Letting My Light Shine

The best way to sum up this week is this quote from Marianne Williamson's book A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles:

"'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. there's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t' feel insecure around you . . . We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I am, and know, I am a child of mighty King why would I not allow myself to succeed? I, being treasured child, need to change my words and thoughts to be greater than what they are now. I am destined for greater things and need to put my best foot forward unafraid. Once I do a great many wonderful things will happen because of my lineage. 

The other thing I take away from this is the obligation I have as a child of King. There is lots of work to be done when one is royalty. Meetings, treaties, and improvements are required of someone of a royal line, such as me. As a daughter of the all might God and being royalty it is required I let my talents shine brightly. We learn in Matthew 25 not using our talents angers the Lord to the point he will take them away. I don't want to have my birthright taken away. Which means I have to have courage to learn what I have been given and magnify it. 

Being a part of a group has been going on since the dawn of civilization; it will continue to go on long after I have left this earth. Human nature encourages us to "hang with the crowd" and not rock the boat. What I love about this quote is, it is a reminder we shouldn’t dim our light too fit in but should let be as bright as it can be. Reflect the light the Lord pours down on us. As we do others will follow and do the same. 

It's a powerful quote that has changed my thinking. 

Childhood Dreams

Randy Pauch's last lecture was a required reading this week in class. Achieving your childhood dreams. As a child I don't recall having dreams of working at x company or becoming x profession.The only drive I was born with was the drive to find the true church. That is story for another day. It's a good one too.

My dreamless childhood wasn't because I had a hard life, it was because I was living the dream. I was raised by a single mom and during the summers my brother and I would be placed in YMCA day care while she worked. To say I thrived is a little bit of an understatement. I loved it! We'd travel all over Southern California and did it all, the beach, theme parks (all of them), skating, swimming. We even toured a city water treatment plant. I adored every waking minute. Once summer was over I would, what my mom called hibernate, until summer again. To this day I still smile when I smell summer coming. (yes, in May, in California there is a scent in the air. I now know it's a sent of fog but a scent non the less.) As I grew up I started working for "the Y." I've had just about every job a youth could have, lifeguard, swim teacher, after school site manager etc. I worked for them until 10 years ago. At that point I was engaged and as much as I loved working for the Y it didn't pay the bills we were about to incurred so it was time to move on. I was OK with it actually. It was time to move on and I, a new member of the church, had a different mind set.

He're I am 10 years later focusing on an assignment to come up with a new dream. From my childhood all I did was play. It's my first instinct. Like Peter from "Office Space" dream was to do nothing mine would be to play all day, and travel the world. I looked high and low for a job that did that but so far no luck. Although now that I have a home and a family I don't really want to go far unless they could go with me. It's funny how things change.

Randy Pauch accomplished a lot of his childhood dreams. His analogy of hitting the brick wall summed it up. The wall isn't there to stop you but to show how much you want things.

Dreaming helps launch us, it's vital. One can't go into space, let alone the market, without a launch. Where do I want to be launched next? Going back to school has been a dream for the last 15 or so years. That dream has started to take off. I'm finishing up my first year at BYUI. I only have 4 more years to go. Yay!

Future dreams, you may ask. To have fun, enjoy life, and of course, play.

The Beginning

It is funny how life happens and things we don't plan on end up being wonderful. Here I am blogging again, not necessarily by choice. It's certainly not a topic I'd want to write about...myself. But life has guided me to go back to school and the stars aligned to bring me here.

Here I am, at the start a of a new journey. Thank you business class. At this point in this journey my eyes roll and my fingers want to type no thank you. Some how I have a sneaky feeling I'll be singing or at least typing a different tune by the end of these next 14 weeks.

Part of my business degree requires I take an entrepreneurship class. This week we learned everyone is an entrepreneur. I've never seen myself as an entrepreneur, although there are things about it that sound great, working for myself doing something I love. I am not a go-getter and the last thing I am is competitive. I've always put my life in the Lords hands, a leaf in the Lords wind. Floating from place to place. He's never steered me wrong. By doing so I've had some interesting experiences. Experiences, that I questioned at first, dating my now husband for example, but now I've embraced them. This class makes me thing I could help guide which way I go in that wind. It is an interesting concept that could bring some deep insights.

As long as the Lord stays at the helm, I'm game.