Life in His Hand

I saw thee weep -- the big bright tear Came o'er that eye of blue; And then methought it did appear A violet dropping dew; I saw thee smile -- the sapphire's blaze Beside thee ceased to shine; It could not match the living rays That fill'd that glance of thine. As clouds from yonder sun receive A deep and mellow dye, Which scarce the shade of coming eve Can banish from the sky, Those smiles unto the moodiest mind Their own pure joy impart; Their sunshine leaves a glow behind That lightens o'er the heart. -Lord Byron

When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. The dew of the morning Sunk chill on my brow– It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. Thy vows are all broken, And light is thy fame: I hear thy name spoken, And share in its shame. They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o’er me– Why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well: – Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. In secret we met– In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? With silence and tears. -Lord Byron

We're just hours away from another New Year. Another new beginning. I'm not making any big resolutions. No, I want to follow God's leading and learn quickly from my mistakes. I've been praying for a "word" for this year. At my first thought of it, several days ago, my word was "step". I thought- that sounds a bit scary to me. But every time I pray, nothing comes but that word. Last year was "trust". And it was very appropriate. I have learned to trust God more. Though, honestly, not completely. Step means taking a step into the unknown. Like Peter stepping out of the boat. He couldn't walk on water, right? What was he doing stepping out of that boat? He couldn't do it himself, but Jesus called and enabled him. "Step" also means to simply put one foot in front of the other. Live one day at a time. It is said God only gives enough light to see the next step. And we only need to take that one step. Simple trust. That's...

I can't decide whether I need this blog, want this blog, should have this blog. The idea behind this one is that I can just come on here and say whatever I feel like saying. So my hang-up is...do I want people reading what I really feel? Of course I am not putting everything on here. Not in the least. You know what? It is hard to be who you are. Well, for me, it seems to be. And yet I am compelled to write stuff down. It's just what I do. They actually say writing is the most real you can get. Because it's your thoughts just flowing onto 'paper'. I've always sort of been this way. When I was a kid I wrote stories, tried to have a diary, but wasn't good at that. My cousins and I wrote letters to each other all the time. Still have a lot of them. Kept trying the diary thing and would write occasionally in there. A lot of times, I wasn't able to tell people my feelings and so writing came in handy. How many ended up in the garbage, who can know? Don't g...

  thegypsymama.com  Join us in writing for 5 unedited minutes on different topics each week. Open If you walk around with tightly closed fists, you are not allowing God to use you. Maybe your fists are closed around your plan for your life or around your hopes for the future. But we should always have open hands to receive blessings from God and as we receive we shouldn't close our hands, but leave them open so the blessings can flow out to others. We become a channel of His blessings to those around us. Maybe it doesn't always seem like God is blessing and maybe we want to close our hands to keep from receiving the hard things, the trials. But some of the best blessings come through trials.

I'm really excited about this upcoming New Year. Well every year I start feeling this way, to a certain extent. It seems that maybe one would feel this on their birthday. This anticipation and new hope for another year. To see how it unfolds and what it holds. For some reason, for me, it's all reserved for the New Year. Strange, but I think this is one of my favorite holidays. I like to reflect over the past year and dream of the upcoming one and pray. Several years back I used to name the new year...this will be the year of renewal, etc. Last year I came up with one word to describe it...'trust'. And it hasn't been the easiest year for me. A lot of struggles in my life. But I've felt God's closeness and comfort through the hard times and confusion. And it has not all been difficult, God has given me so many wonderful experiences as well. He's stretching and growing me in so many ways. He's given me people to help and opportunities to minister to o...

It's one day after Christmas and I am feeling so motivated to work on my bedroom. We live in a really small house. We moved here about 6 months ago from a house twice it's size, almost (and I thought that house was too small). But God had a plan for us to live in this even smaller house. When we moved we got rid of a ton of stuff. But unfortunately we ran out of time and so the boxes of mostly papers that I didn't have time to sort all came here, plus the things I couldn't decide on. So that leaves me where I am today. I have a very small bedroom that doubles as a storage. My closet is tiny and I have storage boxes stacked up in there, too. Barely any room to hang our clothes, so there's a good excuse why I also have clothes piled up here and there. What I'd like to do is buy some type of wardrobe/closet thing and just use the tiny closet for storage. Today I am going to get started on sorting. I should add pictures so you can more fully sympathize, but wow! t...