If I could lift the care from your shoulders, I would.
If I could give you the stars, that you may know, of a certainty, your value, I would.
If I could tear down your walls and set you free of fears and doubts, I would.
If I could take care of all that troubles you, I would.
If I could boost you up, so that you could reach your goals, I would.
If I could make up for all you have lost, I would.
If I could taste your defeat and swallow your loss, I would.
If I could fill you with a lifetime of love, I would.
If I could go back and correct all the mistakes that has held you back, I would
If I could cry your tears for you, I would.
All of these things, I would gladly do, if I could.
Yet, I know Someone who can do all of those things, and more.
So, I went to Him and asked if He can/will: give you, tear down, take care of, boost you up, make up for the lost, taste/swallow defeat, fill you up, go back and correct, and cry your tears.
How far will the thought of me travel and where do those thoughts go?
How much is my life worth?
Who would even know?
Your life is priceless, above measure, Life said to me.
For, your life was worth the death of The King.
King Jesus, His Name, died just for you.
Worth every nail that was pierced through.
Pierced through hands outstretched in love.
From Heaven, He came. To show your worth to all.
Your needs, to Him, have never been small.
Your tears, He gathers and guards as His own.
Your thoughts carried tenderly, to His Throne.
Your life greatly matters, Life said to me.
Not for what you do, but for who you are.
Not for what you give, have or may do.
More priceless, than rubies, than diamonds, by far.
How much is MY life worth? How much is YOUR life worth?
My life, your life was worth something above value or price. My life, your life, was worth the death of The King.
written by Cassandra Scott 12/2/20 11:40 am.
How MUCH is MY life worth?
Seems like so many folks are wondering that question. Yet, they are afraid to ask, for fear of the answer.
My heart grieves for the many souls, hiding behind capes, masks and smiles who have no earthly idea how priceless THEIR life is. God is heart broken knowing how many souls wander in search of SOMETHING. Something. Something!!
Their hearts crave the knowledge that it is loved.
YOU are loved! I want to shout this to the heavens so all may hear. You ARE loved!
YOU ARE LOVED!!!!!
Christmas is coming soon. The birthday of Jesus. The One, who gave up Heaven for you. Jesus gave up Heaven. For YOU!
To let you know that you are loved. YOU are. You ARE!!
Christmas is coming soon. It’s not an empty holiday meant for tidings and gift giving and bike riding. It’s Jesus Birthday. The day He arrived, upon the scene, to let the world know of it’s worth.
How much is My life worth? Priceless. As is yours.
As you go through this Christmas and holiday time beyond, remember these words: your very precious life was worth the death of The King. You are loved. This day and always. Your thoughts are ever on God’s mind. Your needs are ever before Him.
If you are in need of reassurance, stretch out your heart towards His. Seek Him in YOUR way, as you know how to get to Him. If you know Him not, invite Him to introduce Himself and let Him love you as you deserve to be loved.
I loathe the inadequacy of my words. All I can do is pray, and I do. I pray for each and every heart in need of love. I pray that you shall run into the love and arms of Jesus, who loves you, who sees you, who cares about your life. Baggage and all. Come as you are. Come with everything. Come with nothing. He just wants you to come. To enter into FELLOWSHIP and FRIENDSHIP with HIM.
You are loved. Never forget. You are loved. How much?? A nail-pierced hand reaches for yours…
Til each and every heart KNOWS and FEELS His Love I pray,
You will NEVER see/have/do (fill in the blank) AGAIN!
Never?
NEVER?!
Saying the word, NEVER, outloud and attaching it to something precious/priceless to us takes one’s breath away. Such a notion is just too big to be faced. NEVER?
So, we run away. From that word, NEVER. We jump into bed, pull thr covers over our head and pretend that NEVER did not pay us a visit.
We spend our lives, you know, discreetly running from NEVER. We vow to never, ever make our acquaintance. We don’t know what comes after NEVER, so we run from it so as not to have to confront it and what we shall do with those moments.
We vow we shall not really open out hearts so we won’t ever be hurt. We bargain with EVER so as to not have to confront NEVER. NEVER is just too big. We can’t see beyond NEVER. We can’t control NEVER.
We find we would much rather control EVER and slap it in front of every hard thing, on top of every unknown thing. Slather our lives with a ton of inedible EVER so we won’t have to deal with the inevitable and way too big NEVER.
If, and only if, I promise myself I won’t ever try that or go there or attempt that. Why, I will NEVER have to confront loss, hurt, pain.
Is that living, tho? Not trying? Not experiencing the excitement and terror of a new job, friendship, place in life? Not getting to tear into the present, as a present? Ripping that bad boy open to see what it contains for us?
By avoiding NEVER, do we not banish ourselves to a lifetime of…
Good yikes, we don’t even know what we are banishing ourselves to. The ONLY thing we are certain of is that, WE, not NEVER is in control of our lack. This way, we don’t have to worry about the disappointment of something wonderful and needed getting cruelly ripped from our grateful bosom. We would rather control being unhappy.
Is unhappiness beyond NEVER?
The ONLY way to find out, is to actually find out. Do you have to courage to find out what comes after NEVER?
Confronting NEVER is no joke. For after meeting NEVER, and bargaining with it, fighting with it, being angry with it, reconciling with it, you will NEVER be the same, again. No, not NEVER. You instinctively know this. So, you keep running from NEVER.
Until, one day, NEVER comes for you. NEVER always comes for us, yall. ALWAYS. None of us can out run NEVER. In some way, shape or form, it comes.
Sometimes, in waves. Sometimes, in a trickle. Sometimes, NEVER comes, in a tiny thing, trying to give us a heads up that the big NEVERS are coming for us, in an attempt to get us to confront NEVER, to deal with it so that we can LIVE.
Life is meant to be lived. Love is meant to be adored and fully explored. Family and friends are meant to be cherished and thoroughly enjoyed, for a lifetime. Our jobs are meant to be enthusiastically experienced so we can squeeze all the lessons and growth that we can out of them.
God NEVER wanted us to be afraid of life, of living and, yes, of Him. Because God loves us, He gave us NEVER.
God know that an abundant life can ONLY be found AFTER confronting NEVER. God knows if we are not willing to let go, freely, and move on, that we will NEVER be fully free.
God knows, if we are not willing to let go of the thing, person, job, place, experience that we will NEVER fully grow, into adulthood. We will ALWAYS remain children, dependent on the job, situation, person, place, thing to ‘make us happy’. Those things become our lifeline, our hope, our help.
We cease being open to growth and start walking and living in fear. We weren’t meant to live and love that way.
The bible says there is a time and place for EVERYTHING that happens under heaven. It also says everything shall has it’s own season. It also says for us to be CONTENT IN ALL THINGS.
Not just the comfortable things. Not just the joyous things. Not just the things that benefit. All things, says God. Why? Because He knows, full well that 100 percent sunshine is a desert. We were meant to experience every season. We are called to dance, in the rain. We are encouraged walk in darkness, and be not afraid as God is with us in the light AND darkness.
God wants us to build sand castles in the desert sand, snowmen/women in winter’s cold, dive in a pile of leaves during fall’s reign, enjoy the thawing of frozen rivers at spring’s dawn, and to lie in a meadow during summer’s glorious afternoons.
By hiding, from NEVER, we cut ourselves off from experiencing the BEST of life, and are left with the rest of it.
It is my quest, my hope, and my prayer to encourage folks to start confronting the small NEVER, in their lives, so they build up muscles to handle the huge NEVER that comes for us all.
Confront the relationship that has never served you well. That relationship was built on the lie that you couldn’t make it without him or her.
Confront the job that never served you. You took it only because you were afraid to follow your dreams.
Confront the people that never served you. You became a part of that cliche because it was expected of you. You are someone else, yet no one knows because you are afraid you won’t be accepted if folk truly knew who you were.
Confront your relationship with your mom, dad, son, daughter to let them see YOU. You are NOT just a parent. You have needs, goals, hopes and dreams, of your own. Don’t be afraid to lose the love of your child. You will ALWAYS be mom/dad. Don’t be afraid to let mom/dad know that you are NOT just an extension of them. You don’t want to have to live your life completely a goal THEY didn’t complete. Don’t be afraid to let them know you are MORE than THEIR report card! They will understand, sons and daughters. They felt the same way. Yet, they were afraid of NEVER so they never confronted their own moms and dads.
Confront the comfort zone you have made from your life. Yes, it’s easy to live in a comfort zone. You know every inch of space. Good yikes, you are bored to death! You want to live. You are afraid what would happen if you dared to venture out. You promised yourself you wouldn’t ever allow yourself to get near NEVER.
If you can find the courage, to face some of the smaller NEVERs, life and God SHALL give you what you need to help you find out what comes after NEVER.
What comes after NEVER, you ask? That’s right. I haven’t answered my own question, did I?
NEVER will answer for you. My job was to introduce the two of you. You have avoided meeting all this time. Life is short, beloved.
I can tell you confronting NEVER will change you. You will NEVER be the same, after truly dealing with some NEVERs. You can’t hide behind a wall, facade, cape when dealing with NEVER. You have to fight, straight up and allow life to truly see you and to change you. You talked big talk saying you were ready for real change. Were you? Are you? Or were/are you just wanting for things to be adjusted so as not to hurt ‘as much’?
It’s so easy to rush through life. Doing this, giving that. Helping this one, rushing to be there for thr other one.
Work calls on us to give our all, at ALL times whether we have it all together or not.
Our family and friends demand we drop everything and give to their needs and fill them up, no matter that we are running on empty ourselves.
Life cries out for us to care: do this, care about that. Seek this. Try that. Guilt snaps at our heels if we don’t heed life’s EVERY call. EXHAUSTING.
We tumble, exhausted into bed and realize….yikes, we forgot to hang out with God. Yea, we made our demands, er prayer requests to Him, waiting, impatiently for Him to fulfill said request/whim.
We lay in bed, perhaps a bit guilty about not giving Him the first of the day or ANY of our day(s). Guilty, we may toss up a quick prayer and vow to do better…tomorrow.
I have learned, through loss, through frustration, through God’s silent ask, to give Him the BEST of me, of my days. Yes, even those days when I am tired and weary. I give Him the BEST that I have and ask Him to bless our time.
Life is short. GIVE God your BEST. Give life your BEST. Give your family and friends your BEST.
As you give the BEST of you, God WILL honor and bless the rest of you!
Don’t lose hope. WE, each and every one of us, will decide to live among one another in love and not fear.
We got this. Yet, time for folks to stop being apathetic. Time for folks to stop pointing fingers at others. Time for folks to look in the mirror and get some individual act right.
We got this, yall. Will it be easy? Of course not. Change is hard. Change hurts.
We got this. I will keep on loving you. Love me back.
When my mom needed something moved, back in the day, she called me. One day she had me move the freezer. Man, that thing was heavy! There was no one else to help us. I didn’t want her to strain herself. I thrust out my chest, declared in a booming voice ‘move mom!’.
Huffed and puffed. Puffed and huffed and moved that freezer. You know the kind: the big white ones you could hide ten bodies in and still have room for all the meat.
When I was done, mom was sufficiently awed and nicknamed me ‘Hercules’ and then ‘Herc’ for short. After that, whenever she needed me to move something or wanted to tease me she would yell ‘come here, Hercules!’. Made her laugh. Made me laugh. She made me feel ten feet tall.
There is NOTHING like a mom’s approval. Nothing can replace a mom’s pride. When I played basketball, back in the day, and beat boys and grown men…yea yall Ms. C could ball back in the day!…she would brag that I could beat grown men.
Today….*sigh*….today was a rough day. Received some tough news. Really tough news. You know the kind of news, the kind that takes your breath away and knocks you off your feet. I wanted to cry about it. Had no time to cry. Had work to do. I REALLY wanted to cry about it. I reached for the phone to call mom and tell her what a rough day today was.
I had the phone in hand, was fixing to look up mom’s number. MOM!
Mom….*sigh*….realized I couldn’t pick up the phone and call her. She is no longer here. Mom, you aren’t here…..
Took two seconds to go from feeling like Hercules to a very small thing in such a huge world. I did the ONLY thing that would bring me comfort: I crawled up in Heaven’s lap and told mom all about it.
Miss you, mom. Not feeling like your Hercules, today. I shall try again, tomorrow.
When we were small our dad would take us to the park. I loved the swings. The one with the long chains and floppy seats. Dad would push us. I LOVED his pushes! He was so strong. Would push so high! He would push so high it felt as though I could touch the sky.
Those pushes were exciting. They were terrifying. The best part, though, of dad’s pushes is getting super high then jumping off, at the push’ highest point.
The trick was getting the landing right. You had to be ready for the ground, had to have your weight shifted right, arms stretched out, like airplane wings, to land on BOTH feet with a satisfying thump. Again. Do it again, dad!
The landings, yikes, those landings didn’t always go right. I can remember going so high, doing my airplane landing and then landing in a big heap, ego bruised, knees skinned.
One would think dad would have rushed over, scooped me up and kissed my boo boo. Yet, he didn’t. He roared with laughter and told me ‘get up and do it again!’. Made me so mad. Laughing at me. Was terrified to try again. But, mad enough at the laughter to want to prove that I COULD do it again. Darn it.
Stomped my way back to the swing, huffily flounced on the seat and demanded another push….
Up, up, up we went. Good yikes thought I saw heaven that time. Did a nice bellow and off I went. Flew like a bird, attempted my valiant landing and landed, in a heap, AGAIN!….*pout*…
The more I pouted, the more dad laughed and shouted ‘get up and do it again!’. That challenge made me mad. Made me mad!!!!
I stomped back to the swing, assumed the position and off I went. It took two or three tries but I felt so proud when I landed on my feet!
I will never forget that day. The way dad challenged me. How made his challenge made me. How DETERMINED his challenge made me. How proud I was that I made it.
I remembered that day, that challenge whenever I faced something I could not quite get or over come I would think back on that day, that challenge. I would recall the determination I had, to never give up, and would get on up, try the thing again. Would fail. Pout. And, would get up and ‘try it again’. There were times were I succeeded. Other times I failed, and miserably. Each time, I laughed at myself and reminded myself that I could do it.
I am still heeding dad’s call, to this day. ‘Get up and do it again!’
I share his words with you….. get on up and do it again! Try another relationship. Apply for a new job. Try that thing that has terrified you so. You CAN do it. What’s more, the attempts will show you so very many things about you: will introduce you to the tenacity in you, the grit in you, the joy in you, the conqueror in you, the humbleness in you. In either victory or defeat, you still win. You win either victory or experience. I have found the experience has been much more valuable, over the years, than that thing I had so coveted and never won/gained.
My neck/back had been hurting. For days. Was getting to be quite a nuisance and a pain, forgive the pun. I adjusted my chair. Up. Down. Nothing. Drat it all….*pout*.
I switched back pillows. Nothing. Tossed pillow in a fit of rage…must admit enjoyed the throwing of the pillow ‘cross the room….nothing!!
I ate a few Ibuprofens and a muscle relaxer. Nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG MY NECK HURTS!!!!!!!!!!
Threw a tantrum or two or ten. Whined to God about my pitiful existence cuz of my hurting neck and don’t He give a hoot about my hurting neck??! How can I work with a hurting neck?
God allowed my pouting fest, my pillow tantrum and all my whinings. I imagine I began to be a pain, to HIM, when He tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me of something…….aha!!
I remember that I had changed the height of my monitor. Such a small thing and something I had forgotten. At the time, I needed to change the height due to a project I had been working on. After said project was completed, I went back to working as normal. The thought never crossed my mind to put my monitor back to it’s original needed height. I had gotten ‘comfortable’, you see.
It’s easy to get comfortable, isn’t it? We grow comfortable with our job, a relationship, a situation that is clearly no longer working for us.
Us humans can be dummies in hanging onto old habits/friends/trends etc simply because of comfort. We KNOW that thing, that person, that situation. Yes, it has/had become a pain in the neck a long time ago. Yet, we hang on. Out of stubborness? Sometimes.
Mostly, though, I think we hang on out of comfort, of what we are ‘used to’. Lord knows why we give ourselves permission to stagnate because of ‘used to’. We get used to being ignored/disrespected/talked about/dismissed or all manner of things.
We get used to the same old, same old. Until…..
UNTIL!
Until, God and life, pops us upside the head, causing a neck pain to make us sick and tired of being sick and tired and WE have to make the adjustments.
Speaking of adjustments: it took me all of ten seconds to correct my monitor and my neck pain was alleviated. Almost immediately. I had no idea how such a small thing could cause such a large strain.
When was the last time that you adjusted your ‘monitor’? Perhaps, it may be time for you to look at that situation, that relationship, that job and make a small adjustment. The adjustment may mean the end of the relationship. Or, it may mean adjusting to how you speak to one another, how you view the situation or person.
The moral of the story? It is up to US, you and me, to look at our lives and adjust the things that we can. We can’t forever be whining to God to fix things. Or demand that life change things. Oftentimes we have been given the needed directions or help a long time ago but chose to dismiss or ignore them cuz we got comfortable. Yes, we wanted changes. But, wanted someone or Someone or something to do the work for us.
God is NOT Santa. He is NOT our waiter, waiting to take all of our needs/wants and desires and give them to us immediately and pronto. God is Our Partner. He is Our Friend. He allows us to be a pain in the neck, to have a pain in the neck until we realize we on a partnership level. I do my part. He does His. BUT, HE is ultimately in Charge and gives the final go ahead and say so.
What if you don’t know God or don’t believe there is a God? Good questions. If you don’t know Him, ask Him to ‘holla back at a sista or brother’. Tell Him you have NO idea if Anyone is up there listening.
If you don’t BELIEVE in God? Well, we all believe in something. We rely on those beliefs to see us through. If you are currently believing only in yourself, well, you have the same mandate to make adjustments for yourself. Can’t be waiting on life or others to remove your ‘pain’.
We all need to STOP being a pain in the neck to one another. We have to continue to get some act right and stop whining and complaining about why come this and what about that. Am sure God really wants to tell us to shut up already!
A good friend gave me a nice boot to the rear, the other morning. Told me God was pleased with me for my efforts and this and that. Then submitted said boot to my hind end advising God was NOT pleased that at times I can carry on a bit on dreams that have been long unfulfilled. Said God says it’s okay to be disappointed and carry on a bit. But, God wants us to carry on and whine and throw pillows to HIM. He wants us to bring ALL of our fears and hopes and dreams and chop things up with Him.
The things we can ‘adjust’ He wants us to adjust. The things only HE can adjust, well, He wants us to know He loves us and is working on things. The trick is knowing that every answer will NOT be ‘yes’. We may hear: no, wait, yes, maybe, let me think about this and all manner of responses.
Until we get there, let’s continue to make those tiny adjustments that will lead us towards loving ourselves, first, then others. We got this, people. And, God has us all.
If life is being a pain, if YOU are being a pain, adjust what you can but keep on keeping on. NEVER allow ANY pain to keep you from being joyful, from being hopeful. Keep on loving YOU, no matter your stage in life. You are worth loving just because you are. It’s not what you do or have that makes you special. You special ‘just cuz’.
Remember you are: loved, seen and adored. By God. And me.
Why Can't I Be Loud?! 