{"id":15621,"date":"2022-02-20T05:12:54","date_gmt":"2022-02-20T11:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=15621"},"modified":"2022-02-20T05:13:08","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T11:13:08","slug":"the-abundant-life-how-sweet-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=15621","title":{"rendered":"The Abundant Life \u2013 How Sweet it is!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019ve taken to the road again. My cross country journeys slowed down when I moved to Austin amidst the pandemic. So, I was ready for this little 3-days of \u201ctouch and go\u201d opportunities!

First, I made my way to Dallas for a belated Valentine\u2019s celebration with my North Texas crew — Larry, Staci, Payton and Alexia. My sweet granddaughter, Alexia, took me to see her cute, new, cozy apartment \u2013 so perfect with the things she loves to do. She has become quite the “crocheter” as seen in the photo. How proud her Mamaw-in-heaven (crocheter-par-excellence), must be. We met up with the rest of the fam at the Tower Club in downtown Dallas for a delicious meal that had the Dallas skyline in view all around us. Gotta’ love my birthplace and home town appeal! Spectacular! Yummy meal, fun times opening Valentine\u2019s gifts, and catching up on each other\u2019s lives. Abundance!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you\u2019re a follower of mine, you know that yellow roses are my favs! It started at our wedding with yellow roses in abundance. And then, each home we lived in, we planted a yellow rosebush. So, this sweet box of everlasting yellow roses from my children will carry on as an abundant blessing from here to eternity!
I spent the night at Payton\u2019s Dallas downtown apartment. Wow! What a great bachelor pad, along with the great man he has turned out to be. So many treasures I gave him when I moved to Austin \u2013 several paintings, my piano and other mementos.
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Then, it was a road trip to Edmond, OK where I attended my godson\u2019s State Swimming Finals. I\u2019ll share more about that soon, because it proves \u201cnothing is impossible with God\u201d. But a little hint \u2013 Owen ended up with four gold medals along with his Bishop Kelley High School boys being runners-up to the State winners, Altus.

Saturday morning, met up with my nephew, Mark, (who miraculously survived after open heart surgery just a few months ago) and his precious wife, Donna. We had breakfast together and one day soon I\u2019ll share Mark\u2019s miracle story. All I can say today is \u201cOh the amazing grace of God\u2019s abundance!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Those little snippets are an expression of \u201cLife with Donna\u201d, the gal who lives with no regrets, who goes here or there at a moment\u2019s notice and is, what I am most grateful for \u2013 to be at God\u2019s beckoned call! Here\u2019s why I live this way. I’ve learned the best medicine for the doldrums or boredom or stale atmospheres….is to dole out cheer, turn inward thoughts to outward joy, turn garments of heaviness to garments of praise and thanksgiving!

God has given me many resources for spending my days in power rather than self-pity. And the best gift we can give back to God is appreciating the abundant life He has given us. John 10:10 “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” “More abundantly” means to have a superabundance of something. “Abundant life” refers to life in its abounding fullness of joy and strength for mind, body, and soul. “Abundant life” is a complete opposite of lack, emptiness, and dissatisfaction.

Are you stuck in a rut? Has your recliner become your best friend? Do you settle for \u201cthis is as good as it\u2019s gonna\u2019 get\u201d? Is the best part of your day your next meal? Do you really want to \u201clive until you die\u201d or \u201cDIE LIVING\u201d? What about that \u201cabundant life\u201d that God promises us? A life full of triumphs, victories, laughter, creating, cheering and celebrating!!!

The next time it seems the best thing to do for dealing with sadness, misery, discomfort, loneliness, and pity…..is to pull the covers up over your head and just hang out there \u2013 DON\u2019T!!! Totally reject those thoughts and put on your loud-colored royal jester’s hat, and throw a party — be the entertainment! Celebrate the abundant life God has given you — that’s what I did over the last few days \u2013 and they were glorious days of love, life and laughter! How sweet it is!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve taken to the road again. My cross country journeys slowed down when I moved to Austin amidst the pandemic. So, I was ready for this little 3-days of \u201ctouch and go\u201d opportunities! First, I made my way to Dallas for a belated Valentine\u2019s celebration with my North Texas crew — Larry, Staci, Payton and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15922,1],"tags":[143,333,20129,22899,20110,22901,1210,1769,22897,11915,7864,20111,22903,22902,40,159,22900,22895,22898,22896,2232],"class_list":["post-15621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abundant-life","category-uncategorized","tag-abundant-life","tag-amazing-grace","tag-apartment","tag-bachelor-pad","tag-best-medicine","tag-bishop-kelley","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-crochet","tag-cross-country","tag-dallas","tag-garments-of-praise","tag-gods-abundance","tag-gold-medals","tag-inspiration","tag-john-1010","tag-oklahoma-state-swimming-finals","tag-tough-and-go","tag-tower-club","tag-valentines-2","tag-yellow-roses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15629,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15621\/revisions\/15629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}