faith

You Won But Did You Really

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You Won But Did You Really
By Bernadette A. Moyer

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When you have to kill and to destroy to make your point, have you won? Really won? I have been relatively quiet since the recent mass murders in San Bernardino California; however I have read much and processed much about this subject since it happened.

What argument or disagreement or different way of thinking and living merits mass murder? As a woman and as a mother I think the hardest part for me to process is how any young mother could willingly destroy lives and risk their own life and in doing so leave their six-month old baby behind?

Seems so very selfish to have a child and then take actions that will virtually ensure they will have lost their father and their mother due to their choice of terrorism. To kill innocent people just because they don’t think and believe like you do, over an ideology over a belief in a different God?

Then I think about people that don’t take a life but kill other relationships and other people so that they can get their way, selfishly at the expense of other people. People that lie and people that manipulate and people that willingly play the victim because their need to win and to be right is much more important to them than the well-being of others and for peace and love.

When the mission is purely to destroy, there are no winners. Who won in California? The people who killed innocent people are dead and their child is left without parents. That same anger and hatred that this young female terrorist used to destroy lives, that same amount of energy and that same amount of passion could just as easily been used to better her community and her family and her baby’s life.

A choice was made to destroy …

A choice was made to kill innocent people …

People’s lives are destroyed every day by the actions of other people, it happens in families; it happens on the job, it happens in a community. When the individual need to be right, when a group of people believe that their faith and way of thinking is superior to all others, who really is the winner here?

Whatever decisions we face in life, I would be willing to bet if it starts with hatred and with anger and with a willful desire to hurt others, it can’t possibly be good for anyone nor can it render a winner.

“Anger is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.” Mitch Albom from The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The terrorist actions they don’t make me want to stop going out or to go to public places but it does make me look closely at other people and their behaviors. It makes me less willing to openly embrace people I don’t know and I find myself saying to myself, “there are a lot of crazy, sick and hate-filled people in this world.”

A sad statement I know but then again there were no winners when terrorist attack and it doesn’t matter to me who the terrorist is and where they come from as much as the fact that it comes from another human being, and the harsh reality of how horribly some people, another human being is willing to go to treat other people so hatefully and with such callousness and cruelty …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

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Sweet Sweet Surrender

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Sweet Sweet Surrender

By Bernadette A. Moyer

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Surrender as in letting go of control and to yield to power. I am thinking about surrender is the sense of letting go and accepting that we are not in charge that there is a greater power. Our world and our existence here is bigger than just us. Not one of us decided on our birth date or our natural death date. In life there is really very little that we control. We didn’t pick our parents nor did they choose us. We take what we receive and we make the most of it.

As a marketing and salesperson for the bulk of my career in both for profit and non-profit, most of my sales training taught me to go after what I want. In my personal life I have done the same. Then there comes a time when you know that you’re not going to be the President or a model or any other fantasy that we may have thought was achievable at a certain age. We grow up and accept what our own unique gifts are as well as our limitations. It is nice to strive for goals, to set a goal and then go after it. Some things in life are a natural fit and meant for us and others may be a dream or a fantasy.

When we mature, we accept that we came with a game plan unlike anyone else’s, our life is unique to us just as God created for us. It is not for someone else to put their plan, their agenda on us. Our surrender is to the highest and greater power in the Lord, our God.

The most wonderful thing about growing older is the sweet surrender than comes from accepting ourselves “as is” and letting go of ego. Giving way to God rather than ego, (Edging God Out) is the sweetest surrender, we no longer have to be better than them or better than that, we are good and good enough as we are, just as God created us to be.

Jesus Take The Wheel

(Lyrics by James/Lindsey/Sampson)

Jesus take the wheel

Take it from my hands

Cause I can’t do this on my own

I’m letting go

So give me one more chance

Save me from this road I’m on

Jesus take the wheel

There is a natural happiness that comes from accepting ourselves and in that sweet surrender. Where we are, where we are supposed to be, what is ahead is exactly as God intended for us. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2

It is through the struggle that we find enlightenment. So many lessons are born of pain, but they are born to us. We are good and we are acceptable and we are perfect as only God created us to be.

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” Abraham Lincoln

“Something amazing happens when we surrender and just love. We melt away into another world, a realm of power already within us. The world changes when we change, the world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world.” Marianne Williamson

There is no beauty in the fight, fighting is never attractive, but there are gifts, blessings and true beauty in the surrender. Surrender is sweet, it is humble, it is without ego and false pride, our surrender allows us to be open and receptive and ready for us to receive God’s will. And God’s will is so much better than anything we could have imagined for ourselves.

“You cannot fulfill God’s purposes for your life while focusing on your own plans.” Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life

There is nothing sweeter than our surrender …

Bernadette on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

All I Ever Needed

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All I Ever Needed

By Bernadette A. Moyer

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All I ever needed I always had deep within me. Funny how when you stop searching and stop looking outward you come to know that all you ever needed you already had within yourself.

“There is something so pure, true, alive and wondrously unpredictable about a person who is feeling her inner voice. She is fully present in a way that people rarely are. And she is stepping out of the convention of who she should be to be who she is.” Helene G. Brenner, Ph. D.

When we are young we are constantly looking for affirmation from outside sources and from all others. As we mature we understand that affirming ourselves is our greatest gift and the gift that is most aligned with God.

This past year so many things literally came from heaven above, like missing pieces that just arrived and they arrived when needed. I have always believed in God and in His messengers; Angels. But unlike any other year this year everything I ever needed arrived when I needed it the most. This taught me to trust in the universe, in myself and in a deeper sense to trust in God above.

A few years ago my mother passed away and to say that we had any real significant relationship in decades would be a complete untruth. Our relationship was a huge void for me. Yet this year many things happened and people re-emerged that knew us, my mother and me from another time. A time when I was just becoming a teen more than 40 years ago and things happened this year that can only be described as ‘gifts from God.”

Without going into the details, I met people many people that embraced me and during this time something significant and profound happened that literally was more than 31 years due. It should have arrived over 31 years ago and only found its way to me this year, more than 30 years later.

It would affirm for me that someone or several someone’s from Heaven above were looking out for me. My core knew that I already had it all. Throughout my life, I have been scared to death to die. Today I am no longer fearful, I don’t want to die at least not yet but I know that when I do I have made my peace and could go to God at any time knowing that whatever came my way, I did my best. I may not have gotten it all right, all of the time, but I always tried my hardest. What else and what more could anyone ask of us?

Real character isn’t about how we handle the easy stuff, it is about how we handle the difficult challenges that we all face. When we are tested by adversity our character or lack of character shows itself.

“Daughter, you took a risk trusting Me, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed!”  Luke, The Message

‘I am leaving you with a gift — peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” JOHN 14:27

Something magical happens when we let go in love and when we are in touch with our core, our hearts and our souls sing when they are aligned together. When we stop the anxiety that comes from searching  outside of ourselves and stand in the moment  and at peace with what lives within, we come to understand that all we ever needed, we already had …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

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