Happiness and How To Get There

What is most important to you?  Family?  God?  Friends?  Drugs?  Sex?  Whatever you feed will grow.  In other words, if you spend quality time with your family in happy situations, love will grow.  If you spend your time with heroin, an addition grows that is very unhealthy and not safe.  If you want to grow closer to God, read the Word.  Talk to God.  Even yell at Him if you want.  God is not some bad man in the sky.  He loves YOU! Don't worry about what to pray... Just tell Him your heart's desire.  Listen for Him.  Listen for Him in songs, in the wind, in the light, in the sun.  Listen to him at the river.  Listen to Him thru meditation or prayer.  God loves YOU!  Not a broken you or a sin-free you - just YOU!!  There is nothing in this world that you've done that will separate you from God.  Adultry, murder, pornography, lies, alcohol, nothing.  Take a minute now to praise Him for giving you LIFE!  💜🕊️💙

Stained

If you don't know me, I'm crazy.  If you know me, you might think I'm "normal" however you would be mistaken as first of all, there is no "normal" and second of all, I hide my feelings well on most days.

So this is my first blog, on Blogger anyway.  I only have the time today to write because I'm so freaking depressed that I had to stay home yet another day because it was extremely hard to stop bawling at absolutely nothing.  Fun. 

Hell I probably have another blog floating around on some cloud somewhere, who knows.  But for today, this is it.  Hopefully I'll post here more often than I did on my supposed other blog site for which I have no idea if I have or not.   

I work full-time, go to school part-time, am 46 years old, married, no kids except my fur babies Moses and Pepper, love God to pieces, tired, love ketchup, and long walks on the beach as long as they don't involve drowning. 

I wrote a poem the other day and wanted to share... not because I think it's especially good, although I tend to like it of course since it's mine - but hey maybe someone reading it can relate and not feel so alone. So, I'll give you a little background about the poem and hopefully you're still reading and not bored out of your mind or being eaten by a large furry grasshopper.  

The other day I had a vision of a window that became stained glass (yes I have visions, surprise) and I saw it being shattered onto an abandoned church floor.  No one had been in this church for years except a few who had gone astray or simply looking for some comfort.  It spawned me to hurry write this poem which I tweaked a little, but it's mostly spontaneous.  Entitled "Stained", it represents a stained-glass window in a church and how a carpenter fixed this window, with the analogy that we can feel broken, picked up by someone, and made whole again - whether that be a stranger, a mentor, a friend, or a family member.  Sometimes it's just a child's smile or laugh.  

But as I was writing it, I realized that it also represents God forming us from the earth and how wonderfully and beautifully he made us.  We can feel lost for years, maybe our whole life, unless we find God or some kind of higher power to hold on to... hold on to faith, hope, and love.  And the greatest of these is LOVE!  

Stained

I grew
from a mound of rubble and mud.
Many worked, toiled
Until the wooden structure
was formed.

It's done!
They exclaimed.
It's beautiful
They marveled.
It's sturdy.
Upright.
Stately.
Holy. 

A few came, then more.
Years, decades flew,
and one day
at high noon
Stones, rocks, sticks flew high,
breaking what was beautiful.
A Kaleidoscope broken and scattered. 

Fragile, dangerous and bloody.
Beware, 
Pieces everywhere,
even hidden.
So.... many .....  pieces.
Small, large, jagged and splintered.
Lying dormant for an eternity.
Sleeping... weeping..... dusting.  

"How will I ever be whole again?
I'll never be a stately piece of art.
I was cracked in so many places.
I feel dead." 

But......
It remembers the sun.
It remembers the light, the music.
It remembers the love, joy, fears and tears
that were loud in this Holy Temple.  

Then....
a Savior gathered all gently
And carefully found the places
where the pieces go.
Not exactly - but close. 

He held these pieces gently
in his hands.
Carefully, artfully, lovingly.

With welds, I became stunning again.
Not perfect,
Still broken,
But Alive.
Together.

Ah.....
There's the sun,
The warmth..... 

It shines through me, 
a rainbow of colors that tell a story.
And one again,
I'm whole. 

c. 2015 Tammy Thompson Markstahler