What is their to be grateful for when you are sick?

I am sick today, a pretty bad cold with a cough, a heady feeling, and a general feeling of malaise; in other words, I feel like crap. I laid down until I felt well enough to work on my daily checklist, I read some stuff on google reader, reviewed some forums, and came to my gratitude journal and froze.

I wrote: I am grateful for being sick.

This doesn't really work because I don't want to be sick, I am not grateful for it but it gave me something to think about. This is what I wrote:

Dear Lord, what is their to be grateful obout being sick? I am grateful for your will in my life and the glorious outcome that will surely come from being blessed with your will.

I came to this conclusion based on my experience with negative things in my life, even thoughI didn't believe so at the time they have always worked out for the better. My house burned down and I ended up with a new house, I lost one job to gain another better job. When God closes a door he opens a window. So for once, I finally can be grateful for something that seems negative at the time by being grateful for God's will in my live. Thank you Lord for this realization, I am grateful for it.

Breathing

When I breathe in and out it doesn't do anything special to my state of mind, balance, movement towards center, movement from center, stress reduction, anxiety reduction, depression reduction, or sanity.

But when I breath in and out fully present in a state of mind of moving towards a grounded, centered, aware, state it moves me closer to who I am.

Is this true? no, because if I were to breath in and out now, centered or not, aware or not; it may help, it may not. I think the point of being present is to not only know what you are doing and what is happening but to also know who you are, how you feel, what you feel, and move closer to the why; breathing, may or may not help you get closer to that but it is good for you, good for the mind, and is better then doing nothing at all.

Is writing stuff down the answer?

I have seen people take notes; at work, and in their personal lives, people take notes. When someone is trained on a new procedure at work they will write it down in a notebook, when someone wants to get in touch with a new contact they write the phone number down, notes cover are desks, and cover our fridges. But what do you do with note? What good does having the note on that piece of paper do for you?

A couple of habits can come in handy:

• Drop all your notes into one place at the end of the day, go through them every day or two and either do them if they or short, save or file them if they are reference, or through them away if you don't need them.
• Add phone numbers into your phone the second you get them

A key to knowing and trusting God

James 3:13: "“[Two Kinds of Wisdom] Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.”"

I love the book of James; the letter reads like a collection of God inspired good advice. Be humble, listen more than you talk, listen before you become angry, remove immorality, follow the word, and more. James speaks from a humble heart knowing the word and knowing Jesus. Where does this come from? The Word! Becoming closer to God comes as easy as knowing the Word and knowing the Word comes as simple as reading the Bible.

Does this mean knowing God requires long, tedious study, bent over a book by candle light, giving up life to study the Bible all the time? No, even though that is a worthwhile sacrifice for some; but it does mean Study. Study is the key to aligning ourselves with the mind of God; this is how we learn to know him, to trust him, and to learn to live in a way that pleases him.

How do we do it? Read the Bible, read devotions, read something every day. Here are some resources to get started:

• BibleGateway.com - The Daily bible verse is great. It gives you a small dose every day and even has an RSS feed.
• MaxLucado.com - E-mailed devotional every two weeks
• Lhm.org - Full sermon podcasts and a really awesome daily devotional tied to current events. RSS feed for the devotional isn't listed but you can get to it here.

Whether it is a verse a day, a daily devotional, or a podcast in the car - Study is a key to knowing God.

My Prayer:

Dear Lord,

Please reach into people's hearts and help them to know you. Help them to know that they can have a relationship with you and make it easy to do so.

In your ever present holy name,

Amen

Wordle

I love wordle.net - this is a beautiful representation of this site:

Why !daily works for me

Disclaimer - This article refers to terminology specific to GTD.

For about 6 months now I have had a daily checklist called !daily (exclamation point added to move it to the top of my lists in Remember the Milk). !Daily came from a project "Create a Daily checklist" that I set after listening to Barbara Bailey's interview on the @context podcast. Barb had mentioned that she had a Daily checklist and it worked wonders for keeping her on top of her day to day so I added the project and about 3 months later !daily was born.

I walked through the natural planning model to determine the Purpose and principles so I knew what would go on the list.

Purpose - to develop daily habits
Principles - flexible, friendly, positive. - I will not be dissapointed if I don't complete an item.
I didn't determine an outcome at this time:

What has the outcome been? I wake up every morning and start doing items on the list without even checking it!

Here is my list
01 Iaido
Minimum (usually ends up being more) Practice my circle Drill in Iaido (Anything labeled 01 is something I do every day, the other's I am flexible on)
01 Read physical Bible
Pull out my actual book bible (rather than read online) and read my bible.
01Yoga
Minimum, 1 set of sun salutations but it usually ends up being more.
@prayer
Pray for the people on my @prayer list
Check the calls context
Check my @calls list and schedule or defer all calls.
Cursillo Devotional
As part of Lutheran Cursillo of Southern California, we have a devotional in which we prayer for 2 team members each day, it includes a Bible verse as well. This task will run through October.
Google Reader
Read all blogs in my must read list on Google Reader that take less than 2 minutes. Send the rest to Del.icio.us for Read Later. These include but are not limited to:

• My Daily Devotion on http://www.lhm.org
• My Daily Bible verse on http://www.biblegateway.com
• Tara Rodden Robinson - The productivity Maven - http://zugunruhecoaching.typepad.com/
• The Entrepreneur Notes -http://theentrepreneurnotes.com

Gratitude Journal
A time to focus on what I am grateful for.
Pray a prayer of thanks first over the budget, then do today's budget balance
This one used to just be called Budget but changed recently after a reminder that all we have we owe to God in a sermon at Church.
Review your blogs
I open each of my blogs on a new tab, read my last posts and post something new if I either feel like it or it has been about a week since my last post.
Write one sentence in the Ballard Story
Here is where I work on Ballard.
Review New Posts on GTDConnect
Here I review GTDconnect's forum's new posts like an inbox.
Post To GTDConnect
This item is every 3 days - Post a new forum post to GTDconnect.
Add one photo to j:\digital Art
I added this recently to do every two days - Add a photo I have taken to my digital art folder on my computer. I added this after I found I wasn't doing it by habit anymore.
Review Readlater list on Del.icio.us
This is another every 3 days - all the websites and blog posts I added because I didn't have time when I found them. I usually process 1 or 2.

Gratitude for life and death

I am grateful for life, I talk about this a lot but it feels great that I really am and I am not attached to my life. I am grateful and I am not attached.

I am grateful for my salvation in Heaven. I have heard that Heaven will make this life seem like nothing, like no time, but dust in the wind but the Bible states that love, hope, and faith will remain (1 Cor 13:13) ; life on this world is important. It is our time to gather up those treasures to bring to heaven and to help bring as many people to Jesus Christ as we can! I am grateful for that understanding. I am grateful that one day I will be in the Lord' s arms but I am also grateful that I am in the Lord's arms now.