OK Christine.....

First of all - my favorite room.
Not too difficult. Let's see if I can describe it. Rough planks for a floor, painted a light sage greenish color. Slightly warped and cracked with age. A glass topped table surrounded by four comfy cushioned chairs. In the corner a fountain bubbles and splashes, soothing, relaxing sounds on a stressful day. Three large terra cotta pots filled with vibrant snapdragons inhabit a corner of this room. In a riot of colors. Hanging plants frame the sliding glass door along the wall. The ceiling is the bluest blue on some days, and the puffiest white on others. The light is also dependent on the day - brightest bright - golden and heat producing today. Tomorrow soft and hazy, or backlit and gentle. Some days the room is warm and still. Some days gentle breezes caress the soul. Surrounding the wooden floor is a carpet of the greenest, softest green. Cool and inviting. Two of the walls are brown topped with green reaching for the heavens. Birds chatter, insects hum, squirrels scamper and butterflies flit. It's a room for reflection, for reading, for just sitting and doing nothing. It's a room for intimate conversation, yet a room to play catch with the puppy. It's a cozy room, yet wide open with expectation and promise. It's a God room, a contemplative room, and a be still room. It's private, yet it knows no bounds. It's welcoming and inspiring. It's a place to dance and enjoy life. My favorite room is my deck/backyard.

Now, as for my comment on your post from your blog that you said I should put on my blog - OK. I will. But I'm too lazy to rewrite it, so it's just gonna be a cut and paste...

Chrissy - I think you missed what I said... "Christian" for 40 years, but just recently getting serious about what it means to walk with Christ. To live the kingdom life, with all that that entails. Yeah. It took me many years to even begin to start being where I shoulda been many years ago. I do remember once about 15 years ago being a sponsor at a high school retreat in Colorado, and as the speaker was challenging the kids I realized how pathetic I was. He gave them a paper with a tree on it, with lots of branches. And in the tree in various stages of climbing, sitting, sleeping, being on the ground, were children. And his challenge was to pick a child that represented where you were in your walk with God. I remember being really convicted, that I was the kid that had started the climb, but stopped and was sitting on the bottom-most branch swinging my leg and letting the world go by. This memory just came to me today. I can't believe I have let this much more time go by just sitting on that damn branch! It occurs to me that I even wrote a poem about it back then, but I couldn't tell you what I did with it. I'll have to try to find it to see what I was truly thinking that day. Anyway. All that to say that yes, I have been a believer for over 40 years. But it's not the quantity my friend, it's what I did with it, and in that respect I have failed miserably. My wake up call this year was painful, but necessary. Hopefully I won't just be sleeping on a higher branch next time I have to evaluate....
and your response: (I hope you don't mind....)

I did indeed see your full sentence-
at the time I read it ....... and recalled my own lack of achievement in my spiritual Walk for so many years, I made the instantaneous deduction (perhaps wrong) that most of us do dawdle along the Way to His feet; we don't seem to make the progress or put in the effort we feel we shoulda!

But I feel strongly that it's better to be sitting on any branch in God's tree than be wandering around, avoiding the tree altogether.

Tis better, in my opinion, to be an earnest but flailing Christian, flapping around or taking naps, than to not be a Follower of Christ at all.

So, I felt it deserved some respect, that you had been a Christian for so long- even if you felt you sat it out, too much of that time.

and my further response to this:

"But I feel strongly that it's better to be sitting on any branch in God's tree than be wandering around, avoiding the tree altogether."

Yes, I do agree. But for too long I used it as an excuse. I was "saved" what more did I need to do? I wandered aimlessly about, doing what I wanted, not thinking about what I should be doing, who I should be loving, helping, befriending, feeding. Not thinking about anybody else but me and my life. Not asking how I fit in the story God is telling. I was more concerned with how God fit into the story I was telling. So yeah, while I agree with you that at least being in the tree is a good thing it can also be a phariseeical (sorry I just made up a word....)type end at best...unless we get off our butts and begin to climb....

There ya go. It's now on my blog. Probably I could have reworked it and made it more "post" worthy, but I'm way too lazy today. Especially after being sick. I have to conserve whatever brain cells are firing through all the cotton in my head in order to survive this day. Anyway, thanks for all your encouragement Christine!