I decided to share a Christmas letter with you counting blessings for 2011. May it inspire you to count your own! 🙂
Greetings!
I pray this letter finds you and yours enjoying a peaceful, if not joyful, season, and that you are looking forward to a bright new year!
Since the holiday season is a time to remember back over the year and count our blessings, I decided to write my Christmas letter to you as a way to enumerate and share some of what this past year has inspired my own gratitude. I truly have discovered that no matter our circumstances, there is so much for which to be grateful, There is a principle of abundance that comes to mind as I think about the importance that gratitude plays in generating prosperity; it goes something like this: to have more abundance we must be grateful for the abundance we have! And it is with that intention that I send holiday greetings to you, my loved ones and friends.
First on my mind, since we just returned, is my gratitude for our son, Andrew, who is indeed a blessing to many. Daniel and I spent four days with him and his precious family in Florida participating in his annual production of The Nutcracker. What a talented, creative man he is! Everything he touches shines with the attention that only a true artist can give – his school, The Guilfoil Academy of Dance (GAD), his home, his students, even B. Andrews, his line of skin care products, all of it shines! Of course he does have super support with Brett and Maggie, his immediate family. They are a big part of his success. It makes my heart glow when I see my children being so well-nurtured and loved!
We had our small Christmas dinner in the home of our daughters, Monessa and Jaquetta, along with my brother and our three precious grandchildren, Nicolas, (9), Isabella (6), and Kai (3). What a sweet time we had together! I am so grateful for the way I see Source moving through their lives too! Monessa is radiant with health and awareness of ways to make a difference in the world around her. As a program producer for our local NPR station, she shares local stories of interest with our community, and is proactive in our community in the effort to bring the produce of local farmers into our local markets and eating establishments.
Jaquetta works for me. We’ve worked together for almost six years now! Words cannot express the gratitude I feel to be able to work so intimately with my own daughter! My new book came out in February launching a busy career time for us as we spread its message via seminars, workshops, and the Internet. Jaquetta is one member of the dynamite team that has come together to support the work we’re doing.
God has supplied me with the best team imaginable! I am humbled by the quality and capability of those who have come together to help me spread the word. My thanksgiving for them is beyond measure! The best thing about our team, in my opinion, is that they each believe and practice the guiding principles of Reality that I write about in my book, Guiding Principles for Life Beyond Victim Consciousness. I cannot express the amount of gratitude I feel in watching those around me take this work and apply it to their own lives! I am humbled and grateful for the miracles I’ve witnessed in the lives and families of those around me.
Our internet guru, Zack, and our marketing director, Danielle are among those I feel a special amount of gratitude for today. Closely following them in praise, is the group of supporters and willing contributors who have partnered with us in creating our new company, called REALignment Educational Project, LLC. This company was created for the sole purpose of educating and promoting the message I have been given the honor and privilege to share. We are a company that invites others to join with us to support our efforts through donations, and by becoming actual members! These are indeed exciting times.
My work, which I find increasingly difficult to separate from my personal life, is a God-given blessing in itself. I am brought to my knees in gratitude when I think about the tremendous honor I feel in having been given the opportunity to use my voice and words to share what for me has been life transforming. And, knowing me so well, Source gave me a life of diversity! I am so grateful!
I am grateful too for the tremendous pleasure of watching our children, one by one find their way to a better understanding of life. During the last year, several of our children have been involved in supporting the process I teach! Can you imagine what a thrill it is to have one’s own family embrace the work one does? My heart is full indeed.
And of course, my precious husband, Daniel is my anchor and number one supporter. He is a vital part of our team, doing everything from property maintenance to staging events to financial planning and now he has even started providing childcare! He and our daughter, Brooke, are in charge of a program we are developing that teaches children the guiding principles of Reality. I am so grateful for Daniel’s willingness to join ranks with Brooke, who not only was raised with these principles (being our daughter!), but who also has experience and skills of her own to share from her work with kids as a summer camp counselor for nine years.
Together, Daniel and Brooke are finding ways to pass on to other parents and children an approach gleaned from Daniel’s profound experience and success at winning the confidence and cooperation of the kids he works with by teaching them self-responsibility.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude and gladness for the opportunity I've been given to witness, and participate in a ‘Bigger Plan.’ It awes me whenever I see the plan unfolding so effectively and precisely in my own life and in the lives of those around me.
Weaving together the creative abilities and impressive skills of family members, Our Creator has taken us as a family, and turned us to use for His own perfect purposes. And our precious children, who are out in the world doing their own thing, are living lives full of heart and passion for life; they are living out their part of the ‘Bigger Plan.’ I am immensely grateful to be a part of this family!
Both of my siblings, David and Kathie have participated in seminars with me this past year, and have shown sincere enthusiasm for my work. I count on them to see me with a certain degree of levity for they do not hesitate to tell me what they “really think!” So there support is deeply meaningful, and I am delighted by it, and grateful.
Even health challenges have brought us gifts! I have witnessed beautiful examples among family members of dealing with serious health issues with grace and acceptance. I appreciate all the ways those around me inspire me to reach for a higher perspective. I love my family for what they teach me about myself and life.
There have been heartbreaks this past year as well – and even for those I am grateful, not because they happened, but for the gifts they brought forth. For all the many challenges we have faced, however, our family has received even more blessings, and I give sincere thanks for the continued well-being of each of my loved ones.
The Sabbath Day of Rest is something for which I have come to feel a deep appreciation this past year. Daniel and I spend the whole day every Sabbath with our daughter and grandchildren. We go to church together as a family where the children are exposed to an early orientation of looking up, rather than out at the world. Afterwards, we go out to eat somewhere (we take turns choosing where) and then we spend the afternoon enjoying some outdoor activity where we can all play like children. It’s a glorious time that I feel confident will be remembered by our grandchildren all their lives.
I am surprised in some ways, but deeply grateful that I have come back to my roots as a Southern Appalachian woman who garners comfort from the Bible. Christianity is my lineage altho I left it early in life to explore other resources. I have found much to my surprise and delight that the Bible verifies to me many of the ancient truths that I spent so many years discovering from other sources. To discover congruence where I was told I would not has been a wonderful boon to my life, and has brought me even closer to God. Truth is always true no matter its source. I love Christ, and his words, and merging them with my way of perceiving the world energetically works beautifully for me. I am grateful that I get to have my own personal relationship with Christ. We are each promised a relationship with Source that works for us! A blessing indeed!
I have discovered the literal truth of the Biblical verse, “God is Love,” in my life. I have come to understand love as the one true solvent for every illness, every predicament, and every hurt, be it emotional or physically caused. And sometimes love means to walk away, let it go, watch someone suffer the consequences of their choices, and trust that Source knows how to handle them better than I. Every time I release a loved one into the hands of Creator, I grow from seeing what can be accomplished when I get out of the way! What a relief! What a blessing NOT to have to be in charge!
I am grateful for all three hundred and sixty five times this past year that I spent connecting with Source in my morning practice. He starts my day, and the benefits from that have been incredible! It is there that I am reminded over and again to return to surrender and gratitude for my life as it is today. (I forget so easily!) My personal relationship with Christ is my greatest blessing, my greatest asset. From that connection comes everything I offer to the world. Anything good that comes through me is from that connection while the blundering and awkward stumbling is all mine.
The best part of our life journey for me is during those times when I remember from whence it all comes. Remembering that central fact allows us to consciously open to the flow of our Creator. I believe that this is the true secret of life, don’t you?
There is one last blessing I want to mention here this morning and that is my gratitude for you! You are among the sparkling jewels in my life; your presence, whether physical or over the ethers of the internet, nourishes and inspires me in some way, and I want you to know that I notice, and send prayers of gratitude for you often.
My hope is that you found yourself reflecting on your own blessings from the past year as you read this. Whatever time of year it is, it is always a good time to count our blessings.
Thanks for sharing with me in a celebration of my blessings.
Merry Christmas,
Lynne