TREASURED MOMENTS

It’s so important to recognise treasured moments when they arrive in our lives...

My daughter has just returned home for a semester break from University. It was so special to go outside to greet her when she arrived and then to sit down around the kitchen table and chat about our lives. How wonderful it is to have her present again in our home. I treasure the moments when my family are all around and suddenly I feel whole again.

It is also important to enjoy those moments which happen regularly...

Like the moments in the evening when we dish up the supper. Like the tea rituals over the weekends and the effort it takes to create them. Like the dogs running trenches in the passage and the sound of the birds when we emerge from our sleep. Like the voice of my aging mother on the other end of the telephone when I know that time is short and each opportunity to interact is a blessing. Like the sound of the water feature in our garden. And always...the sound of the gate opening and declaring that my husband is home and safe.

Life is full of treasured moments... let us not let them slip by unnoticed.

GOD'S WINDOW

When one stands at the edge of the precipice at "GOD'S WINDOW", in Mpumalanga, South Africa, it's as if the world is lying at our feet. This is a place of such inspiration when we realise that the world, truly does lie at our feet.

Indeed the world is what we make it. We choose how to live our lives. We choose to be positive or negative in outlook. We choose the influences in our lives.

As you might have gathered, I am enormously inspired by the magnificence of this world's creation. I am also enormously saddened by the manner in which man chooses to harm this world and each other, but I believe strongly that change happens in little bites. Change can happen in each of us and this small change leads to broader sociological change.

It’s so easy to slip into the mindset of negativity – especially when living in South Africa today – so I’ve decided to refocus and set my own mind on the small things for which I am grateful:.....(perhaps you’d like to add a few by clicking on “comments”)

I am grateful for the sunshine which streams through my windows and reminds me that I have another new and beautiful day in which I can create a memory.

I am grateful for the company of my family; their uniqueness and influence on my life. They bring me joy and companionship.

I am grateful for my health, that it is not part of today’s worries.

I am grateful for my friends, who bear witness to my life.

I am grateful for my provisions; that I am not hungry, thirsty nor cold. I have a roof over my head and am content with the things in my life.

I am grateful for the natural beauty which pops up around me. The little things which remind me that I am part of an amazing universe: the fauna, the flora and the greater geological and natural structures.

In these difficult economic climates, I am grateful that my family has an income.

These are just a few of the things for which I am grateful. There are endless ideas of gratitude in which I can meditate and I am grateful for these.

Today, I choose to enjoy my life!

THE MAGIC IN A SEED

I was in my comfortable TV chair watching the 'box' and discovered a distraction - the vase of flowers I'd arranged this morning.

I found myself awestruck at the magic of these flowers:

Can you believe that, at first there was nothing, and then those tiny seed sprouted and honoured the intricacy of their programming? They grew and grew and finally produced a bunch of beauty...just for me.

We were also tiny seeds once...

MAKES YOU THINK, DOESN'T IT?!