Tag Archives: Words of life

Spiritual Sprint #3: mellifluous

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adjective – (of a voice or words) sweet or musical; pleasant to hearphoto

Purist runners don’t need a kickin’ playlist blaring from their headphones to pound out a good race. But for me, I gotta have my tunes.

Oh sure, many will tell me I’m missing out on the wonderful sounds of nature as I cruise the trail. Or my mind can’t properly clear itself of the day’s worries if guitar riffs, bass thumps, and catchy melodies occupy my brain. I disagree.

The music drowns out the world for me and allows my brain to actually focus. On the days when I’ve run without my tunes, the pounding of my tennis shoes beats my brain with the monotony of the activity. My shallow breaths mock and remind me that my heart isn’t as healthy as it needs to be. In fact, they both discourage me into thinking that I can’t actually go the distance – literally!

Therefore, I run with soundtracks. I let the music drown out the pounding of feet and rapid breathing. The beat of the music sets my pace and helps me run the race.

So it is with my spiritual race as well. However, in this case the soundtrack isn’t all lyrics and guitar melodies; it’s the Word of God. I learned long ago that His Word can be an accompaniment to any difficult race I’ve run in my life.  There’s a verse or passage that drowns out the worry and the fear and helps me keep running with purpose. There’s a prayer that steadies my heartbeat with His, instead of letting it run wild and irregular.

When the race’s route is unknown, we can trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not to our own understanding, and He will direct our paths (Proverbs 3:4,5).

When we feel we can’t finish the distance He set for us, we must remember in Christ we can do all things (Philippians 4:13) and that the God who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it (Philippians 1:6).

When an injury threatens to keep us from running at all, we can know that all things work together for our good (Romans 8:28) and God has plans for us, plans that bring us a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).

As our feet pound the pavement of life and our heart rates try to be controlled by life’s problems,  we should let the Word overpower the distracting sounds of the world and keep running until we reach the finish line.

What’s your favorite tune to work out to  either spiritually or physically?
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Day Two: Familiar

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adjective, well known from long or close association

The people we spend the majority of our time with can easily become “familiar.”  We’ve been friends for so long that we know everything about that person. We know exactly how they will react to a certain situation. Oftentimes, we can mouth words they will say before they even speak them. We know their idiosyncracies, pet peeves, catch phrases, and favorite things. Laughter can erupt from across the room at a party, and their giggle is easily identifiable without even looking for them. Familiar is good, but familiar can prevent us from truly appreciating a person.

That’s where today’s word gift comes in. A word cloud is a visible collection of words arranged in random order and shape which creates new word pairings, enabling readers to see connections not previously seen. Creating a word cloud can help us see a person not just as a jumble of descriptive words, but as word pairings that truly describe them in a way we had not recognized before.

Check out the example of one I did just with random words from my blog yesterday. (Pictured above). I saw so many new word connections for the concept of word gifts. Here’s a few:

  • “days without words” – are wasted days when we don’t tell someone we love them.
  • “writing giving” – that’s what we do when we write out our word gifts
  • “soul honey”  – reminder that word gifts are soothing to a soul
  • “necessary gifts” – words that bring life are always necessary and can be for anyone

What a great way to see a part of life or someone you love in a new way! Wanna create a word cloud for someone special?  Here are the steps:

  1. Create a list of words that describe the person: their personality, their physical traits, their likes, their talents, things you love about them, etc. (Pull out a thesaurus to get really creative.)
  2. Visit wordle.net and follow the online instructions. (You can change the layout and the colors as well. If you don’t like the first cloud you get, click randomize and you’ll get a whole new one.)
  3. Be sure to print out your treasure and give it away.

I want to hear about what you created. Check back in and let me know what new discovery you made. I can’t wait to hear about it!!!!!