Bottling Dreams of the Heart

Happy Monday, Everyone! Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by to find out what's being bottled here at BottlingHealth.com. Hopefully, you'll pick up some useful tips along the way that you can bottle, too.

Daily Readings from Become a Better You: 90 Devotions for Improving Your Life Every Day by Joel Osteen has become my "read" for 2009. And, my life is truly getting better every day because of it. Now, it's not that I didn't already have a fulfilling life, but so many of my heart's passions are just rising to newer levels and connecting in a more solid way since I started this journey with Joel Osteen at the start of the year.

In today's reading (one I had previously read), Osteen discusses following the dreams of our hearts, a process I live my life by and a topic that has been popping up a lot around me lately. I recently wrote about the topic for a local newspaper, an article that encourages parents to follow their children's heart when selecting summer camps this year. In my related article, I suggest parents be mindful of picking camps that really do line up with their children's deepest passions, because those passions are often connected to children's deeper purposes in life.

For instance, I've loved writing for as long as I can remember. My parents noticed this passion of mine during my childhood, and nurtured it. One of my favorite writing "assignments" given to me that will forever live in my heart is when my daddy suggested I write about our family when I was about 10 years old. I took took on that project as though I had just received an offer from a well-known publishing company.

I still remember the jagged edges of the paper I used to write my masterpiece on; I had pulled the pages from a spiral notebook. I still remember standing at the desk in my bedroom and stapling that lined paper together with pride when I was done. And, as if it was yesterday, I remember that I used a pencil and not pen to write my "book". While I don't like to hang on to things, I surely do wish that is something I still had in my possession. But, I do have the memory of it, and that is good. Years and years later, my love for writing has not changed. In fact, that love grew, and I am clear that one of my gifts to make a difference in this world is via writing.

"Before you were born, God saw you, and He endowed you with gifts and talents uniquely designed for you. He's given you ideas and creativity, as well as specific areas in which you can excel," Osteen explains in Daily Readings from Become a Better You: 90 Devotions for Improving Your Life Every Day.

"Why, then, do so many people today feel unfulfilled in their lives, merely going to work at some mundane job, trying to earn a living, stuck in a career they don't even like?" Osteen continues. "The answer is simple: They are not pursuing the dreams and desires God has placed within their hearts."

Jinjee Talifero, publisher of Pear Magazine.com, says that heart-following is something that should be nurtured in children from young. If we don't nurture our little ones to follow their hearts, we will, of course, end up with more generations like what Osteen has described above -- grown children stuck in unfulfilled roles. Do you want that for your children. I KNOW that's not what I want for mine. I want him to take on this life with the gifts and fire for life and passion that God has blessed him with and go forward and use those to carve out his niche in contributing to this world. The heart is so beautifully sacred, so why would our desires that live there not be?

Osteen goes on to say that the wealthiest places on earth are not some of those places that probably come to mind for you, but rather -- "cemeteries" -- because there lies "dreams and desires that will never be fulfilled. Buried beneath the ground are books that will never be written, businesses that will never be started, and relationships that will never be formed."

Will you begin listening to your heart's dreams and desires now while encouraging your children to do the same, or will you be one of those who, like many others, just take them along with you when you "go"?

Begin bottling your dreams, and start today!

I'm cheering for you!!!

With LOVE,

Penny