Agape

I will be the first to confess that David and I have a wonderful life together. We share the commonalities that matter that make the difference, yet we are individual.

We are so much alike yet with opposite strengths that complement one another. Together we are whole.

Both of us are alphas, united we are incredible. Not being together is kryptonite.

I have always known he loves me, but I remember the day vividly when I realized how much. The day he fought for us when I had nothing left.

He looked horrible. Worn out and stress was wearing on him, panic and desperation on his face. With tears in his eyes, when words weren't enough, defeated he reminded me ...

... he used my words to remind me that love is a choice. It is a decision and he chooses love.

In all my flowery words and Dawn-isms that I am certain he is so tired of hearing, he gets it.

When I had nothing left of me and darkness was closing in, he reminded me exactly what I believe in.

It was as if a soft breeze blew dead ashes that had suffocated the fire and life was breathed on embers that fanned into flames.

He spoke my love language and I knew he had played his final hope [Which was his soul and heart poured out]. It was that moment.

I remember the conversation was tense and we were both hurting in different ways. Hurt people hurt people.

In the midst of it all, I was more at home in his presence with our hearts connected than I am any other place in this world.

He is my home, my heart, my life and my agape; my highest, purest, and unconditional love.

Good Decision Baby Girl!

Brooke asked if I would like to go to Starbucks for a drink. Her treat [she has a gift card].

I asked if she would like to meet one of her friends there, but she always prefers me.

She likes to have stimulating conversations in public. So much to the point where she brainstorms talking points while we are driving to a destination to keep conversation engaging, which always surprises me her being such a chatty-cathy always talking.

Dressed super cute, green tea for me, Vanilla Bean Frappuccino for her, the ambiance set, she states, "Alex asked me to be his girlfriend today."

Alex is her 1st major crush in life. He is a Senior, super cute, such a nice boy and they are really good friends.  She is googly-eyed over him and has been this entire school year.

I know she has been waiting for this. She has quite the fan club of really nice guys, because Brooke truly chooses really nice guys, but none stand a chance because of Alex.

"What did you say?" I asked in a mom-girlfriend kind of way.

"I told him I needed to think about it."

That surprised me.

She shared she is crazy about him. She tells him how handsome he is every day and he tells her she is gorgeous, but ... this is a significant decision, she shared she has hopes and dreams and she isn't taking it lightly.

She doesn't want it to last a week like others. She wants it to be real if she is investing her time.

There we sat at Starbucks having this conversation. Her sharing her hopes, dreams and thoughts. Drivers education training only months away and I realize she isn't a toddler anymore. She pulled through a year of hell on wrong med's in her system we are approaching the one-year milestone of the right med's and life back to normal.

Brooke is unique, interesting, smart. Not at all your ordinary high school girl, but far older in her mind than her years, She brings stimulating conversation, knows extraordinary facts about numerous topics the average person doesn't think about.

She speaks Chinese in anticipation of international communications she finds much stronger than the ordinary Spanish. She is two years away from her Marine Biology program she has wanted into since she was in elementary school.

She has dreams. She has standards. She is kind and sensitive. She is incredibly strong. She has endurance and perseverance that can outlast any adult.

Brooke is a fascinating girl.

When she was very young I have said, she is going to be a CEO someday.

Raising her brought many challenges that had me going to God.  God never gives you anything you cannot handle and for some big reason, he placed her in my womb when physicians said I couldn't get pregnant. He trusted me with this strong-willed, intelligent child.

I get the privilege of listening to her heart and good decisions as she enters her young adult years.

Good decision baby girl, Mommy is proud of you!

The Results Are In!

The Right 4 Your Type blood type diet really has excellent content that shares in detail how blood types play a significant role in our lives, yet the American culture pays so little attention to it.

Do you know in part of Asia blood types can be asked during job interviews?  That is how much weight other cultures put on this, which sounds bizarre, but I challenge you to do your own research.

What are people susceptible to with health conditions? Why can my one girl friend eat yogurt and do yoga to lose weight and I have to do high intensity workouts and dairy makes me gain? 

I am not a horoscope person. I do not read daily horoscopes; however, it is uncanny how my personality aligns with being a Leo through and through.  

It is uncanny how my personality aligns with O blood type.

Type O's already have naturally high adrenaline. Add coffee, too much coffee, and I can be a tad aggressive. The book recommends I switch to green tea.

Willing to test and try out all things new, I have supplemented coffee for green tea throughout the day, minus my beloved cup of coffee in the morning that keeps balance and harmony in my mind.

I feel more calm with raging headaches. Caffeine withdrawal is serious stuff!

Extroverted type O's release stress by engaging in supportive conversations, which is not always received well by fragile people.   

Being a natural Type A Behavior with intensity, honestly, I am working on tempering my personality which means extra filters are turned and the million thoughts that I want to say, that should really be said, are not.  

I filter, buffer, water-down, squeeze, press down, rinse again, buy time, and think through the content of what I really want to say of 110% proof truth, so it can come across nicely.  

This frustration raises my own anxiety and I am the one drinking green tea.

Perhaps, when green tea is in my system, the filters are turned on, the problem isn't me. 

It is for me to always try though, but when hard core real effort doesn't work, sometimes you just have to realize ...

You can't fix stupid. 

Clinically Proven

Brooke is back to blonde with a cute shabby chic haircut, thank you, Jesus!

Telling her this morning how much I like her new look, I told her how pretty her eyes are and that it is so good to see them without the former hairdo falling in her face with needed glasses to hold her hair up.

She shared how her friends always say how pretty her eyes are [they are] and said, "I love my hazel eyes. It is clinically proven that hazel eyes are fun-loving and make amazing friends."  

"Really? Where?"

"The internet."

Inspiration & Motivation

I feel life warming my body and flowing back through my veins.  It has been a frigid, bleak winter.

Winter isn't over, but a shift is happening. More in my mind than what the weather is promising, but it doesn't matter.

Life. Hope. Motivation. Inspiration.

Warmth is flowing back in my veins and the heart rate monitor is beeping louder and stronger. [I know it sounds dramatic ... but imagine a surgical suite when a heartbeat makes a noise on the monitor. The medical teams eyes are looking and hoping for the next beep and they don't even realize they are holding their breath. The beep gets louder and stronger. The patient makes it and cheers fill the room!]

This is how I feel. It has been a rough couple of months and I am ready to shake it off.

I sit still to quiet the noise.

To be fair to my own heart, I grieve and connect directly to God who already knows ... and I heal.

Motivation and inspiration is flowing back through my veins and life and hope is already there, ready to meet me outside of this waiting room.

Financial freedom lifts a load of burden.

My eyes set on new goals to pour myself into stirs the needed challenge that motivates and inspires me.

Not to mention [but you know I am bursting inside to say], I am down 22 lbs from this time last year and still have time to be a far greater place prior to spring arriving.

This is important to me.

I'm ready.

Let's do this!

World STOP!

After years of Brooke's hair being many shades of purple, blue and reds, she wants to go back to her natural hair color of being blond.

Not only does she want her hair blond, but she wants to go to a more flattering, feminine haircut.

I am beyond thrilled to make this hair appointment!

Bravery

Bravery seems to be the theme of this week. 

It has been a subtle, gentle nudging. A still small voice that I remember as a familiar friend.

You don't lose being brave over one moment.

It is a lot like those who are stuck ...

Stuck is a pattern of counterproductive thinking or behavior that results in your not moving forward to that which you desire. It is typically a result of internalized fear, confusion, chaos, overwhelm, being lost, lack of clarity, or pessimism. By this definition, being stuck is not something that happens one time. If you stumble once, get back up, and move on, your are not stuck. That’s a mistake. That’s life. But if you find yourself repeatedly in similar situations, struggling with similar challenges, then stuck is an appropriate description.

Maybe there isn’t any one event that seems to define your stuckness. Instead, stuck has become a way of life. You’ve gotten used to it. You may not even think of yourself as stuck anymore. You’ve rationalized that this is just how life is. But deep down, you know you are settling- and you’re really not okay with that, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise. You feel constant uneasiness – a lack of peace – about where things stand in your life. - Michelle McKinney Hammond

Being brave is doing the work.

Bravery isn't the absence of fear, it is looking fear in the eyes.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

“People ruin their lives with their own foolishness 

and then are angry at the Lord.” 

- Proverbs 19:3-4 

Let’s face it. God and the devil get blamed for many things that are not their fault. 

God has given us a tremendous gift along with His generous grace, it is called the gift of choice.

                                                                 - Michelle McKinney Hammond

Wisdom is needed in making all decisions in life.

"Wisdom has built her house; she has set up its seven pillars." 

 - Proverbs 9:1

There are attributes of the biblical seven pillars of wisdom, I liked this one best because the foundation is faith, hope, and love.

Humility.

Integrity.

Stewardship.

Discipline.

Courage.

Passion.

Perseverance.

We are not perfect, but the best part of the things we have not perfected is ...

We get another day.

And today is a brand new day.

Indecision

Life goes through tailspins and takes my firm path of clarity, direction and everything I am certain of and *shakes* it smugly to dislodge everything I am made of as if to say, see how she does now.

Those who are indecisive flounder. 

"Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight:

indecision, a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it."

                                                                                        - Gordon Graham

I don't live well in hacks, tears and ragged edges. 

Sub par is a certain death to my soul. 

You can't grow if you don't trust your inner voice.

Life will always present options.

Opportunity will always knock.

Know what doors to open and say "Welcome" to and know what doors are hot to the touch. We learn very young to not touch a hot stove, yet we fling doors open in eyes wide open curiosity as if there are not raging flames behind it.

Sometimes the flames don't look like flames. At first.

 Sometimes you have to be still to hear God's whisper when the world is loud.

"I Confess ..."

Dangerous Beauty, to this day is still my favorite movie.

The scene of her confession ...

"I confess as a girl I loved a man who would not marry me for want of a dowry. I confess I had a mother who taught me a different way of life. One I resisted at first but learned to embrace. I confess I became a courtesan. Traded yearning for power, welcomed many rather than be owned by one. I confess I embraced a whore's freedom over a wife's obedience. 

[Inquisitor: This is not repentance.] 

What am I to do? I must confess my evil as the church instructs. These are my sins. 

I confess I find more ecstasy in passion than in prayer. Such passion is prayer. I confess I pray still to feel the touch of my lover's lips, his hands upon me, his arms enfolding me. Such surrender has been mine. 

I confess I hunger still to be filled and inflamed. To melt into the dream of us beyond this troubled place to where we are not even ourselves. To know that always, always this is mine. 

If this had not been mine, if I had lived another way a child to a husband's whim my soul hardened from lack of touch and lack of love... I confess such endless days and nights would be punishment greater than any you could mete out. 

You, all of you, who hunger for what I give but cannot bear to see such power in a woman, you call God's greatest gift, ourselves, our yearning, our need to love, you call it filth and sin and heresy. 

[Inquisitor: Enough. One last time before you are condemned: Do you repent or not?] 

I repent there was no other way open to me. I do not repent my life."

After over a decade of loving this movie, it finally arrived in my mailbox.

Happy Valentine's Day to me!

Transformation and Restoration

Today just feels like transformation and restoration.

Arbonne Independent Consultant

When the idea of being an Arbonne Independent Consultant was proposed, I shot it down hard and fast.

#1 - I have a very significant career that just got a lot better.

B - This creature of habit already has skincare products that I am happy & faithful to.

Opportunity slid in and I sampled.

Suddenly, what I thought was perfect for me, I have turned my back on. New samples are holding me over until the needed order of my new skincare line arrives.

My "Aha!" moment came the very second the Make-up Primer touched my face.

Who knew?! My skin felt identical to the velvet touch of a rose petal.

I know of four ladies in the same family who have walked away from their professional careers because they do better in Arbonne and drive a FREE white Mercedes-Benz SUV from their success.

I am an Arbonne Independent Consultant.

In addition to my career of significance that is my foundation, Anti-Aging Skin Care, Nutrition, Detox, Weight Management, Personal Care and Cosmetics are now my language.

I am part of a large, local team of successful women that is part of a much larger nationwide team.

My world has just got much bigger. Conferences coming up in Las Vegas and next January in Maui. I do love to travel.

As I was getting my picture taken to introduce me to my new local team, Mickey put her arm around me and said, "We take pictures of our journey from the very beginning and soon it will be with your new Mercedes!"

A love language. I, too, take pictures of my journey through life.

My new team warmly welcomed me. They will become my friends that get together throughout the month.

I'm excited and the timing is perfect!

Beautiful Inside & Out

This has been the common theme of my week.

New people in my life who have told me I am beautiful inside and out. They see and hear the surface and are drawn in to something they find intriguing.

I smile graciously at their kind words. It is an empowering statement, but it is just the tip of the iceberg they see.

Still waters run deep slips into my thoughts behind the smile. They have no idea the passionate nature behind what they see and hear.

No need to explain.