Lost and Found

This week we had the opportunity to attend a funeral , I say opportunity because of the love and relationships renewed as you memorialize a life. I lost my Dad eight years ago this December so I hoped to be a comfort to Adorable Hubby's' cousins who had just lost theirs. As I listened to each of his five children remember the things that most touched them about their Dad I thought that perhaps we don't truly find a person until we find them in ourselves.

Perhaps as we strive to be as loved as we saw people love our Daddy. Or find ourselves listening to the intuition that tells us our child is ill as our Mom did for us. Finding the power to love a rebel without judgment, reserve or restraint because a friend loved us that way when we were the rebel. As we becoming a gentle giant who can do anything for our three little boys just like their granddad did for us. Maybe this is how we truly find someone who is lost to this world.

All the children spoke of their Dads' amazing hugs, the rebel learned well. The hug I got from someone who had just lost their Dad was powerful, comforting, peace... for me the intended comforter.

When we become a follower of God we have the opportunity to find Him in ourselves by living as he would live among us. Mosiah 18:9-11
and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;
9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—
10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?
11 And now when the people had heard these words, they clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts.

It is the desire of my heart that I may find a part of God in me and that by so doing I'll live a life worthy of someone finding a part of me in them.

Mistakes

One of my favorite blogs is listed as HollywoodFlakes on my Blogs I Love list. Hollywood is a skilled writer who writes amusing and thought provoking(albeit, often silly thoughts)
essays about life and experiences. Today Hollywood invited her readers to share in the misery she has experienced as she tried to complete a writing assignment on her 'worst mistake'.

After reading 44 anonymous comments some funny and silly but many filled with terrible pain I left my comment. Richard asked me to include it on my blog today.

My biggest mistake ever!!! Is that I let GUILT cloud the memories of the life experiences that are teaching me who I am.

God gives us repentance so we can live our lives learning from the experiences which we, in our self-judgmental, guilt ridden pain, call mistakes.

Regret is a tool for realizing that our actions and choices, in any given experience, may not have represented who we are. All these experiences we call life, are teaching us what we are, or what we are not. If we waste our lives feeling guilty over the experiences that taught us what we are not, then we miss out on fully living the experiences that teach us who we are.

Love yourself enough to stop doing what you are not and start being who you are.

Go find that lost love and get your closure; or accept that you will always love that individual and that that love adds to, not detracts from, your current relationship.

Quit that meaningless job that doesn't provide for you and makes you miserable, go do what you love. College and degrees are meaningless, experience and love qualify you to be what you are passionate about, go be it.

Let go of the pain, it is not you. You are a creation of God, he is not punishing any of us, he is a loving forgiving father, His only pain is how cruelly we punish ourselves.

Why do we let the past destroy the present and predict our future?

Every religion offers as it's highest reward a paradise in the presence of God free from pain, worry, guilt, and regret. Ironic that all of those feelings are experienced in the present but come from the past or are from our prediction's of the future based on the past.

Each moment fully experienced is paradise!

Fully experiencing each moment is the presence of God. It's not a location it's a way of life.

I love me, I am my greatest success.

Guilt Sucks, and never the right things.