Legacy

Today's thought for the day ... 

It’s never too late and it’s never too early to think about the kind of legacy you want to leave behind. ~Ruthie

The True Joy in Life

This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), the great Irish playwright, awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize for literature. 

Grace

I love this quote (the one in the picture about grace) by Anne Lamott and wanted to share it with my readers today. I hope it blesses you. 

There is someone I met a year ago, well almost a year ago and this person that I met almost a year ago has experienced one very difficult year. Today is a very special day for her. I've thought about her on-and-off all day today. I prayed that today was richer, lighter and happier than what it felt like a year ago today. I hoped and prayed that she celebrated life and the extraordinary and beautiful woman that she is. I prayed that she felt super celebrated and loved and that her day was filled with gladness and beauty and indelible moments. If this special someone is reading this today, I want you to know that I have been praying for you. And if your days or if some days still feel difficult and heavy, don't believe the lie that it will feel like this always. Please believe in a better tomorrow despite how things might look and feel. Please remain hopeful and believe that God see's you, and hears you and wants to heal you. 

I trust and pray that you have been carried by my many prayers and that your days are filled with lightness and not darkness. Sometimes things happen for reasons we may not always understand and yes, these life-hurts will cause us to feel angry in our pain. Please choose better and not bitter. Bitter will kill you, it will cause you to feel dead inside and better will heal you. It's okay to be angry, just don't park yourself there. Allow me to share with you that you are never far from God or His heart or His healing touch. He loves you extraordinarily and if you seek Him and lean on Him, He will help you and strengthen you and heal you fully, totally and completely and in a beautiful and super-natural way. He will walk with you and guide you and help you see and understand in ways that will amaze you. 

My wish for you today, on your very special day is for God to bless you with the desires of your heart. I wish and pray that you will live and move and breathe with the knowledge that you are deeply loved by a holy God. I pray that you can feel His love in your inner-being. May God bless you in wild and extraordinary ways. 

Until then, remain hopeful. Keep on keeping on. Hope-fully. Seek-fully. Trust-fully so you can live-fully to experience joy, peace, truth and love as you have never experienced before. It can happen. God is way bigger than your pain. Release it, release it all to Him. He can handle it. A better and brighter tomorrow awaits you lovely lady because God specializes and delights in creating beauty out the ashes in our lives. Allow Him to do that for you. He waits for you, patiently, lovingly and with open arms, arms stretched wide. Blessings. 

Until next time ... wishing you peace and wholeness and a life time of happy days.

xx, Ruthie



Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you. ~ 1 Peter 5:7

My new favorite quote

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.’ ~ Erma Bombeck

Isn't this a lovely thought?  I could not have said it better. I super love this quote. Yes indeed, this is my hearts desire ... 

Happy weekend!

xx, Ruthie

More Peace, More Joy

I can hardly believe it!  I have spent the last several hours writing four heart-felt letters to family members who are going through great difficulty and ... (this is the believe it or not part) I started filling out my Christmas cards, an activity I haven’t done in perhaps ten years. I spent hours upon hours, writing today.  When I write, I typically write using a computer but today I wrote by hand and with a writing instrument.  My fingers feel a bit cramped at the moment but my heart feels full. I thoroughly enjoyed writing each letter and filling out each Christmas card with words and desires and prayers for dear loved ones.

The other day, a fellow Facebook friend and blogger posted a provocative statement on Facebook, one I have claimed as my holiday mantra. I loved it so much that I re-posted it with permission on FB because it makes so much sense and partly because I hope it catches on.  It’s brilliant!

The person who wrote these lovely words is Shauna Niequist. She an author and blogger and if you would like to follow her blog you can click here. She wrote: “My intention for this holiday season: to choose quality over quantity, meaning over mania, people over pressure, relationship over rushing.” Isn’t that lovely? And doesn’t that make sense? If you’re reading this today, I hope you’ll choose this as your holiday mantra as well.

Now that the Thanksgiving holiday is over, I’m working on activities that will prepare my heart for Christmas. Christmas is such a lovely time of the year and some of us miss it because its become so commercialized and because we get caught up in "busy" and forget what it's all about. Every day until Christmas arrives, I’ve determined to carve out some quality and meaningful time to slow down and to do things that will nourish my soul and choose activities that will help me appreciate the season and the people in it.  Today I did that through letter writing and writing notes in my Christmas cards to friends and family. Yesterday I did this through spending time with family. 

The holiday season is in full gear now and this season my desire for you is the gift of more peace and more joy. If you have peace and if you have joy and if you have more of it, that covers a multitude of things.  And if you're struggling with peace these days and if you you're not experiencing joy in your life right now, when it happens, and it will happen dear one, it will cover a multitude of things as well. Think about that for a second. What would more peace and more joy feel like and look like to you?

My desire for you in this beautiful and sacred season is that you would think about things and find things to do that would bring you more peace and more joy and that your hearts would become so full that God’s goodness would overflow from it so that His Son would be magnified and glorified. When our hearts are full like that, we’re carried by His love and we become a blessing to others and promoters of more peace and more joy.  And that's always a lovely thing, isn't it? The world as I see it, could use more peace and more joy because there's such a shortage of that these days. The kind of peace and the kind of joy I desire for you is the kind that lasts, the kind that only happens super naturally, the kind that only comes from a holy God. 

In closing, may we all choose well in this season. May we all choose joy and peace and may we choose quality over quantity, meaning over mania, people over pressure and relationships over rushing. 


Until next time, blessings to you and yours,

xx, Ruthie


Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. ~ Matthew 5:9


How wonderful it is, how pleasant, for God's people to live together in harmony.    ~ Psalm 133:1

Today's Word: SUCCESSFUL

http://johnmaxwellteam.com/successful-2/

My friends and family know all too well that I have a great passion for words. If you've been following my blog for a while, you might have gathered that as well. I love words because words are incredibly powerful and because words create change. The right words encourage, motivate, inspire, empower and heal. The wrong words are toxic. They're hurtful and they break people down. They destroy. I like choosing words that breathe life into people. I prefer to choose words that encourage and empower. That's my preference and I believe it's how I'm wired. In April 2009, I wrote a piece about my love for words. If you're interested in reading it, you'll find it in my blog under April 2009. It's called: I Love Words! Today I happened to find a video from author and speaker John Maxwell. John Maxwell has written extensively through the years about leadership. I've read many of his books and attended a leadership conference during the summer of 2005 where he spoke about adding value to people. I walked away a changed person. It blessed me richly and it helped me become more demonstrative in appreciating others. If I can find a video on what he spoke about regarding adding value to people, I promise I'll post it on my blog. It's worth listening to.

The above link covers the topic of what success really means and what a successful person might look like. His words are true and resonate with me 100%. I hope this video blesses you today.

Until next time, 

~Ruthie

Success is defined inwardly, by who we are. ~ John Maxwell

Those who know you best, love and respect you the most. If you can say that's true in your life then you my friend are successful. ~ John Maxwell 

Sacred mornings

I'm basking in a magnificently quiet and slow morning. I love mornings like today. The sun is shining gloriously and the wind is soft and kind. The current temperature is 62 degrees Fahrenheit; yes a perfect fall morning indeed. I’m writing to you from my deck with a cup of coffee. My deck faces a large empty field and life feel tranquil from this view. As I write, I hear church bells tolling from the other side of the field, along with the sweet sound of birds and crickets chirping. What a beautiful and melodious sound as I contemplate a solitary morning. I’m thankful for moments like this. Moments like this feel sacred because I feel peace, I feel content, and I feel connected to my Maker, such an amazing feeling. Sacred mornings like today fill my heart with gratitude, such a beautiful gift. Thankful ... 

A good morning always begins with a strong cup of coffee and a spirit of thankfulness ...

Until next time, 

~Ruthie

Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee. ~ Saint Augustine

My Favorite Writing Quotes

To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make. ~Truman Capote

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own. ~ Carol Burnett

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~ Anaïs Nin

Words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. ~ Lord Byron

Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountains; God composes, why shouldn't we? ~ Terri Guillemets

If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad. ~ Lord Byron

For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word. ~ Catherine Drinker Bowen

Your words were found and I ate them, and your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart. ~ Jeremiah 15:16 (NASB)

Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head. ~ From the movie Finding Forrester

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster. ~ Isaac Asimov

Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of her life, every quality of her mind is written large in her works. ~ Virginia Woolf

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it. ~ Anais Nin (French-Cuban Author)

A writer is a reader who is moved to emulation. ~ Saul Bellow

I am sure that some people are born to write as trees are born to bear leaves.   For these, writing is a necessary mode of their own development. ~ C. S. Lewis

We write because the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.   ~ Nikki Giovanni

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all. Shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things will fill from behind, from beneath, like water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.  ~ Annie Dillard

Dear Reader:

I hope you enjoyed reading these quotes as much as I did. I can’t imagine life without writing. Writing for me has been a process of discovery. The more I write, the more I discover.  

My goal in life is to document my important life moments not only through writing, but with photography as well. Beginning in 2012, I’m going to begin posting my photography. My words and my photography, that's what I want to leave behind as my gift.  

As always, many thanks for reading.

Blessings …

~Ruthie