It's amazing what gets noticed when one starts noticing the little things.
I know what happened to me. I am slower to speak. I think about what I'm going to say, and the vast majority of the time now, if it's negative it doesn't get said. What's more, I find over time there are fewer and fewer negative thoughts to reject at the speech gate.
Which has been an interesting transition, looking back.
My heart was torn
My speech abated
My thoughts were altered
My spirit calmed
I notice how silly things sounded, things I said and wrote before.
I go back and look at old photos I've taken, but with new eyes. There is such beauty there. It was always there but I didn't see it. Not the way I see it now.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Prov. 17:22
"The mouth speaks what the heart is full of." Matt. 12:34
So this circular thing, this cycle of internal healing, seems something God brought about for me and for many others throughout this big wide world through One Thousand Gifts and Ann's lovely words at A Holy Experience. All grace, and Ann is true to her name.
I wonder how many of us were living in spirit shells made of dried up bones before the opening of the eyes, the running for the moon, the Eucharisteo, the Paris promise, the counting of a thousand gifts and beyond, the noticing of the details of our lives and how God has written His name on each and every one, love notes that go straight to the soul and pierce it with the kind of I love you that can be counted on to be perfect and true and forever. All gifts. All grace. All gratefulness.
This is joy. To live every moment fully, completely, gratefully.
"...to celebrate with great joy, because they now understoodNehemiah 8:13
the words that had been made known to them."
