take a breathe...

The other day I heard something amazing…want to know what it is? It was this line, “Every breath we take is God breathing life into us.” Isn’t that amazing? Think about how many breathes you take in a day…that’s a lot isn’t it? So every time you take one of those breathes God is breathing life into you. He’s providing you the life that you are living! Incredible don’t you think?

Everyone takes life for granted sometimes…we all are busy with our work, friends, social events…usually too busy. With this busyness we can often lose sight of the “smaller” things that are going on around us; The grass growing, the world turning, the breathes we’re breathing. When was the last time you thought about your breathing? It’s something incredibly small, but earth-shatteringly large!

We are still breathing because we have a purpose that we have not yet fulfilled. I don’t know what yours is but I think mine has to do with spreading the Word of God…I don’t always remember this purpose, and I don’t always live out this purpose…but if I think of all the times that God has breathed life into me (every day…every breath) I need to be a better lamb to my shepherd.

Sometimes I forget how important it is to breathe, it’s our survival, it’s our will to live. It’s something that we do without thinking, but if I stop to think about it, God is breathing life into us…and if God is giving us life, shouldn’t we be shouting that from the rooftops?

God gave me life today…how about you?

Summer Lovin'

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about friends. It's come to me that relationships really grow in the summertime. Why? Well let's talk about it!

One thing I notice with people is that they tend to "hang out" in the summer more often then the winter. First of all, the obvious reason, it's warm out. Who wants to visit someone in the dead of winter, when they have to sit inside and gab...but who doesn't like sitting out on someone's deck and "shootin' the shit?" I know which one I would rather do! To me there is nothing better then sitting on someone's deck/bar patio with a bunch of friends, having a drink or two and talking about life. To me, that's what life's about!

It also seems that people are more willing to drive around in the summer, probably because of road conditions (they feel more comfortable on the road) and also because they aren't freezing! This, of course, enables you to connect with more people as your willing to drive all over the country side to talk to the people you are visiting. This increases the amount of people that you come in contact with and thus increasing your friendship with those people.

Another big one is camping/cottaging/vacationing. Most people take vacations in the summer and many of us take these vacations with others outside of the family. This, pretty much, forces us to become closer with these people because we are with them a lot more then we normally would! You are also creating a history with people then, something that you can both look back on and tell stories about what happened that weekend.

So, in other words, summer is great...and I love it because I hang out with friends a lot more, and even family. I feel that I become closer with friends in the summer time and our community becomes tighter as a group. Do you experience this as well?