Honoring Your Gifts

During this time of year, many of us are aware of all that we have to be grateful for.  Some may have had more time to spend with family and friends.  Those who celebrate Christmas likely had presents waiting under the tree, and exchanged gifts with important people in their lives.

It is a time of many gifts, but the truth is that we live all of our lives in the midst of a legacy of treasure.  It’s easy in a busy life to let much of this amazing bounty go unnoticed, so that we miss out on the true magnitude of what we’ve been given.

Every single day, we wake.  We breathe.  The sun rises.  Whether we revel in these things or not is a choice we’re given to make.  Our ability to choose what we hold as real, and what we attend to, is probably the biggest gift of all.

We are here, luminous expressions of perfect consciousness, bringing that light to physical form.  When we wake, God has the experience of beginning another day.  When the sun rises, God delights in the goodness of her creations.  And when we breathe, God is awed by her body’s perfect dance through all of it.

When we turn our attention to all that is right in our lives, and in the world, we help make it so.  As we honor all of our many gifts, we create space for our own, and others', abundance.  It is our conscious acknowledgement of and gratitude for the limitless good that we're a part of that creates it in our daily experience.

So in the new year let us appreciate and nurture the gifts we've been given.  Look for the good that hides behind your most challenging situations.  Take care of what’s important, and remember that awareness is the goal, not perfection.  

Choose as often as you can to see the light of God expressing in everyone you encounter.  Make a list every day of all that you're grateful for.  Take time to notice the small things that bring joy.  Do what you need to do to take good care of your body, that most holy temple of the soul’s expression.  And find a way every day to connect with the light of God within yourself.

May you dance through 2011 in joy and abundance, and may this tool be a blessing. . .