life is precious | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “life is precious”

29 Jan 2014

Facing Your Fear Through Faith

Faith.

It’s easy to give-in to the pressure of the people and things that are happening around you. We have a tendency to reach for our own personal courage and convictions to help defend ourselves from those things that seem to attack our sensibilities.

Defending the purpose of our day and the reason for our existence ends up being something that takes a lot of effort and seems to be an unending lifelong job.

It’s a wonder we don’t just give-in to those things that create personal fears and doubts. But we have something that is much stronger than our personal resolve, something that is the shield that helps to make each day what God intended it to be. We can stand firm in our faith and not let personal fear and doubts chip away what God has asked of us.

There will be numerous attacks on our faith. There will be numerous reasons put into our path to convince us to step aside from the strength God provides. Often we can forget what makes us strong, and try to overcome things ourselves.

We tend to believe our strength is ours alone, and then when things aren’t going the way we plan- we give into the fear that waits inside us and we ignore the place of real strength. As a personal cancer warrior I battle that every day of my life.

So there is one answer. Put it all in your faith in Him. Make sure you are consciously aware of the strength it provides;be sure to use your faith and confidence your faith to make yourself stronger each day of your life.

Count on that faith to make the decisions you need to make. Count on the courage that it provides when things aren’t going the way you think it should – because trusting in Him will make the difference. Looking at your life through God will allow you to “be on your guard”.

I had posted this on another blog of mine, but it seems to ring true every day of my life. How about your life?

It’s something to work on daily. It is practice in our faith that will make us strong. Standing firm on what that will provide the courage we need to face our fears and doubts.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Cancer, choices, Compassion, facing fears, Faith, Joy, life is precious, mental-health, personal courage, personal fears, Philosophy, relationships, Religion and Spirituality, Sprituality

21 Jan 2014

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Songs About “Time”

“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” – Henry Van Dyke

Coming up on my the end of my 2nd year of posting to “tracks in the dust” and I think I have shared my thoughts a lot on time and its passages. It is truly thinking through the concept of the idea of our tracks we leave behind us in our lives. Each day,each hour we have during our mission here on earth, time passes and we have less of it until that moment our life ends in this form.

Time is something no one can change once it has passed, and everyone is subject to it in the moment that is “now”.

There are so much said on the blogs here in WordPress, so many books written about it, so many songs ( there I am again in the musical mode). It is

We all are subject to the changes that time deals out. It changes everything – except that when it tries to change us we seem to so often be surprised. Go figure I guess.

We all understand that there is no way to stop the clock and wait for things, as much as we sometimes wish. Like stopping a terminal illness until a cure, it won’t happen. It is 5 years since my cancer surgery and start of radiation treatments and time has been kind. I have been blessed that the ongoing treatments invented to help fight the disease are helping, and that while I am surviving as new things are being discovered to help further fight it. Count on the fact there will always be that race.

My kids will often wish that time would hurry, so they could get to the next thing in their lives. Live for the big event, live for the weekend. Look out toward the horizon. But they stop looking at the “now” and cherishing what that is. I think that comes with age (maybe) or the wisdom that is provided us by the life we live and the perils in it.

Which all leads up to the point I have made again and again. The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.

Enjoying while you can. It is yours to spend until the end… time waits for no one.

Some of my favorite songs about time:

Ambrosia: Time Waits for No One

Al Stewart: Time Passages

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, cherishing time, counting out time, Definitions, life is precious, Memories, moments, Music, Slow Down, songs about time, the secret of life, Time, tracks in the dust, wasting time

21 Nov 2013

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Pointing Blame

There are so many diverse things in our lives, lately I have been thinking about the extremes of blame.

Some people get caught up in the idea that it is “All My fault”. The person who seems to be a sponge, take on everything… like always thinking “must have been me” Most times they end up being a victim of life. Looking at others and wondering why they can’t get a break, life is unfair.

There is the other extreme of course. Seems like a bit more of this happens these days… “Not my fault”. People that will actually go out of their way to prove that they are not to blame. Don’t want to take it on ever. Always wanting to point the blame elsewhere, regardless if that is the truth or not.

It is really about accountability… and that is something more elusive these days. You have to own it when you can- but sometimes it is just not going to make a difference. But when you can recognize your mistakes, take them to heart and look for ways to change it – you will live a life that will be full of new things. It will be tough, but it has its benefits- you get to learn more, be better and take new directions you may never have imagined.

Be able to recognize where things stand and then move on, or decide what you want to do to change it- go ahead and make it happen.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, Advice, Blame, choices, life is precious, My fault, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Self-Awareness, Who Are You, Your fault

18 Nov 2013

Embrace the Journey

When I was a child I remember fondly the idea that my family was going on a “vacation” – a road trip.

There was an excitement about the “journey” and all that came with it. Sure there was the superhighway, but there was also roadside stops. Places along the way to stop. The restaurants strategically placed, the car-parks to stop, attractions worthwhile to get out of the car. There was “time” actually… at least it seemed to be more of it.

We may be weren’t as much in a hurry back then it seems. We had interest in what was going by the windows as we drove by. “Getting there” was still important, but taking a planned detour… heading down a rural route, was just as important.

Which is why I sometimes ponder what makes me in such a “hurry”. Perhaps it is because everything is instant these days. In my life seems like most inventions have all designed to be moving things along quicker. Faster cars, faster cooking, faster Internet with faster search engines, faster travel, faster answers.

Even the movies we watch are faster. Watching an “old” mystery movie the other nite with my daughter from 1995 (gasp) it was amazing how slow the plot moved, how slow the dialog moved. We both noticed. My daughter was wondering if people were just slower back in ’95. We both were thinking that we hit the FF button we could get to the mysterious conclusion.

Guess its time to work on slowing things down a bit. Cherish the journey. I have been so busy thinking about being in a hurry at work, that I have even ignored the most important person in my life, the love of my life, and hurt her more than I can imagine. Just thinking about how to get the job done at work I have missed what is around me. What’s with that?

How many things have you let pass by because you were so focused on the destination?

How often have you missed the most interesting things in your life as you drove ahead to reach where you thought you needed to be?

Embrace the journey. Bring your loved ones with you. Take life’s trip, but take some time to stop along the way and enjoy the ride.

Detour. (jcolbear03.wordpress.com)

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged cherish, choices, Embrace the Journey, Faith, life is precious, moments, Moving too fast, Postive Thinking, Self-Awareness, Slow Down, tracks in the dust

31 Oct 2013

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All That I’m Allowed

I get so sad sometimes. Just watching people wasting their lives away.

They consume so much of their time feeling that they are victims, or looking at the dark side of their life and being angry at everyone and every thing around them.

Sometimes I want to shake them and tell them to stop it! Quit sinking in the quicksand that is wrapping itself around them and slowing them down. It is tough to say how to help them. They don’t want to listen, they believe that “others” are creating their circumstances and that there is no way out. They are looking for more.

There is a look of hopelessness in their eyes. I cannot tell them the hopelessness I have experienced fighting a disease in my body that is not curable. It will always be there and my wife and I had to make a choice. Let it consume our lives or do something about it. We turned to our faith in God. We also turned to each other to help understand that His love is stronger than anything when it comes to life. We know that life is not eternal here on earth. We know that there is an ending to our timeline here, and that it is eternity that will matter most.

What we have learned: Have faith in each other, have faith in Him. Look at life as something to embrace no matter what the future holds. It has to be part of the equation. I feel bad for those with no hope, with no feeling of what “comes next”. They need to take another look at make something better out of the time we are allowed.