Prayerful Review of Monday

What gifts?

Gift of attentive and polite Pilates students.
Gift of God's word.
Gift of a lovely work environment.
Gift of three Pilates classes working different parts of my body (Bands using arm muscles that pull and increasing my range of motion in my legs, Balls using arm muscles that push in, inner thigh muscles, and work my abs more, and face-paced class that gets my fast twitch fibers, works up a sweat, and gets me going in functional movement - I am actually a bit sore this morning which rarely happens!)
Gift of all three of my regulars showing up for my night class.
Gift of listening to the tribute for Gwen Ifill on the PBS Newshour - she was a woman of deep faith, and that made me very happy to hear.
Gift of rain pants for biking.

Where I felt the most alive and responsive:

Working my body, riding my bike to and from class even though it was raining.

Talking with my Saudi Arabian conversation partner! I just love, love, love her. She told me that most Muslims are are not upset about Donald Trump being president (she even showed me a video of Saudi men running away on the desert sand and screaming something like "Trump is after us," and they are laughing about it.) They are thinking all the "hoopla" is a little ridiculous.  When I told her about some of the immigration (11.4 million illegal immigrants in the USA) and refugee issues that he wants to address, she said, "Oh course you should be very careful!" (To them it is a no brainer because they are from the Middle East and are close to terrorism.) (Note: I am not saying I disagree or agree with ALL of the president-elect's policy, but I have a wait-and-see attitude rather than an alarmist attitude.) 

Telling Creation to Christ stories in front of the mirror.

Dancing around my bedroom during Dancing with the Stars. :)

Proud of our President for not biting when one reporter, specifically Martha Raddatz of ABC News, tried to get him to talk trash about Trump. He did not bite!

Where did I feel most dead and unresponsive:

When George texted me to tell me that Gwen Ifill died of cancer yesterday. I knew something was wrong because she was not at the election, and she was also gone earlier in a year, and they never said where she was. She did not tell the public. 

Hearing leading questions by biased reporters during Obama's news conference.

Having to get out of my cozy home to go to work yesterday. I just wanted to stay home in my pajamas because it was gloomy and raining! 

One practical thing that we an commit to that will express our love for God and others:

Lovingly lead my Kingdom Community this morning. Lovingly respond to the person on the other end of a conference call this afternoon. Loving say that we are breaking until after the first of the year. 

Yesterday's love:

When I was riding my bike to class, I felt like God said to love on my students, and I think I communicated this. I showed a small kindness to two of my students that I had to exhort last week for constantly being late. (Because I am supposed to give him NO points for coming late, but I did not.) I also extended a deadline for one of my assignments because the weeks are all messed up for this term.