Kitty Crenshaw's Blog, page 33
March 27, 2018
The Last Supper
The gifts of God for the people of God. Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on Him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.
“It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for Him to leave the world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” John 13:1
Come for a moment to the upper room where Jesus gathers his dearest friends on earth for a last supper together. He knew He was going to be crucified in a few hours. He shows them how far His love goes.
What does Jesus do in His last hours? Two things. He washes His disciples’ feet. And then He gives them His body and His blood.
Jesus touches His disciples’ feet as a bent-over God. He bends down and touches that intimate place and holds it and washes it. God in whom and by whom we are created bends over. Jesus pouring Himself out totally.
He then takes the bread, He takes the cup, and says, “Eat it. Drink it. I want to make Myself your food and your drink. I hold back nothing. My love is not conditional. My love has no boundaries.”
A community of love, of peace, of joy was born out of the total vulnerability of God.
As Jesus did, will we finally dare to pour ourselves out, not counting the cost? He asks us, “Do you love Me? Do you love Me? Do you love Me? And can you let that love come pouring out among my people you serve?”
The post The Last Supper appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
March 25, 2018
March 26
It takes so much negative energy to try to control your reality, and God is not in negativity. ~Betty
The post March 26 appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
March 22, 2018
March 23
Change and growth are synonymous. ~Betty
The post March 23 appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
March 20, 2018
Open My Eyes
Betty Skinner, the inspiration of the book The Hidden Life Awakened, discusses transcending, opening her eye to the beauty of God.
The post Open My Eyes appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
March 18, 2018
March 19
The wisdom of God is hiding in your heart, beyond the veil of your illusions and opinions. ~Betty
The post March 19 appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
March 15, 2018
March 16
The old voice in our head tells us we are wasting our time. The new voice in our heart tells us that if we don’t change we won’t grow. ~Betty
The post March 16 appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
March 11, 2018
March 12
By bringing you back to a moment in time when you were immersed in Love, memories will encourage you to trust and let go. ~Betty
The post March 12 appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
March 8, 2018
March 9
Remember and be encouraged; darkness can never overwhelm the light. ~Betty
The post March 9 appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
March 6, 2018
Be Transformed by Renewing Your Mind
“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The Apostle Paul Romans 12:2
You have the power to literally create a new brain to replace your old one. St. Paul knew this, and now neuroscience does.
Through stunning new technology, neuroscientists can actually watch as our thoughts, emotions, and choices register in the brain by a cascade of physical and energetic changes in the structure of its cells. They now affirm that how and where we focus our attention dictates the content of the brain structure we create. By choosing to focus our attention (mindfulness and prayer) on uplifting emotional content (positivity and hope), and sustaining that moment for twenty-five seconds (installation), we little by little change our brain structure, which changes mental activity, which changes biochemical communication in the body, which epigenetically changes gene expression and thus our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Think of it this way: the act of replacing negative thoughts with good thoughts physically impacts the synapses in our brain, causing them to disconnect and make brand new connections, creating new pathways and building more cells devoted to right thinking. We can turbocharge that process by engaging in positive lifestyle choices such as exercising, adding nutrient-rich foods into our diet, sleeping and resting well, and cultivating positive relationships. These combine synergistically to provide critical nutrients to grow healthy brain structure.
The effects of this self-directed neuroplasticity are cumulative, so every time we make a choice for hope, we are turning the part of us that chooses into something different than it was before. Just as it takes more than one footstep, though, to create a new path in the ground, it takes more than one thought to make a new pathway in our mind. We have to choose to cultivate the good we want in our mind over and over again.
It is very important to be gentle with yourself as you commit to the practice of physical, mental, and spiritual change. The road is never a straight one and you will, of course, have setbacks, especially if you are depressed or in a place of deep pain. It is hard to stay focused on anything when your heart is breaking, and very often, it feels impossible to pray. But take heart. God knows every detail of your need; your friends will pray on your behalf. You can trust, from very real and scientifically demonstrable truth, that the practices will get easier as your neural pathways begin to re-create themselves and build more and more structure to hold the good. So, do as much as you can and stay with it long enough to begin to feel a difference. As you do this, you are participating in the renewal of your mind and affirming that God can and will literally create in you a new heart.
And this note of encouragement from Betty Walthour Skinner, who courageously journeyed through this great change to freedom and wrote about it in The Hidden Life Awakened:
“As I made all these changes in my behavior and thinking, I had this picture in my mind that helped me understand better what I was doing. It was as if my life were a kite string that had gotten all tangled up in a ball of knots. The knots were the illusions I was living, the labels I had put on others and myself, the need I had to control others and protect myself, the voices of my cultural conditioning, and everything else I was clinging to. If I was ever going to get well, I needed to let all of that tangled string out a little at a time and then, very slowly and carefully, bring it back in straight each time a new truth was revealed to me.
“As my perceptions changed, everything around me began to change. It happened very, very slowly, though, because to change my way of thinking and living, I had to return and return and return to the Source to help me find my way. I had to ask over and over for a new way of seeing and reflect on it again and again. God was so gracious and so merciful. I looked back one day and realized that change had begun to happen.
“I pray always that these words may awaken in you more of His Spirit and help you to unravel more of His secrets.”
~Betty
The post Be Transformed by Renewing Your Mind appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
Make Space for God
Betty Skinner, the inspiration for The Hidden Life Awakened, discusses letting go of the negative and letting love in instead:
"We’ll find that we are much less resentful, much less judgmental, much less controlling, much less competing, much less comparing—and you can go on and on with all this negative stuff that we get bound up in, because as that’s released, the love comes in and the negative—compete, compare, control, complain—just begins to go."
The post Make Space for God appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.
