfather is still with us and healthy as can be

33) Doors are opening and I am able to serve women in California and encourage other leaders

34) A wonderful little pooch who can make me smile even when I don’t want to

35) A continued hunger and desire to be closer to Him

36) The ability to try several unique restaurants from different ethnicities

37) The ability to gain weight, which means that I am healthy and have food to eat

38) The opportunity to plan my first women’s retreat with an amazing team of women

39) The opportunity to laugh, cry, embrace and listen to joyous and hurting hearts

40) The cutest biological nieces and nephews AND some adopted ones too

41) The open door that my local church and church leaders gave me to lead our women’s ministry

42) A family that loves me and supports me each step of this journey

43) With everything I need to continue on my journey and next year

So you see,  it would easy for me to focus on the “negative” things that have happened in my life or I can chose to focus on these “few” things  I have been blessed with this year.  I also know many, many more are coming my way because I choose to celebrate the gift-giver and not neccesarily the gifts in my life.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post and for celebrating our one year anniversary of Just Breathe~

Be blessed and always remember to ‘count’ your blessings and Just Breathe!

D.L. Moody was an ordinary man who sought to be fully and wholly committed to Christ. God did extraordinary things through this ordinary man. Moody became one of the great evangelists of modern times. He founded a Bible college, Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, which sends out men and women trained in service for God. Are you an ordinary man or woman in whom God wants to do extraordinary things? God desires that for every child of His. Ask God to do extraordinary things in your life. Begin today to trust Him to accomplish great things for His Kingdom through you.*

*Today God Is First (TGIF) devotional message, Copyright by Os Hillman, Marketplace Leaders

Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall. Psalms 55:22

I have a habit of lighting a candle in my home office at about midday to get through the afternoon stretch.  Every evening I have to turn it off as I leave the office- I usually just blow it out.  However, this time I decided to use the pretty lid that comes with the candle to put the fire out.

I was amazed at what I saw.

As the oxygen stopped coming in the candle got- choked up!  The inside filled up with smoke and put the fire (put the light out).

I am a visual person and God knows (because He wired me this way) that this would have an impact on me.  I could have easily just placed the lid and walked away but the image captivated me.

I sat and watched.

The poor candle was dying slowly by being choked-deprived of it’s main source!  I wonder how many of us “put a lid” on God on how much He can be involved in our lives and choke by trying to “fix the issue ourselves” or by “trying to take care of things our way”.

My friends, without God in our lives- OUR LIGHT GOES OUT!!

We are USELESS to those around us!

We no longer provide others and ourselves with the sweet fragrance that only a constant source of God’s oxygen can provide.

Before you try to put a “lid” on God remember that He not only cares about you and your life but He will also sustain you.

This week as you tackle your “life” remember to Just Breathe and stay connected to your source of oxygen so you don’t choke up!

22 God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. 23 They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! 24 I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left.  Lamentations 3:22-24

I almost didn’t want to open my Bible this morning.  Can you believe that?

Before you start shouting at what an awful Christian I am- HEAR me out.

During my devotional time and alone time with God yesterday he gave me a wonderful revelation on a passage that I had read many times over however I now had a fresh perspective on it. An aha moment!

Sometimes we don’t want to let go of yesterday’s blessings and actually miss out on today’s blessings!  Is this resonating with anyone else?  Maybe it was just for me. 

I almost missed out because of a memory of a past good thing.  Was that memory amazing- YES!  Was it valuable in my walk with God- YES!  Will it leave a mark in my journey- OF Course!  But does God want to me to camp there or does He want to continue to fill my spiritual cup?

I believe that He wants to continue to bless me and show me things and I don’t want to stand in “my” own way.

Don’t forget of all the wonderful things that God has done for you.  The people of Israel built monuments to remember them however, don’t have your hands so full with yesterday’s blessings that there is no room for what there is to come!  He is a generous and loving Father and has so much more for you- more than you could ever imagine.

So don’t allow yesterday’s blessings to take the place of today’s!

Maybe this was just for me but if you were touched by this please let me know:-) AND, always remember to Just Breathe!

Hey friends, get excited today is not only Friday but a new day that God has gifted you with…enjoy it to the fullest!!! 

Don’t forget that He is holding you today!!!  And, as always, remember to Just Breathe!

Enjoy….AND Remember to Just Breathe!

He then restored the chief cup-bearer to his former position, 22 but he sentenced the chief baker to be impaled on a pole, just as Joseph had predicted. 23 Pharaoh’s cup-bearer, however, promptly forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.  Genesis  40:21-23

We all go through life either helping others out during a time a need or at times being the recipients of that assistance ourselves.

In the passage above, we read how Joseph was used by God to bring interpretation to a dream that the cup-bearer shared where Joseph told him that he would be freed from jail in 3 days.  During that moment Joseph, being in jail himself, asked the cup-bearer to remember him when he got out and to help him.  However, as scriptures tell us, “Pharaoh’s cup-bearer, however, promptly forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.”

How many times do we go through life forgetting what someone has done for us?  Giving us a hand when we least expected it, being a listening ear and even giving us wise counsel when we needed it the most.

It’s so easy to seek people out in our lives when we are in need or even, let’s call it for what it is, when we are “desperate” and as time passes we forget.

Today, I challenge you to reach out to someone that perhaps you haven’t spoken to in a long time but was there for you during a time of need in your most “desperate” moments.  Let them know that you remember and appreciate what they did in your life.

And as always, remember to Just Breathe!

This song never stops to speak to me….a totally different perspective on blessings.  Stop and look at the blessings that you may have missed!  Enjoy and remember to Just Breathe!

From the day Joseph was put in charge, the LORD began to bless Potiphar for Joseph’s sake. All his household affairs began to run smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished. 6 So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn’t have a worry in the world, except to decide what he wanted to eat… Genesis 39:5-6

God always speaks to me through the story of Joseph–He never fails and I love it!

As I was reading this chapter this morning it yelled at me what it means to be a Christian, a true believer in today’s society.  We are to bring the people that we work with: either in ministry; secular work; even in our homes and family, a sense of peace that we are doing what we said we would.

Scripture clearly states how Joseph being put in charge made Potiphar feel—“he didn’t have a worry in the world”.  I wonder are we giving our bosses this feeling today?  When he/she assigns you a project does he/she have to keep on top of you to make sure that you are working on it and will meet the deadline or is he/she worry-free because you have been assigned to this task?  Now, I am not condoning micro-managing bosses in this blog but instead my focus is how do YOU make others in authority feel?

But this wasn’t an isolated incident in Joseph’s life, look what happened later on in the same chapter  “ ….the jailer put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. The chief jailer had no more worries after that, because Joseph took care of everything. The LORD was with him, making everything run smoothly and successfully.”

I challenge you today to take the time to evaluate how you make others feel.  Are they worry-free because you on the task OR are they worried because you are on the task?  Let us shine the light of Jesus through our testimony EVERYWHERE we go today and go above and beyond what you were asked to do.  Show the world that when a believer is on the task…they can relax that God’s got this….

After your evaluation, remember to Just Breathe !!!!