Show and Tell

1 John 3

17 But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

"this world's good" - your means of living here. Not just "goods" like food and money, but the ability to provide them, your talents and abilities.

It's not always about money. Maybe you crochet and some child needs a scarf and mittens, or you know how to garden and the neighbor needs fresh vegetables. Maybe you are patient and love children and some one needs a baby sitter for their child. These are ways to meet needs we often discount instead of seeing the love our care shares with others.

If you care and can meet a need for someone you are working with the Divine Love. It doesn't have to be a hugh effort or large amount. The increase is His to provide. If you have the means to meet a need but "shut it up" what have you showed others about what you believe?

Mark 12
42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites,
which make a farthing.
43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:
44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.

To give all we have is so hard. We think of the needs to come and forget they can be met as they arrive. We hold on to that extra "just in case" and forget that you can't fill a full hand. To be "refilled" you have to have empty hands.

We schdule time for "ourselves" and forget that there is more joy in sharing than in doing something alone.

John 1 - 3:018 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

To truely give of yourself, your time and talents to others is showing the Love is real to you and sharing love with others. You can say you believe Loving is the way to live all day long, but at the end of the day who else will say they know you believe?; Those who heard you say it or those who saw you loved them?

Words again.

Let me excuse myself, first. I'm not feeling too healthy today. I have some kind of flu laying me low. The thoughts might be a little more scattery than usual. Sorry.

I have come to believe that our words have a power of their own that we may not understand. The words we say express our feelings, thoughts and intentions or describe what we have done, our actions. They also record our reactions to life and let us share them with others.

I am learning to watch my words. Not that I may have to eat them, but that they may bring to life something that should not have been given birth. Once a word had been said it can not be called back, only expanded on to try and explain.

I had some casual, humor type words with a friend that turned to words of hurt. I was laughing at something they said then I said, "Sometimes I want to smack you!". When they asked why I popped out, "Sometimes I think you just need smacking."

These are words of my younger times. They were said by me and my sisters and parents and came our from a pre-recorded file in my head. We us them when we what we mean is - "I don't think you understand what I am saying and you should pay attention".

They come from the story of the mule and the farmer. A neighbor watched as the farmer walked up and smacked the mule in the head with a board. The mule shook his head a few times but didn't seem to be hurt. The farmer walked behind the plow and said giddy up. The mule started right off, heading for the fields. The neighbor asked why he did that and the farmer said, He is a good mule but you have to get his attention first.

That is a lot of words to explain that maybe they heard I wanted to hit them and what I meant was I don't think you understand what I said, please pay attention. It also says I think we had a communication break down.

I was spouting words carelessly, expecting them to understand what I meant and they heard something altogether different.

I can't seem to remember the power of words. Caring is using them carefully and gently.
Where do all our words go? Written or spoken, even in private and alone, one day they will be found or heard somewhere. Maybe by someone we don't even know.

I wrote and spoke of the pot shards I called water flow control devices that were judged by me, at first, as trash and a mess I needed to clean up.

Looking at the situation and the broken pot an experienced gardner might have seen their use before I did. They might have done it before. I had to figure it out myself and see it. I had no one to discuss it with that knew about potting plants.

A simple fix seemed important to me because of the way I saw it two ways even though I was by myself here.

I found another blogger who sees broken things as something other than trash. I wanted to share this photo of what she does with broken ceramics. It's another way to see what was, to someone, just a mess to clean up.
If two people look at the same thing and one says first, "That is ugly!" does the second person then see it as ugly? If so, they agree and go on their way.

If the other decides differently - they say, "I don't think so, it's just strange." Does it modifiy the first speaker's judgement? Do they see it differently now those words brought this view to them?

The first can say, "You might be right but it looks ugly to me," or "I hadn't thought of that, maybe it is just I have never seen one before."

That is the power of words between us. They can change the way we see things.

If I go cursing and angry at others and events in my life I am giving birth to negative feelings that I can not stop. They are in the world and can hurt someone even if I never said them directly to that person.

I think the words I was less than careful with have hurt my friend and I am sorry. I could have said them differently and now I wish I had. I was trying to explain how treating yourself less than precious hurts others who care about you.

When I thought they didn't understand my meaning I dropped back to words I would have used to my sis- my family - because I feel like they are family to me.

We do not have the history of those shared jokes and words between us. They only thought I meant they needed to be hit, not understanding the meaning underneath.

I only wanted them to try harder to hear what I was saying. I didn't really want to hit them. I hate hurting anyone or anything. But I used the wrong words to say it.

The sis said once she was having a fit of road rage when she thought, what if that person heard me and then we met at my church? What testimony is that for love and peace in my heart and the world?

"I remember you, I made a mistake in traffic yesterday and you cussed me out like a sailor.Glad to meet you. I don't think I want to join a church where you go. It is not the way I want to be treated." Yup, that would be a good one.

She started watching her words before I did because she was showed the power in her words, and the intentions behind them, could affect another wrongly.

If I say words, even in my home all alone, the power is not gone from them. I have given life to those thoughts and intentions in myself. I brought what I was only thinking of to be real in this world now.

I don't want to be ranting and raving in anger and hurt at something because I am reinforcing those feelings in me. I am trying to learn to take those thoughts only to Him because He can turn them for me to a loving way to see the situation and the bad feelings go right out of me.

I have to see them first and know I have them before I can give them to Him. I don't have to say or act on them. I don't have to give them life here of their own to hurt others with or myself be hurt by them.

So I try to consider my words. I can comfort myself with the thought that I am what He has made of me but I remember that I picked part of what I am myself when I chose what I wanted to do in life. I am what I made me, too.

What part of me is just speaking words as they come out and what part of me prays to HIm first?
What I have learned in the world comes flying out of me because I know the ways of the world and those in it that have interacted with me.

What I am learning of Him and how life should be here for everyone is the part that reaches to Him in every little thing. That would be the new me; the one that flinches when people curse now. Not because I am offended but because I know that another negative word has been born in them and in the world.

It seems that there are times when even I think a curse would be a relief. It's hard, when you hit your thumb with a hammer, to see any way to say, "Bless it!" and really mean it. We mean, "Damn it!" Damn the hammer and the nail and my clumbsy way of using them and Damn it that it was broken and I had to try and fix it and Damn it all to Hell! We hurt.

But when something like that happens to you and you watch inside yourself you will see that if you try to say "Bless it!", even when you want to say the other, that your mind takes a different path. Your intention is modified by using a different word.

Even said in a negative way your mind turns it to a positive meaning. For me it came something like this in my head. "Bless my thumb, it's going to need healing. Bless the hammer so it goes where I aim. Bless the nail so it will drive straight. Bless the mending of this broken thing for my family and help me get it done so I can do something more fun with my time."

It's just a little twist in your thoughts and I don't know how it may seem to you. But if you would try it for a few days, using any thing with a positive meaning to you in place of my "Bless it", I think you might see what I mean.

I do not like to curse if I can stop in time and I do not like to put words to my thoughts of others with anyone but the one I would speak of now. I still do speak what I am calling, "out of place" but I am seeing it when I do it and now I am trying to stop. I don't like it in myself.

I don't like sending out anything that is not what I really mean and if it is something I really mean the place to give it is to the one I am thinking of, not another here with me. I want the communication clear between us without the muddle of someone trying to repeat something I said and getting it wrong by the way they thought I meant it.

The thoughts and intentions inside us are shared by the words and the actions between us. I am trying to learn to make my words and actions be shaped by kind and loving thoughts because that is what I want to put into the world, loving kindness.

It isn't always going to happen. I speak to warn of danger from others that I have seen hurt people or I speak to share my care for others to those I feel love them, too and may be able to help them. I am going to try to take all of that to the one that can really do it.

I think it will make it hard to have a conversation for awhile. I find my mouth stopping sometimes because I don't want to let out what I thought. I get weird pauses and fumble for the right words. Still, as hard as it is I want to try it. I think words have too much power to just use them to make noise.

It's like having a flame thrower in the pine trees to light a cooking fire with when you send out negative or hurtful words, they take off and burn down the whole forest and all you meant to do was get the feelings out of your system.

If I need to take a dump I go to the bathroom. If I need to get things that are negative in my opinion and judgement out of me I am seeing to take them to Him first. He can change them for me to see them in the light of His love and nobody gets hurt by them.

One thought of what this might do is leave me talking to someone about them and their life instead of talking with them about others we know. I can't see anything wrong with that.

If I pray before I speak anything that resembles judgement of what they tell me and only say encouraging and hopeful words we might have quite a conversation and I will grow to understand them better. Isn't that what spending time with someone we love is supposed to be?

I'm working on it. It's not easy.

Failed trust

I have found them out there, the ones that can not accept a gift with no strings attached as real. Those are the ones that hurt my heart. There is a need in them I can't fill. I see a need for them to be able to trust the ones around them. I can't fill it. The world has beaten it out of them. I hurt it out of some of them, myself. It shames me to say that, but it's a truth.

I watched a coyote once that was freezing and starving try to trust humans again. With no mean thought in me, I had put out food for him. I put it in a steel bowl. That's what I feed my dogs in. They eat inside where it's not freezing cold.

He was just starting to eat when I went to the window to check on him. He startled and his tongue stuck on the bowl, over turning it and hurting him, just before he ran off. Trusting failed.

I didn't mean that to happen. I tried to help and hurt him instead, reinforcing his fear of humans. The only way he could see it was as a mean trick. I didn't think it through and so I hurt him. It was an accident. While that made me sorry and sad, I knew I didn't mean to hurt him. I doesn't change the way he experienced it. And there it stands, I screwed up.

The truth is that, as humans, we just can't think of everything. Even in kindness we can hurt each other. A flaw in our actions only shows after they happen. Even the small neglects we hurt each other with can ruin a heart or a life, unseen by us at the time.

Some will have lost their trust by accidents and ignorance. Some have had their true loving trust betrayed by those that should have cared for them. Then there are those that seem to thrive on hurting others. How ever they have lost it, it's gone and I only know one who can bring it back.

When those that can't trust hurt me I remember those I have hurt. Forgiving them is easier then. When it's harder I can take it to prayer. I pray that someone can restore their ability to trust again. Losing trust of others confines us to only ourselves. To stand alone is to punish yourself for others treatment of you. You are the only one who suffers when you are cut off from everyone. I don't understand the math, but I see it's true.

After being hurt that one too many times you stop reaching out and, worse yet, you let no one reach toward you. There you stand in pain, anger, and hurt with no hope of relief. You may not be the one who did the harm. You suffered the harm done to you.

Why do we punish ourselves for the actions of others. And why do we punish those we don't even know for the actions of others in our pasts? We almost literally push them away from us. I think it's the fear. Fear holds us frozen in our pain; we can't move, we can't heal, and no one can help because we can trust no one.

Then something happened and I see another one on the way to isolation. She is only four years old and it may be too late to overcome her fears. She has been hurt by one she trusted in a way that made all people suspect. How do you help one so small understand what even adults can't?

I understand how some of us end up hiding away. It's just too dangerous to our hearts to have any contact with another person. Just once more, we think, to be betrayed, will damage us beyond repair. So many times the damage is done without realizing it or carelessly that the others involved may never even understand they hurt you. So you avoid them all.

It's when I think of the words to my family, or friends or, worse yet, to my children, that I hurt. I see the promises unkept, the visits missed, the "just a minutes" and "when I get through with this" that I scattered in their lives. I didn't mean it to destroy their trust in those that love them. I thank God for His healing of those small hearts as I see them loving and trusting again.

I know he's going to tell me that to offer love is never wrong. They won't accept love from Him, how can they accept it from me? Then I give him the sadness that causes in my heart and He takes it from me. Nothing is beyond the Divine Love's ability to repair. He built it. But they have to accept. And the best cure is to be more careful and loving of each other.

I can't see a way to fix all that is so obviously wrong in this world. I can only deal with each small thing I see the best I can. I am thankful that the Divine Love has it covered. I only wish it would cram the recovery into high gear. I cried for that small, hurt child. I can't change her life or heal her wounded heart.

When we don't tell someone they have even only annoyed us once, we are locked into not telling them again if they repeat the action. It niggles at us and nips but we think we are being kind or polite to not say anything.

By not telling me when I have done something that has annoyed or hurt you I am denied the learning of how to do better or avoid it another time. I don't even know there is a problem until it's too big, in you, to repair. Something altogether different may finally rub against that first sore spot and next think you know we are both upset but only one of us knows why.

That is not truth. It is not honest at all. If you deal with those things when they are small they can be eliminated, negotiated or compromised on so everyone is comfortable. When you don't they become magnified by repetition and blow up all over every one.

Get angry, get upset, but say something so I know that there is something I can do differently to do better next time. If you don't and there is no next time we have both lost a chance to love.

Keep the truth in your love. It's not easy. Grace is all that can make it work here at all. But Truth IS Love. Hold to it. Reach for it. Share it.

Reach out to a hurt heart today, show them one here cares. Even if they can't reach back they will see one who still tries to help, not hurt. If you can leave hope in a heart, it can see a small light of possiblities. Give someone hope.