LOOK WHAT GOD GAVE ME

Dear Angelic Blog Buddies:

I recently was listening to the words of Brad Paisley's latest song: Water. The lyrics convey the message of getting a map and going to where it is blue on the map. Go to water. Whether you are experiencing the water of oceans, waterfalls, lakes, ponds, hot springs, swimming pools, showers, or bathtubs, water offers healing to our spirits.

Water is so important to all of us. Every living thing needs water. If we are able to offer something as simple as a clay saucer filled with water on the ground in our gardens or backyards for the birds and other creatures, it is an abundant blessing.

Someone recently sent me an email which included a prayer by Dr. Masaru Emoto (researcher/scientist and author about the chacteristics and power of water) for the Gulf Coast tragedy:

I send the energy of love and gratitude to the water and all the living creatures in the Gulf of Mexico and its surroundings.
To the whales, dolphins, pelians, fish, shellfish, plankton, coral, algae, and all living creatures.
I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.

For the first half of 2010 I have been called upon to serve as minister for a number of funerals for dear friends who have lost spouses suddenly and friends who have died suddenly. In addition to this, my dear little 19 year-old Jack Russell Terrier, Benny, died and there is a huge void in our home and my heart. I have also felt my heart saddened by the cruelty being done to animals. In Baltimore there have been horrific incidents of cruelty done to animals by children. It's beyond my comprehension. All of this has been compounded by seeing the images of the oil spill's impact on the creatures of the Gulf coast. Sometimes life is emotionally overwhelming.

I am sharing this because it brought me to a point in my conversations with God where I asked for help in reconnecting with my own personal joy. I prayed for guidance as to what to do to heal myself.

I asked God: Should I see a therapist? Who should I ask for help?

The answer that I received was this: Talk to "little Jaynie".

I was inspired to ask Little Jaynie for a memory that would start the process of weaving joy back into my life pattern. I asked for an early JOY memory.

The memory I was given was when I was a child and I first experienced the ocean. I was raised on a farm. My parents were dairy farmers and so the cows were milked every morning and evening. Because of this, my parents did not take overnight vacations. Our vacation experience had to be contained in the hours between morning and evening milkings.

One summer day my parents took my sister, Joyce, and I to the ocean for the day. I remember when I first experienced the ocean and stood before it, I thought to myself "How could they have kept this from me?" It made me wonder what other good things they were keeping from me.

I think in some way it stirred within my consciousness a knowingness that everything that life offered was not contained or to be found in Upperco, Maryland. You have perhaps heard the lyrics: How are you going to keep them down on the farm, after they've see Paris. Well, my life was changed by the seeing the ocean. It was love at first sight.

The power of the energy of the ocean made me feel an energy inside of me like I had never felt before in my young life. This would be the beginning of a love affair with water.

While in my teens, the government offered a program to farmers where they could build ponds for free on their land. All the farmers in our area took advantage of this program, including my dad. As a result, we had a one acre pond on the farm which I adored. In the summertime, I spent every free moment in the pond. I love being immersed in water; being near water.

Little Jaynie reminded me of the healing power of the ocean and that first experience with the ocean as a little girl. And so I talked to my husband, Chuck, about my need to go to the ocean and in March we headed out for Rehobeth Beach. We got our beach chairs out of the car and walked down to the beach and sat right in front of the ocean. Instaneously the healing began. The smell healed us. The air healed us. The power of the ocean healed us. The beauty healed us. The majesty healed us. The fact that we were away from traffic and life's yamma yamma healed us.

A week or so later we took another trip to Rehobeth for the day. On this particular day, we sat on the beach until the wind on the beach became pretty harsh. I suggested to Chuck that we get in our car and drive south to Ocean City. While driving the car, Chuck had the inspiration for us to go to Assateague Island.

I remember going to Assateague Island years ago and loving it, and the thought that we might be close enough to do that delighted Little Jaynie. Chuck said Assateague was just south of Ocean City and so we pointed the Jeep towards Assateague.

When we arrived at Assateague and walked out onto the beach, we both were overwhelmed with the naturalness of the island. The pristine beach, the dunes, and of course the wonderful ocean. Even though on that particular day we only spent an hour at Assateague, we made the decision that Assateague was the place we wanted to come for future ocean visits.

Over the past three months we have visited Assateague six times and every time we go there something magical occurs to the point that we truly believe we are entering another dimension when we arrive at the beach.

On our second visit, I realized that neither Chuck or I are young puppies any more and carrying everything down to the beach was a real task. I prayed for inspiration and God responded with the God-thought of obtaining an Oversand Vehicle Permit for our jeep. We did that immediately. I am happy to say that we now drive our Jeep right onto the beach. We park the car and open the back hatch and have immediate access of whatever we need for our day of healing with the ocean without the lugging energy that we experienced before.

I have felt such a gratefulness to God for this healing for both Chuck and myself. The ocean experiences have truly been beneficial in Chuck's health improving.He just went to the heart doctor yesterday and got a fantastic report of abundant heart health.

I decided I wanted to do something as an acknowledgment of my gratefulness, so I became a "foster" parent to an Assateague Pony. The foal I adopted was in fact born on Be An Angel Day in 2009 - August 22, 2009. And you can imagine my delight (and Little Jaynie's delight) when I discovered that the foal had been named: JOY.

I found my JOY at Assateague with God's help and Little Jaynie's.

This past week we took one of our healing day trips to Assateague. We arrive pretty early in the morning and set up our beach chairs for a day of communing with the ocean. After our usual set-up, I took a little walk down the beach. And all of a sudden a wave offered up onto the beach - placing it right on the sand in front of me - the most perfect, whole seashell. It was as if the wave was the hand of God and was placing this shell in front of me on the sand. It's one the large shells that you hold to your ear and hear the ocean. I picked it up and starting running down the beach to Chuck shouting with joy: Look what God gave me! Look what God gave me!

Chuck and I both were amazed with the perfectness of the shell.We have only seen broken pieces of seashells on the beach before. I didn't look for anymore shells that day. Chuck and I both had the knowingness that this was the God blessing of the day and we were in total gratefulness for it. We even had the shell on a beach chair as if it was guest of honor for the day.

My joy exclamation: Look what God gave me, has become my daily mantra. I am taking time to truly look at, appreciate, be grateful for all that God gives me. At the end of the day I encourage you to look back over the day at what God gave you.

One more magical ocean moment I want to share occurred on Chuck's birthday. We went to Assateague on June 10th for Chuck's birthday. Chuck has some minor joint problems and so walking can be challenging at times; not all the time - just some times. Because we are frequent visitors now to Assateague we have seen the ponies just about everywhere except walking along the ocean. I commented to Chuck that I hoped some day we would see the ponies standing next to the ocean as I have seen in photographs and postcards. For me it would be the magical ponies next to the magical ocean.

Well, there we are sitting in our beach chairs in front of the ocean and four ponies walk right down the beach in front of us - just as if Chuck was the Birthday Grand Marshall in a parade viewing stand and they were marching on by. Look what God just gave us! Happy Birthday, Chuck - love, God.

Abundant blessings of Joy to each and every one of you,
Love Jayne aka Little Jaynie