By Dana Smoker
                                                             Nature's Dance

Chaos we all experience it and always do we question while we are in the middle of it why me God? Then we may in our attempt to be objective think Why not me? Each is a good response to create more pondering. When life brings forth surprises its an opportunity for growth and we being very human label it good or bad depending on our range of experience. We are creatures of habit regardless of whether what we are doing is creating a happy experience for ourselves or not we want continuity.   Being one creature of habit I like to establish patterns that seemingly work for me.  I imagine my life enclosed in a snow globe all perfectly laid out to provide me with my zone of comfort, everything just as I like it. Each snowflake carefully placed just where it needed to be in that moment in my life. Oh and the ruts created where I routinely move about in my perfect world. Yes, perfection in my perception of my life and world. 

THEN someone or thing dares introduce change, or get in the way of my established path; it frustrates me, confuses me, perhaps angers or depresses me. I like to wallow in that feeling of chaos for a personal moment or two.or three before I can step back and recall my favorite analogy, my snow globe. I envision God picking up my snow globe which has become so stagnate in my need for sameness and he shakes it with great love. With the greatest wisdom He sets it back down to allow me to sort and clear what no longer is working in my life. I am given a new opportunity to see my life differently, to make new choices, create new adventures, open the next door and close the last behind me. I have the chance to let go and to open fully to what is now in front of me and to risk growing from the experience.

When I expand that idea out as a business owner I have been challenged to be more creative in these times of change. To do business as business was done just a few years back will not work in depressed times such as Michigan is experiencing. There are those that will find they are not ready for the changes necessary to succeed where others have not. There are those who will choose to move to greener pastures. Whatever choice is made it may be the right choice for them. Trusting your intuition is your direct connection with God, if it feels right for you know that it is! For me I know that the chaos is a blessing in disguise. God shook our snow globe giving us the opportunity to think more creatively, diversify, choose not to depend on the big corporations that dictate how we live, where we live, when we can vacation, when we can be sick and when we can spend time as a family.  What a fabulous time to make change, think differently, choose your path of joy! I believe that this has opened the door for small businesses to seize the opportunity and build a stronger foundation of commerce. This will allow small business owners to follow their personal passion while filling the needs of our community.

Now if you will allow me one more thought on a grander scale, look at our planet and all that is happening. Some say once again we are approaching Armageddon. Look at the news warning about our food supply, healthcare, our imported products, fighting, and terrorism. What a great wake up call for us as a people. Does that not inspire in us a renewed effort to read labels, buy locally, organic, love our neighbor and pray? We do have power over what happens in our lives when we choose to take our power back and use it for our well being with blessings from above. Isnt that great! Life doesnt happen to us, we create our next chapter why not make it a great experience do you feel your God given power yet?

God has given us so many wonderful tools to create with and one of the all time greatest is our free will! Are you using it for your upliftment or to be the featured victim in your life story? God doesnt allow bad things to happen to people, people allow bad things to happen to people. When we see the chaos in our lives, in our work place, in our world we have an opportunity to decide does what I am doing work for me or do I need to make a change. The power of prayer is amazing its a gathering of one thought or intention. Intention does make a huge difference in everything you do. Each thought we have goes somewhere and does have an impact on the whole.

Think about the power of your intention. If you are set to do a task and less then excited about, it how does that feel as you do it? For me its drudgery, and seems unending but if I am passionate about my task its fun and I can get it done in record time. Now apply that to each thing in your life and start sorting out the drudgery and what brings joy to your life. What can be delegated or eliminated and what makes you happy? Granted some tasks just need doing and it is a challenge to turn it into a happy experience. Sometimes the obvious is not so obvious. When I had a cleaning business there were days I thought I could not face another toilet and those days were the longest and most draining days I created for myself. To change this drudgery into happiness I changed my intention. I started to count my blessing. How lucky I was to have this wonderful skill that I could earn money for my family. I set my own schedule which allowed me to get my kids off to school, be home to get my own household duties done, and be there for my kids when they came home. I could change my schedule for school events, sick kids, vacations and holidays. I had wonderful people to work for, who appreciated my services. I could increase my income by adding customers, I was very blessed indeed. When I recalled that the work became a breeze! I then began to look for a solution that would allow me to continue to work with wonderful people, provide a service, and have a flexible schedule. I realized I loved learning more about becoming healthy as I was using chemicals daily and really wanted to get away from that practice. So I went to massage school as I continued to clean but now I had a goal that would change my life and open many new doors of opportunity for me. I learned about alternative health practice and as well as life skills I could pass on to my family. This for me took about 3 years but in that time I was learning and growing more confident about who I was and my own power to change my life with full support of family and the universe.

I really believe we can change the world one person, one thought at a time. Perhaps we can not change all things we hear and see that we do not like in that moment, but we can change how we react. If someone treats you unkindly, choose to treat them with kindness. You have no way of knowing what their day or life experience has been. If there is problems in your family choose to pray for a healing even if you think there is no solution, trust that God will find one for that and five other things all at once, hes that good! Trust that you never walk alone, the more of us who talk to him about what we desire the more we will see change happen in our lives, in those around us and then in the world. Goodness resonates out, like a pebble dropped in water that creates a wave.      

So ask yourself what is sapping your energy, depressing you, creating frustration in your life. I believe God wants us to find our path of joy, He creates the opportunity for chaos so we will stop and choose a higher road.

Original Serenity Prayer
by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.