love

There Comes A Day

Standard

There Comes A Day
By Bernadette A. Moyer

rose

There comes a day when you learn that letting go is so much healthier than hanging on. That love can be and is the best gift and best medicine for most all that ails us.

That laughter releases the negatives and soothes the soul and that you listen and see and hear and yet never feel the desire to speak. And then comes the day when just like your garden, that changes daily, weekly and with each season, so too have you changed.

Then comes a day when you accept and embrace the flaws within yourself and in others and you come to that place of peace where there is nothing that you are willing to engage in, if it isn’t love or coming from a truth based place of love.

Then there comes a day when you find all the joy, love and peace within your own heart and soul. Rather than seeking out others to fill your own voids.

There comes a day when you are content with little and lots just looks like more to manage. There comes a day when you realize that enough, truly is enough.

There comes a day when you are in alignment with your own heart and centered enough to know who and what you are all about, that nothing other people do or say is about you. It never was or will be about you, but rather all about them.

There comes a day when you are free and understand what freedom means,  what it really is and brings with it and places upon us.

There comes a day … when we finally trust enough to let go and let God lead us and we know that there was never a need for control or fear or anxiety.

There comes a day …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer
All books by Bernadette A. Moyer on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Losing Happy

Standard

Losing Happy
By Bernadette A. Moyer

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

On June 14, 2018 we had no choice but to put our most precious Bichon Frise Happy down. She was in kidney failure and suffering. It was the day before she was scheduled for surgery. It would have been her third surgery for removing bladder stones. The bladder stones never really went away.

Happy was a heart stealer, anyone and everyone took to her. She was regal and intense and sweet. She had a mind of her own, she let you know what she needed and wanted. When you pay attention you really can connect and communicate with an animal.

From the day that we brought her home she was a family member, she was our child, she was our baby. We loved her, we took care of her and we protected her. Happy was smart, she was tuned in and she was sensitive. On a rare occasion if we corrected her, she immediately responded with affirmation of a lick or cuddling up. She always seemed to understand us and we felt that we understood her too.

Happy traveled with us, slept with us, ate dinner with us and was that family member that was always so easy to be with. We joke that we preferred her company over some people that we knew. She was pure delight.

Love is ongoing and a learning experience, we learn to love and we learn to give love and to receive love. Happy was one of our best teachers, as she was easy to love and she freely loved us all in return. The exchange of unconditional love is what we will miss the most. She never failed to greet us with kisses and expressions of happiness to see us.

Happy was a pure bred Bichon Frise and named after our first Bichon Happy, her full given name was Happy Again and that was exactly how she made us feel, we delighted in her, she brought us so much joy and so much genuine love. Real love where you give and you give and it is all given without any expectations.

Our hearts are broken, we are beyond tears, but we know that heaven has a new angel and we know that because of Happy we are better people, who learned to love better and to love deeper and to love without any conditions.

But we are also at peace, we are at peace because we know that we all shared in a good and meaningful and loving exchanges of life and living life. What more could we really have asked for?

We let her physical being go in love because we knew there really was no other choice, but Happy Again will live forever in our hearts, in our memories and in our prayers.

We love you Happy and we already feel the void of the gift of you, the gift of your presence in our lives … RIP sweet baby girl!

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer
Books by Bernadette on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

What’s In Your Heart

Standard

What’s In Your Heart
By Bernadette A. Moyer

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

What is in your heart? Is your heart filled with love and gratitude? Or is your heart filled with anger and resentments? Is your heart full or is it empty?

Like most things in life, our hearts are our responsibilities and what we allow in them says everything about us and who we are …

Lately I find myself making definitive choices about what I will put on my heart. I find myself turning away from hatred and conflict until I am able to come to a peaceful and loving conclusion. I no longer allow the hatred and anger of others to enter my heart. It is their stuff, not mine.

Making the choice on those that I allow into my heart has allowed me to be a better and brighter and happier more loving person.

And if and when a confrontation is necessary, I lead with and I speak from my heart. There is a lot of hatred and garbage out in this world; we choose what we allow to enter into our hearts. Where I will always feel compassion and love for others, I have learned to draw the line when it comes to who and what I allow to enter my heart and my soul.

I can’t change anyone else but when I present my best heart, change naturally occurs for the better. Fill your heart with love. Fill it with people, places and things that you love. Plant the seeds of love within yourself and watch them grow in you and in those that you attract and associate.

What is in your heart? Might just be the single best question you can ask yourself every single day …

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

Books by Bernadette on Amazon and Barnes& Noble

Check Yourself

Standard

Check Yourself
By Bernadette A. Moyer

Man walking down road at sunset

Check yourself? What are you putting forth into the universe? Is it love, is it hatred? Thoughts become actions, what are you thinking about? Are they positive thoughts that are rooted in love or negative thoughts rooted in hate?

Earlier today I watched a documentary about kids with guns and kids age six and up that not only used a gun to commit murder but the days, weeks, months of thinking about it that lead up to the killing.

Then later I read a social media post that encouraged “open mindedness” and most posters were of the same mind set and then came an opposing view. This person was bullied, ganged up on and eventually left the group. They said “open minded” but what I witnessed was anything but that.

Today you can turn on any so called “news stations” I call them “editorial stations” and hear complete one sidedness regardless of any other view point.

Then I think about the mind of a child who doesn’t have the maturity and life experience to process all this and how they act out. Acting out often of anger and frustration because they can’t process what even a skilled adult would find difficult to process.

What can we do? We can check ourselves! What are we putting out into the universe with our own thoughts and actions? What verbal and nonverbal communications are we putting forth? You want more love in your life, be more loving, do you want more hurt and hatred? It all comes back to us.

nice

Our world will get better when we are better. If we continue to fight, to disagree, to hurt others, to spew hatred all we have done is to grow more hate. Remember when we learned that if you couldn’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all?

In the climate we are living through today, I don’t think it is a bad idea to check ourselves? What are we putting out into the universe? Would we want that same thing to be put back upon us? I am not saying it will be easy, it is hard to love a hater, hard to love a difficult person, hard to love someone that we don’t like or agree with … it may be hard, but it isn’t impossible.

There is something good in everyone … we are all works in progress … try and focus on the good and what you can support and can love … check yourself … when you can respond to even the most difficult people and things in your life with love then you too will be rewarded with love.

A six year old boy wasn’t born to be a hater and a killer, I can’t imagine what formed him to become like that, but I do know that when we choose love, choose to respond with love, we are more likely to be met with love.

Check yourself and check your heart …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer
All books by Bernadette A. Moyer on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Delete Remove and Replace

Standard

Delete Remove and Replace
By Bernadette A. Moyer

fill your life with love

Sometimes in life you have to know when it is time to delete and remove and replace something or someone. Not everything and everyone is intended to stay in our lives forever or how would we grow and learn?

Change is a given and a constant, everything changes, we change. As we mature and we age we become more and more aware of how much life is already in our rear view mirror and we do our best to look ahead at what is worthy of our time and attention.

Just like our bank accounts are not without limits either are our days here on earth. Everything has a beginning, and middle and an ending. Choose to fill your life with love!

Some people enter our lives just to teach us how we don’t want to be and how we don’t want to act. Relationships that end seldom come back to their original glory, someone that has chosen to delete you and remove you from their life, does so at the risk of being replaced.

When our first Bichon Happy died we were heartbroken and sad. She was with our family for thirteen years. After several months of grieving her death we got another Bichon named “Happy Again” our second Happy was cherished even more than her predecessor because we already knew what it felt like to have that hole in our hearts. We often comment that “Happy Again” was taken even better care of than our first Bichon Happy because of our first dog!

People that love and people that give do so freely and willingly but also know that it comes with a cost and risk of being hurt.

Sometimes we are forced to give up a relationship because it just is not healthy and respectful. A person who outwardly and publicly repeatedly dishonors and disrespects you must be deleted and removed from your life. You might think that you can bring them around, but someone, anyone including family members that cannot show you the basic respect that even a stranger would command, just can’t be allowed in and eventually will be replaced with others who show us common regard and respect.

“People will love you. People will hate you. And none of it will have anything to do with you.” Abraham Hicks

The way others treat us is always, always all about them. The way we respond is always our choice and all about us. Some people will need you to be the bad guy, so they can justify their words and actions. Let them, take the high road, be the best person you can be, move on, there are really good and great people in the world. Seek them out and don’t be afraid to make room for them by removing and replacing and deleting the people and the things in life that just are not healthy, have run their course and are no longer good for you.

Make wise choices, surround yourself with the best people and the most loving and loyal people and you are sure to thrive and live a much happier life. Don’t be afraid to delete, remove and replace and to make room for all that is good and loving.

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer
Another Way and Along The Way books by Bernadette A. Moyer on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Understanding

Standard

Understanding
By Bernadette A. Moyer

understanding

Understanding as a noun is defined as the ability to understand something: comprehension and are synonymous with comprehension, grasp, and mastery.

When used as an adjective sympathetically aware of other people feelings: tolerant and forgiving. Synonyms are compassionate, sympathetic, sensitive, considerate, tender, kind, thoughtful, tolerant, patient, forbearing, lenient, merciful, forgiving, humane, approachable, supportive and perceptive. Understanding is also defined as having insight and good judgement.

So after reading all that, who would not want to have more understanding?

There is no question we are living in a time of fear, anger and judgements and I have to question if that serves any of us well?

I never had any hatred toward my parents, not ever, and that didn’t mean they didn’t do things that I didn’t like. I might have had an occasion to be disappointed in them but I always tried to understand them. This served me well in never having to carry the burdens of anger and judgements and hatred.

Some of my father’s behaviors were questionable to me, so I tried harder to understand him. I could never have at age18 entered into the service during the Korean War like he did. I could and would never know what it feels like to have an enemy shoot at me and want to kill me all the while living in a foreign country. And yet as a teenager, this was my father’s reality. As a child, just a little boy he experienced the death of his seven year old brother. Again he lived through an experience that I never had but always tried to understand how that formed him and his life and contributed to making him the man that he was and that I knew and loved.

My mother was more of a mystery to me. She had what appeared to be a large loving family with six siblings and parents that loved each other and worked hard for their family. She was intelligent and highly educated. The mystery for me was why a woman who appeared to have so much going for her also had a history with men that were abusive to her. I still don’t understand it yet I know that it is true. What happened to her? I truly can’t answer that but I always tried to understand her. For me it was harder to love her because as much as I tried, I didn’t really understand her.

Reveal-Listen-Understanding

Today there are so many adult children that have decided to judge their parents so harshly; I witness it every single day in my support group. For me the take away is so clear, these kids have absolutely no desire to understand their parents and what formed them. And it is so sad, because they too will one day require understanding. We all do.

Prayer of Saint Francis Lyrics

Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury pardon
Where there is doubt faith
Where there is despair hope
Where there is darkness light
And where there is sadness joy
Oh divine grant that I may
Not seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life
Amen

Today I pray for a world and for a life that includes more and more understanding and less and less criticism and judgement.

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

Along The Way and Another Way books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Our Greatest Gift

Standard

Our Greatest Gift
By Bernadette A. Moyer

christmas-gift-new-year-1

It is that time of year when we think about all the gifts we will give and also those that we wish to receive. Yet for most mature adult our greatest gift won’t be wrapped in tissue and colorful holiday wrap or tied up in a bow. Our greatest gift will be the gift of our heart.

Who we share our hearts with and who shares their heart with us truly is and always will be our greatest gift!

As I was preparing for this year’s Christmas card list and pulling out decorations I discovered our Christmas cards from last year. The one card that captured my attention was a small blue card with snow flakes and the outside read, “It’s Christmas AND ALL MY HEART TRULY WANTS IS EVERYTHING I ALREADY HAVE WITH YOU. Honestly I didn’t remember it. It was from 2016 and as I opened it and read the inside it stated, “THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING WE SHARE – AND MOST OF ALL THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME the gift of your heart AND FOR TAKING SUCH GOOD CARE OF MINE.” Love Brian.

It was from my husband. It didn’t say wife on the outside or make mention of from your husband. It was a simple card, yet beautiful with a simple beautiful message.

As I processed that message throughout the day, all I could think was how giving and receiving love truly is our greatest gift. And because it is so valuable and truly great, that is why we are so fractured and broken when our love is rebuked or disrespected or even if it is taken for granted and unappreciated.

The capacity to give love is what we were born to do, it is our core, without our heart we don’t live and nothing in life has a beat. We know enough about love to know that you either have it or you create it. We are capable of loving many people and many places and many things in our lifetime. The ones that love us right back offer us the most incredible love.

We can still love without it being returned, we can love from a distance, from that quiet place in our hearts. Giving love is our greatest gift. It doesn’t have to be returned to us. Giving is for the giver.

How many people can we share that thought with, “thank you for giving me the gift of your heart and for taking such good care of mine” this Christmas and holiday season that is my wish for all of you to give and to be given love.

Cherish the love that you receive and give as much love as you are capable of giving, as the gift of giving and receiving love is our greatest gift of all!

Merry Christmas, with heartfelt love and Happy New Year 2018! God Bless us all …

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

Along The Way and Another Way books available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Hurting Hearts

Standard

Hurting Hearts
By Bernadette A. Moyer

live

Our hearts are broken after witnessing mass murders in Las Vegas, Nevada. Who does this? What kind of a person kills 58 people and wounds over 500 more and why? We want to know why? While we still demand an answer to what kind of “why” response will it ever be good enough. It won’t!

What causes such hatred and anger in a human being that they would go on a killing mission? Prepare for it, plan on it and then carry it out? Thank God most of us will never understand that mindset and those horrific actions.

This story this event is so hard to process and I knew it would be even more difficult when the faces and the ages and the professions of those murdered would be published. These are people who should have had years and years of living life ahead of them. People that have families and friends who are left to grieve their loss and all the while trying to understand why one human being would do this to any other human being. People that should never have died so young were killed as though they didn’t matter by someone who didn’t even know their name.

Most of us will never understand this and that is a good thing, to identify with this crazed mass murdered isn’t normal for anyone that values human life.

Today I cried, it was tears of anger and shock and grief and loss. As if these murders and gunshots of hatred in Las Vegas wasn’t enough we lost an icon rock and roll star who also died unexpectedly and too young. In a recent interview Tom Petty talked about his desire to travel less and do less shows so he could be there for his grandchildren. It was as if he knew how much he missed out on with his own children and acknowledged that this time things would be different, he wanted to be there.

What can we take away from death? What should the lessons be and what should we do next? We can’t control what other people do, we can’t control many things in life except for what we do and how we handle what comes next.

Grief and loss are tremendous teachers and if nothing else they are supposed to drive home that all we really have is the here and now. The way that we treat people says so much about us. Kindness counts. Every single day we are afforded opportunities to respond with love or with hate. It is a choice.

Whatever was motivating and disturbing the Vegas killer he chose to respond with hatred. There is a lesson here. Hate and anger and killing never ever look good on anyone, not ever. There is no justifiable reason for the killing of innocent people. And the cowardly way in which he chose to murder from a distance and to their backs and then take his own life.

Everything in this event is difficult to process …

What should we come away with? How about what can any one of us do? There are two parts here for me; first and foremost we must live all of life to the fullest. Our days here are numbered and we should live like the Tim McGraw song, “Live like you are dying” do the things that matter to you, spend the time with the people that you love, live life without regrets so when the end does arrive, you know that you did live fully.

And the second thing is to check your anger and hate, let it go, use if for the fuel to do good. Hate and anger although normal emotions in humans can be controlled and redirected into something positive. Always try to lead with kindness and with love. Sometimes it is difficult to do but always, always worth it. Something good can always come from something so horrific … if we seek it, we will find it!

“And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter and I gave forgiveness I’d been denying” Country Music Artist Tim McGraw and song written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer
All books by Bernadette A. Moyer on Amazon and Barnes and Noble