I have always loved sunrises and sunsets. I love to get up early enough to watch the sunrise and I love to take time at the end of the day to enjoy all the beautiful colors as the sun sets. A.J. Lawless said: “It was sunsets that taught me that beauty sometimes last for only a couple of moments, and it was sunrises that showed me that all it takes is patience to experience it all over again.”

The Scriptures put it this way in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven— 2 A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. 3 A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up. 4 A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. 5 A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. 6 A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. 7 A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. 8 A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace.” (New American Standard Version)

Today is a new beginning, a blank canvas, an amazing opportunity for you to work on a brand new master piece. Do not get distracted and drug off course by the failures, sins, mistakes and screw ups of yesterday. Receive this beautiful gift that your Creator has given you and do something incredible with it. You will be glad you did!

What does it mean to relax? I think the definition is different for different people. For some people, to relax means to do absolutely nothing, while for others, it means doing what you want to do, when and how you want to do it. Vacation is usually supposed to be a time of relaxing, but some of us have a hard time with that, because we are not so good at gearing down.

At it’s most simple level, I believe relaxation is “Letting go of frustration, so that peace may grab hold of us.” This requires us to do our part, so that we might experience the good that is already around us. Letting go is hard, until you realize that control is actually only an illusion anyway. We are never really in control. We feel like we are in control and when we feel this way, everything is just wonderful. But the greatest control is learning to let go of the need for control, since we never really truly possess it anyway.

To let go of control, we have to step away, look within and learn to listen to the silence. It is hard to step away, but that is what “vacation” is about. Stepping away from business as usual. And the beautiful thing, is that we can do this without even having to leave the room. Learning to look within and focus on what is going on inside of us, while not being distracted by all that is whizzing by outside of us requires practice and discipline, but once we begin to get it, we are on our way to a much better place and way of living. Silence is scary for most folks. Most people have to have noise of some sort blaring all the time, but silence is a beautiful ting that teaching us a new way of hearing and learning to listen to your silence opens up a whole new world of experiences.

Viktor E. Frankl, in his classic book: “Man’s Search For Meaning “ says “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” You have been given the amazing gift of being able to choose your attitude. I want to challenge you to choose to let go of the illusion of control. I want to challenge you to choose to STEP AWAY from doing life and treating every moment as business as usual. I want to challenge you to learn to LOOK WITHIN and discover all of the amazing blessings that flow from the inside-out. I want to challenge you to LISTEN TO THE SILENCE and truly begin to hear the tings that will change your life and living for the better and more amazing blessing.

Real relaxation is an amazing gift and a vacation is something you can have more than just one time in the summer. Relaxation and vacation is something that you can live, grow and thrive in everyday of your human experience, so live blessed, laugh loud, learn everyday and love always…

It is always nice to get away for a little vacation and one of the really great benefits of getting away is being able to open up your mind, so you can be reminded of what is really important. This morning, I headed down to the beach to watch the sun rise, but I did not get to see it, because of the thick cloud cover. That was okay, because even though I could not see it rise, knew that it was and without any doubts. That got me to thinking about other things that I am sure of and here are a few that remind me of how blessed I really am.

Faith, Family and Friends. I want to take them in reverse order:

Friends: If you have people that you get to do life with, then you are very blessed. We are here at the beach visiting with friends and last night as we sat around the table enjoying our dinner, we laughed and laughed. It is so great to have people that you can totally be yourself with and not have to worry about judgement. It’s nice to have people that you know have your back no matter what. And it is nice to have people that you have no desire to judge and that you get to be there for. A real friend is someone who loves you with no expectation of anything in return and if you are blessed to have one and be one, then you are truly blessed.

Family: Someone said you don’t get to choose your family and in some instances that is kinda true, but you do get to choose your reaction and interaction with your family. And even in the most challenged of families, we are blessed to always be able to find someone who supports and loves us not matter what. My family helped to shape who I am today and they continue to shape me by supporting me and encouraging me as I continue to grow into the man that I was created to be. You may not get to choose your family, but you can choose to live your life in such a way that you are a blessing to them and the beautiful thing is that as you bless them, it usually comes back to you triple fold.

Faith: Having something to believe in makes all the difference in this world, You have a Creator that believes in you! No matter who you are, where you’ve come from, what you have done or haven’t done, your Creator loves you and has an amazing purpose for your life. Your Creator wants to bless you and allow you to walk through this human experience with favor. Belief is a very powerful thing and this is why it is so important to make sure that our belief is focused in the right direction. Believe in the One Who created you and Believe that you were created on purpose and for a purpose and then go for it, like you believe it!

If you have faith, family and friends, then you are a very blessed person! I am a very blessed person! Thank you for being my friend! Thank you for being a part of my family! Thank you for having faith! I am not only blessed, I am also grateful…