Showing posts with label July-2023_PiecesOfMeOverTime (AlwaysMeKelly). Show all posts

Monday, July 31, 2023

07-31-2023-JULY_PrayersThoughts_PiecesofMe (AlwaysMeKelly)

***Music, and/or daily scripture, verses, motivational shares pulled from public domains, and made available for public consumption from public domains such as YouTube and/or BibleGateway, unless otherwise called out work of other Copywrites, Creators, Influences, Artists, or Authors. ***

Monday July 31st , 2023

Thought Daily Devotions from Biblegateway.com Daily Verse

John 1:12-13 ICB @Biblegateway.com

¹²But some people did accept him. They believed in him. To them he gave the right to become children of God. ¹³They did not become his children in the human way. They were not born because of the desire or wish of some man. They were born of God.

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John 1:12-13 NIV @Biblegateway.com

¹²Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

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John 1:12-13 MSG @Biblegateway.com

^9-13The Life-Light was the real thing:

Every person entering Life

he brings into Light.

He was in the world,

the world was there through him,

and yet the world didn’t even notice.

He came to his own people,

but they didn’t want him.

But whoever did want him,

who believed he was who he claimed

and would do what he said,

He made to be their true selves,

their child-of-God selves.

These are the God-begotten,

not blood-begotten,

not flesh-begotten,

not sex-begotten.

Read full chapter

Thinking Out Loud – Journal Thoughts/Prayers / Mind Maze Overflow

And just like that we close out the month of July 2023 with many still holding on for dear life while others are mourning the loss of loved ones or fighting desperately in prayer for God to recover and restore all the broken pieces into something more beautiful in any days ahead.

Life has no favorites when humanity is at the wheel. When you least expect it everything you chased, and made your life’s work is suddenly changed, gone or no longer has meaning all the while others are out there trying to just get a piece of what you have not caring who they harm along the way while dealing with their own day to day themselves and not leaning in and having greater hope.

Of course, in some places of this universe hope is lost due to humanity making its own rules. Darkness haunts every one of us at some point and time or another. Prayerfully we have a strong foundation of hope filled friends and family that during those times we never forget the light of Jesus.

This is not a test and none of us are getting out of here alive. But are we choosing to live while we are here? Or are we too busy trying to ride the coattails and tap into those we are given a connection to take pieces of their lives and call it our own?

Well, it is Monday and I wish I knew why this mind maze is spinning here today. Perhaps the sadness of knowing of more loss in the community fighting the good fight. Perhaps the overwhelming question of why wars, bullies, harmful disgusting actions against innocence or just really down to earth good people at times is more overwhelming than not.

Perhaps it just is what it is until it’s not.

As a parent, sister, aunt, grandmother, friend etc.... I have lived and seen far too many broken pieces even with my own heart strings tied up in knots over caring too much for maybe people, places, or things I should not.

Sometimes wondering if I will ever get back up after entrusting and believing in people too much. Forgetting we are all human and although my sin and ways may not be as bad as the next. Perhaps who they are is all they know.

Sadly. Often putting too much love and care towards those that feed your soul really leaves a mark when you learn they too are just human and out there living a life that sometimes leaves scars on others.

I have had a big heart over my journey, and I am sure it is not done yet. However, when the scoundrels try to manipulate you because that is all they know, or they are in a place where they can, and they have no other faith or moral values. Well, it is what it is if you let it in. It can be a very deep subject at times depending on who it is with. You could feel like you are drowning.

Interpretation is everything. There will always be someone trying to convince you that your thought process or your actions do not fulfill their needs at the time well you become the mean or misguided one. And although none of us are meant to live life on our own. That does not mean give away your identity to someone else to control. No matter what or who they are.

You can love abundantly without allowing anyone to dictate who you should be or what you are doing. Although morally sound, friends and family is a plus to help you live productively and healthy.

Circle yourself with Jesus’s believers, those who truly abundantly know we are all flawed, and they love you for who you are and not what you can or cannot be or do for them at the time and place your connection is.

Don’t get me wrong good, bad, or indifferent we all have desires that outweigh common sense at time and later it may prove to just be a lesson or maybe it was / is a blessing for the time and place. Sometimes we dive right into the fire, and it takes everything we have got to get out while others we never make it.

May we never stop fighting the good fight in trying to be our best selves and purpose forward growing and doing our best to stay out of the weeds that will eventually choke us out.

Far from perfect but still blessed up another day to keep trying. Kind of like; all those dieting schemes in my youth because I was not enough the way I was.

Now all I try to do is remain healthy and enjoy every day I am given even if it does not look like it through others kaleidoscope eyes.

I can tell you it has been a very long time trusting fully anyone on this planet thanks to my own scars of life, yet I don’t think I will ever stop being in love with some of the greatest motivators in life. Be it through lyrics, a big screen or just someone standing next to me and all they are.

Even with nerves get up and push forward. Do your very best and even if you don’t succeed know someone else can use your strength and courage.

As I watch some of the kids I have known since babies growing forward while shedding tears for others, I have known a lifetime or just impacted by beautiful souls and their losses. There will never be anything closer than the goodness of God if only you can grasp on and hold it as your life really depends on it.

Jesus is there waiting for all of us in the good, bad and so indifferent. We all see, feel, hear, and smell the sweet aroma of life and what it should be according to who we are. We are all creations in the image of God so please treat yourself with love and kindness and know even if they don’t love you back or things don’t go the way we think they should. God’s plan is so much better.

We all believe in something, just because I may not agree with what you do or believe does not make us any less. Greatest gift of freedom of will, freedom of choice. But no where was it to be so we could hate or use and abuse anything or anyone in humanity. Anyway, random thinking and this mind maze can take you all over the place then right back down the rabbit hole looking for the right pill that will solve worldly issues.

We will never find it. Only Jesus can!

Jesus be with all of my brothers in this universe in strength, peace, love and protection. May we fight the good fight to shine brightly and help others find you and when we cannot. May we know to whom we belong and gain strength and courage each moment in all we do that you allow us. Be with all the souls who have been called to leave this universe into the next.

Thought Movers, Motivations Touching to the Soul coming from YouTube.com / Facebook, Local Worship, or other public venues.

7-30 New Life Christian Church Spring Hill (Fans and Followers

Loui Giglio Talks about Laminin (short)

Panic! At the Disco: Kaleidoscope Eyes [Lyric Video]

Austin French - Jesus Can (Official Lyric Video)

Katy Nicole - In Jesus' Name - (God of Possible)

Songs of Our Identity in Christ

TobyMac // Álbum Life After Death - Playlist

Thursday, July 27, 2023

07-27-2023-JULY_PrayersThoughts_PiecesofMe (AlwaysMeKelly)

Thursday July 27th , 2023

Thought Daily Devotions from Biblegateway.com Daily Verse

Hebrews 12:1 ICB @Biblegateway.com

Follow Jesus’ Example

12 So we have many people of faith around us. Their lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way. And we should remove the sin that so easily catches us.

Read full chapter

Hebrews 12:1 in all English translations

Thinking Out Loud – Journal Thoughts/Prayers / Mind Maze Overflow

Been super busy with a little of that over these past days since the last five minutes to see what this mind maze has to come out. This morning reading about and looked at some of the first people to be photographed and pieces of their bios. I am reminded we all get there in God’s timing. Everyone has a story and although some are very well known in the books of history after they passed on and left this earth. They are known for their good, bad and indifferent. Be it the good works they did after they became free of slavery to help others, or just authors of life and poetry.

One thing for me to remember is even if, even when never stop putting your words to paper or dancing to music even if it is out of tune. Life and the rhythms of our hearts beating is meant to be full and abundant of all that fills us with deep gratitude and lasting joy. Not 5 minutes of all that is temporal. Although that does make us feel good at times. As long as it does not come at the cost of anyone else.

The summer has flown by even though the heat of the nation is above boiling in more ways than one. Be it global warming or just the hearts of mankind fueling the blaze across the nations trying to make the world see them.

No different from back in history. Some do really kind beautiful things for humanity while others selfishly do whatever they feel like at the cost of life itself.

I have tried hard over the years to not judge unless it puts me or my family or those close to me in harms way. It does not mean I do not have boundaries and/or choices I make to stay clear or even at times speak up to make a change of those things that can spiral out of control and choke out the very heart strings that my own being is sometime entangled.

Surely the lessons I am granted daily from even as close as conversations with the sweetest women I know my elderly mother when sometimes things come out of her mouth that are mean and reflect all together judgement that in the wrong ears would clearly cause hurt and pain. To my own sometimes looking and thinking out loud what are you thinking😊

I still don’t know if I am going anywhere in my journey although I have been beyond blessed to know where I have been. Some of the fragments etched deep within this soul and love beyond anything anyone could ever give while brokenness lined up the stairwells to the clouds of promise.

Thankful for all the little moments when Jesus took the wheel and aligned my spirit. In all those moments of uncertainty and losing control sometimes beyond lost to even my own direction. All the while knowing now what I did not know then. Our big God has always been in control all we had to do was respond to His silent calling. So beyond blessed He is unchanging and always the God who stays and we learn that we are the one’s with our choices and freedom of will that moves away.

We think at times that because of what we do we are not qualified or become unjustified in some way to not be worthy of good things. Many times, we will start pointing out all that is wrong around us just because we feel so lowly in our place and time. Yet Christ has always been the great redeemer with a light so boldly bright reflecting all that can be all that is and all that the beauty in the small things of a child’s cry or the colorful birds of the air bring. Hard to understand yes in today’s society if you cannot stand hearing a crying baby such a terrible analogy or if you could care less about bird or any of God’s beautiful creations of mountains, wide open crystal blue waters of the vast oceans, amazingly colorful rainbows of promise to beautiful creatures of birds of all breeds. Wild horses, rolling meadows of vast color and scent. As the earth is a vast speck compared to other planets those examples are like the dust in the wind that we lose sight to hold gratitude within and for.

As I watch youth fading from my elders and those in the tweens thinking they know it all while fighting every step of the way not listening and remember all of the judgment and casted shards that my choices made over time. Purposely and at the hands of others. Here I am. As is anyone reading. We are /were given another day to get up and find gratitude and make it count a billion seconds in every day given filled with opportunity through all the that comes to praise and pray and prove forward the will of God granted within humanity.

Where does that leave me? God only knows my future; I can fight forward and keep getting back up until He says it is done. Prayerfully I and all I am connected will do just that and see the light through any darkness and where we are weak rely on and cling to all that is his purpose plan and will. While being protected for eternity.

Thought Movers, Motivations Touching to the Soul coming from YouTube.com / Facebook, Local Worship, or other public venues.

Loui Giglio Talks about Laminin (short)

Carrie Underwood - Jesus, Take The Wheel (Official Video)

BIG GOD BY TERRIAN LYRICS VIDEO

Matthew West - The God Who Stays (Lyrics)

The Rolling Stones - Wild Horses (Lyrics)

TobyMac - Move (Keep Walkin’) (Lyric Video)

Big Daddy Weave - Hold Me Jesus (with Lyrics)

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

07-18-2023-JULY_PrayersThoughts_PiecesofMe (AlwaysMeKelly)

Tuesday July 18th , 2023

Thought Daily Devotions from Biblegateway.com Daily Verse

Psalm 119:7 MSG @Biblegateway.com

^1-8You’re blessed when you stay on course,
    walking steadily on the road revealed by God.
You’re blessed when you follow his directions,
    doing your best to find him.
That’s right—you don’t go off on your own;
    you walk straight along the road he set.
You, God, prescribed the right way to live;
    now you expect us to live it.
Oh, that my steps might be steady,
    keeping to the course you set;
Then I’d never have any regrets
    in comparing my life with your counsel.
I thank you for speaking straight from your heart;
    I learn the pattern of your righteous ways.
I’m going to do what you tell me to do;
    don’t ever walk off and leave me.   Read full chapter

Thinking Out Loud – Journal Thoughts/Prayers / Mind Maze Overflow

Another week has come and gone already. Time is fleeting and there is no do overs for our yesterday. Just lessons learned and messages shared to help those towards the path of hope and ever after eternal grace and mercy.

Woke this morning knowing I just want to be in His light. With abilities to see through the heart and eyes of Jesus. And all the good that is written and reflected in the history of God.

As I think over the past few years how this world has changed and how we are cancelling out everything. From people, places, and things. Just to fit our own selfish ambitions or moreover feelings we need to fulfill that never will be. I used to think who I was because of what other actions made me. I won’t lie, I DTA. Don’t trust anyone fully. Sadly, but safely, I guess the wall I have built over the lifetime I have been given has many broken steppingstones that got me here.

Thankfully I am able to hold dearly and through the depths of my soul the promise of God and the hope, peace and grace Jesus gives me. Nothing can ever give me that everlasting here and now.

Sure, I still sometimes believe too much in some people, places and things and pick myself back up off the floor hopefully putting the broken pieces back in a way that reflects the beautiful colors of God’s universal kaleidoscope. While still trying to grow forward.

Thankfully I am able to see even better through the muddied waters the storms of life present. All my hurts, habits and hangups. Whew!!! So thankful I was able to recognize who I was created by and the worth of all of God’s creations.

Thankful my anger that still sometimes shows up, has been calmed by Jesus himself on that boat.

The stress of day to day is beyond real. From real worries how will it turn out for the babies of this world, to when will those already grown find their peace and live righteously thankful for what they have; not what they think they deserve.

Would I be the person I am today if it were not for my own stubborn head banging lessons from the schools of hard knocks and even the darkness in humanity because they can. Most likely not. Although the dreams of survival have faded some of the mind’s eyes never forget.

Never forget where you were but don’t stay and live there. Let it go when you have been given the gift of life and grace.

We have to purpose daily through the hills and valleys of daily choice and response. We have to choose what we will faithfully know, what to hold on to and what to let go. Everything is given and taken away. Gratitude every day even if we have to search for the reasons. For each day we are allowed back up; there are the moments given with abundant opportunity for gratitude and growing forward. Be it alone or taking others with you. Although contributing to the light and growth of others always fills my cup.

Just as the breath in our very lungs, every single thing we are, we are given belongs to Christ alone.

I have nothing I have done, nothing I will do. Nothing I can offer, nothing I am given. Worthy of the blessings and peace Christ has allowed me.

Thankful the sting of death that lurks among us, among me; fades even when the tears in memory never will prayerfully. Even when the pain that cuts like a knife watching the destruction and robbery of what political, power and greed and all our selfish ambitions cause.

I pray I never quit. I pray all I am connected are consumed by Christ alone.

I am perfectly broken and each time my pieces are shook into something new visual opportunistic choice to be made. I know forever to whom chose me, I did not choose Him. It just turns out I finally heard the whispers through all the war-torn valley steps made.

May I never stop writing about the purpose of owning what we believe in. May I never fade in what I am to you Jesus. For one day I will be dancing on those streets of gold with all who you have blessed me with. Yet until that day may the strength to just breathe be full of your awareness and truth.

Thank you for then, thank you for now and all the in-between!

Thought Movers, Motivations Touching to the Soul coming from YouTube.com / Facebook, Local Worship, or other public venues.

Loui Giglio Talks about Laminin (short)

In the Light DC TALK Lyric Video

Broken Vessels (Amazing Grace) [Official Lyric Video] - Hillsong Worship

TobyMac - Faithfully (Lyric Video)

Gratitude (Chosen Performance) - Brandon Lake

Slow Fade - Casting Crowns (Lyrics)

Jonny Diaz - "Breathe" (Official Lyric Video)

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

07-10-2023-JULY_PrayersThoughts_PiecesofMe (AlwaysMeKelly)

Tuesday July 10th , 2023

Thought Daily Devotions from Biblegateway.com Daily Verse

Jeremiah 32:17 CSB @Biblegateway.com

¹⁷Oh, Lord God! You yourself made the heavens and earth by your great power and with your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you!

Read full chapter

Jeremiah 32:17 in all English translations

Thinking Out Loud – Journal Thoughts/Prayers / Mind Maze Overflow

My goodness what a day yesterday. Normal day I guess, work at 6:30AM, appointment at 9, back to work and squeeze in as many meetings as possible, and rush over to the auto mechanics for a 3:00PM appointment which I think should only take tops a couple hours but planed 1.5, to sit for 3. What was done you wonder. A tire replacement and oil change.

Had to be done being one tire just would not hold air anymore. And what a learning experience everywhere I go. Last time I put it in for an oil change they never put the sticker on the window for me to track. Come to find out they never did the oil change… As I sit shaking my head. With that yes, I need to go get in my glove box and double check that last receipt of work done.

Then I get home and you know how your just spent from waiting.

I walk into the lions den where my sweet loving little instead of asking for permission has just been going and taking mom’s and sisters clothing and stashing it to wear and they have been wondering for weeks where it has been going and they know where they left it.

I was shaking my head big time; because there was nothing Gram could do at that point. We all know right from wrong. We all know not to lie and absolutely never take anything that does not belong to us without permission as it is considered stealing.

Tough being a kid but tougher maintaining a house for stability for others when there is always something going on. That well, been there done that, wrote a book and care not to live in other people’s drama.

Dozing off listening to an audio book learning about fasting and how it can improve your important numbers such as glucose, triglycerides, and yes cholesterol and how they all go together. Only to be at that almost gone zone to be woke up from someone text messaging me. I use my phone as an alarm and don’t believe in turning it off. Silly me.

It was about 10:30 so I roll over to look and its grown people sending me a message about how immature my daughter is and that she threw another temper fit. Mind you these people are in or almost in their 40s.

I won’t repeat the message, but it did call for me to become wide awake and immediate call my daughter. Being she was supposed to be working and I was baffled by where she was at and when this happened. Not to mention if she was okay or did something change since she walked out to go to work.

Mind you there are three sides to every story: his, hers and the truth.

I would not doubt she had a melt down and temper fit. Just as it does not surprise me the lack of respect a grown man has for his girlfriend’s mother and the language used in the text message.

It gave me the flashback when I was at my wits end with my ex-husband and all his controlling, manipulating abusive ways finally pushed me over the edge and when he was going after the kids, I finally lost it and cleared the kitchen counter off and said if you want to beat on someone pick someone other than a kid. I became a rag doll that day and literally was grabbed by the shirt and slammed through the kitchen table. I screamed at the kids to get out of the house, and I cannot tell you how many walls I bounced off that day. But when it was all done, and he stopped; I stood up and said with tears flowing like a waterfall. I hope you feel like a real man now. I made my way to the phone and called family to come get me and the kids and never went back. I had lost everything. I had been out on my own since a teenager and never easy but supported myself; didn’t have a great car but had one, a job a 401K LOL; and when I married, he took control of everything, and I left that day with nothing buy my children and severely wounded pride and emotional stability.

Yet I climbed back out of the pit and though never married again since learned to love myself and others.

I know my daughter can be hard to deal with. Her high anxiety and the way she deals with things. And her so called Fiancée who has a very bad temper that part takes and allows triggers to set him off.

I don’t know what she did to get him ticked to where she threw a basket of cologne, powder and whatever else off the dresser onto his bed and leave.

But I do know I had to tell her if she went back over there last night, she was risking paying the price.

Yeah, my family carries the capital D in dysfunction well for generations.

I am so glad my God is forgiving and steadfast to never let go when we as humans do.

So, three weeks ago one of my other heart strings were on their last 2.5 weeks of a 28-week contract working for American Cruise lines. After each person finishes their 28 weeks successfully the cruise line gives them a 3000-dollar bonus.

Again, there is his, her and real truth; and although I know this heart string very well and I know this was corporate greed and a way to play out not living up to their end of the agreement.

She was a server and just came not the final ship. The previous she received the award for outstanding service or something like that.

When she first got on this ship, she requested a transfer back to the boat she just came off of. But nothing was said or done. She made a complaint about discomfort and behaviors that should not be. And 3 weeks in to the last 5. Out of the blue her manager walks up hands her a paper and says you got 10 minutes to catch your ride and be off the boat. She asked what it was all about and they said you asked for a transfer didn’t you.

So she scrambled rushing out leaving her laptop behind and to find someone stole her debit card from her belongings in the room where multiple people shared a room.

The driver took her to the train station and once there she received an email you are immediately fired. No reason, other than the days to follow rumors.

How Ironic, 2.5 weeks before final pay out, they put a 21-year-old kid on a train for a 36-hour ride home with no reason, no opportunity to plan for safety etc.

Talk about stressed for my family. Well, she made it and I was reminded today God is in control. Just as he was in my situations years ago; just as he is for my daughter and the disrespectful people she clings to. Just as He always will be.

It could have been so much worse. Bad things happen to good people all the time. Today in the news the trains are not running because of major flooding across our nation. She could have been on a train when the floods come.

I know maybe a little dramatic. You think what you will; I will as I will.

Do I hold concern for my daughter. Yes, it breaks my heart to know she is not at peace and filled with an inner joy and productively thriving. And she really has no one she can rely on to not fix the issues she has in life. But lean in on while she needs steadiness to work through.

How many times we just have to pause and knowing there is nothing nice to say at times do not say anything at all.

Let’s face it, life can be stressful. Not only from the choices we make that go south because we just didn’t know what we didn’t know at the time of making them. No matter if they turn out for or against us.

Add layers of tragedy, loss, or being caught up in circumstance which we may not ever be able to choose but have to deal with the fall out. It will be what we do with it next.

Am I a huge advocate for those who married and promised to love, etc.… to the end. To always work through their issues and reconcile. Absolutely unless is in harm’s way.

Am I a huge advocate of not giving yourself away thinking by doing so someone will always be by your side. Absolutely but not without my own hard lessons to learn.

We do not need anything but getting our soul right, good mental health, and morally viable productive next steps to be in synch with the very air we are given to breath and that takes the relationship with God that you can only have when you have found, fallen and walk with Jesus.

Even if I am wrong on that. It has given me more strength, peace, and courage to keep getting back up and making it through a journey only he allows my light to shine for.

The storms are going to come. As I listen to the thunder pounding outside today.

People are always going to be selfish sometimes more, sometimes less.

Kids need direction and we all need forgiveness. If we cannot reason or have someone to help us balance while on the wake board of life. Well, we learn to do it on our own with God or we end up clinging to what deflates us and eventually allows us to go under with no hope, no life, and no reason to want either.

My heart hurts for this world and it is a different hurt from what my own what now seem like growing pains were.

That little skinny kid that was used and abused with nothing but proving the world I mattered even if I took the wrong paths. To be able to count the blessings of all the brokenness and daggers that came with the climb.

We cannot take any of the material things with us of this world so at the very least may we know even when we work and think we deserve anything. Even when we get it for a brief second in time. We truly did not deserve anything at all. We should not store up for others to want, convent or even rob and kill to take it. To use us as steppingstones for their own temporal climb.

It hurts like hell when we see the real in people we put so much in as being good and worthy to want to be in our lives.

But it does not mean we have to hate, and become what others do to us. It doesn’t mean we need to give up because its hard. We just need to call upon the one that made us in the first place to identify what we are really here for.

I am still praying and looking every day. For me, for my family, for my losses. For all the broken heart strings and even greater losses that will come to everyone. Its just a matter of when. We all need redemption; we all need Jesus!

I am blessed to know He carries me in all my broken pieces. And I pray I never forget to whom I belong; but even more so that all I ever connect is allowed to meet Jesus’ right where they are before it is too late.

That we protect our innocence

That we fight for what is pure and truth and morally viable not just what we make our own pure truth.

That healing is the hand that reaches out to help someone up and not throw punches or anything because we just cannot deal.

That even if we never knew what we never knew as adults when we do know of Jesus. We become purposeful to grow the light and not spread the darkness in anyway.

No matter what I have been through; knowing the day you hung and were nailed to that cross where your blood ran down filling the earth for God to breathe life into every single soul that walks this earth. May I never be lost and unknown when it comes to know the worth you put in all your creations Jesus.

You already paid the price; we do not have to. We just need to redeem all that was lost back to what was paid and meet you where you are.

Good, bad or indifference. It is written; there are no surprises in your book that has been for thousands of generations. Thank you for allowing me to know you. Heal all that I am Heal all I have been given for your purpose and will not my own.

Thank you for your body of Christ and all my spiritual family. Thank you for the good, the bad and all that has been blessings and messages for those I am given.