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Invitation: Trusting God


My Friend,

I trust all is well.

I wanted to update you on the future plans of the ‘You Have Chosen to Remember’ material. I also wanted to invite you to participate in this journey.  The current schedule is as follows:

1 - 2008: The second edition of ‘You Have Chosen to Remember’ will be published. I want to thank everyone who has purchased a copy of the first edition.  All proceeds of the second edition will again be going to StandUp For Kids!

2 – 2009: The second book in the series will focus on the Questions and Answers on the site. Every two weeks, we will be e-mailing a Q-A from the site. We invite you to participate in the forum. Your comments, stories and subsequent experiences from reading the Question and Answer may be added to this second book. All proceeds of the second book will be going to a children’s charity, as well.

3 – 2010: The third book in the series will focus on everyday exercises. Concrete physical, mental and spiritual exercises you can try throughout your day. We will again be inviting you to participate in the forums. Your experiences and insights from the activities may be added to the third book. I also invite you to email me your own personal exercises that assist you in balancing yourself throughout the day. All proceeds of the third book will also be going to a children’s charity.

To increase the visibility and interactivity of the material, and to assist in bringing like-minded people together, we have opened a MySpace page: www.MySpace.com/chosentoremember. We invite you to come and share your comments and stories, as well as join our Friends List.

This month's Invitation includes two main features:

• Trusting God - NEW Short, Inspirational Movie (Free)

• Question and Answer: "My question is this, if God is so close, why is God so hard to find?"...

Peace, Health, Happiness, Love, Laughter and Light.

Your brother,

James Blanchard Cisneros
 

Please consider adding Mailing@ChosenToRemember.com to your address book so that our newsletter Invitations arrives in your Inbox.

Free Movie: Trusting God

We are delighted to share a new short, inspirational movie: Trusting God. Trusting God was made from an excerpt from You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.

After you watch the short movie, you can easily email it to a friend or add your thoughts to the movie's forum.

We hope you enjoy the movie!
 

Ask the Author: Question & Answer

We have a section on www.ChosenToRemember.com where people have an opportunity to ask the author questions. We would like to share a question that touches many people. After reading the response, we welcome you to share your thoughts and ideas in our forum which specifically focuses on this question and answer.

My question is this, if God is so close, why is God so hard to find?

- Bernadette, England

Imagine a very good friend that you have not seen for a while. Imagine all the fun times you have had together. Think of all the laughs. These memories are always within you, yet if you choose not to focus on them, you will not feel or experience them. Regardless of how great your relationship is, you can go days, even weeks without thinking of her. Yet, if you for one second thought of her, all those emotions would begin to return, and the more you focus on them, the more experiences and emotions you would feel and recall.

Imagine your heart. It works every day, every hour, every minute and every second to keep you alive. During the day, how often do you think of your heart? You could say you owe your life to your heart. Yet, how often do you thank it? How often do you send it love, or are loving to it? Regardless of what little focus you put on your heart, how close is your heart to you? How hard is your heart to find?

God, as is your heart, is within you now. God has gifted you free will. Thus, you are free to place your focus on what you choose to. God has never, nor will He ever leave you. In the moment, you have the choice of what to focus on. Focus on feelings of loneliness and you will experience its expressions. Focus on God’s love for you and you will experience this energy flowing through you. In the moment, focus on judging a brother or sister and you will feel the heaviness of judgment weighing you down. Or focus on having compassion for and serving your fellow brother or sister and you will feel love lifting you up as it flows through you.

My friend, we have been inadvertently brainwashed by our families, friends, peers, and society in general to focus on so many other external things that most of us barely give ourselves any time to think of God, or what our deepest and truest desires are. This is, in large part, why many people perceive God as hard to find. We follow one treasure map after the other; all the time on an external physical journey for what is truly an internal spiritual desire. Regardless of how shiny, large, important or essential others tell us this external treasure is, it will never bring us true everlasting peace of mind and joy. The realization that all of our external journeys have not gotten us to where we desire to be, awakens us to our true journey. The journey we are secretly requesting to remember is not an external journey but an internal one. It is a journey to a place we have never left, but simply forgotten. Bringing ourselves back to the ever present moment is the door we are seeking. This door opens to a place where judgment is replaced with compassion, worry with trust, and an anxious mind is replaced with a peaceful and joyful mind. The moment, in and of itself, remains the same. What changes is our interpretation and participation in it.

My friend, let’s take any ordinary moment in your daily experience. Now instead of focusing on the noise, everyday concerns, distractions or worries that usually consume us, take those same moments and try focusing instead on God's absolute love for you. For just one moment, let's focus on what you have truly been desiring to focus on.

Imagine walking through a park or street on your way to work. Slow down your walk, breathe deeply, exhale and focus on one tree that you'll soon be walking by. Instead of doing what you have been trained to do, such as focusing on the past or future, and thinking of what you have to do once you get to where you are going, put those and any other distracting thoughts aside, and focus on the strength and beauty of this tree. Ask God to fill you with His love. Feel white light entering you from the top of your head and filling your body like a sponge, until this energy begins to overflow. Like the ocean offering its waves to the shore, see and feel yourself sending energy waves of love to this tree. Feel the tree absorbing all this beautiful and powerful energy. From deep within your heart and soul, thank the tree for its shade and magnificent beauty. Then as you get closer and closer, feel this tree returning beautiful waves of love, gifting all this energy back to you. Feel this tree's gratitude for your acknowledgment of it. Feel the tree loving you back. Truly allow yourself to be open to this energy. Before the tree's gratitude comes back to you in the form of this white loving light, visualize yourself opening the door to your heart and soul. Truly feel yourself open and willing to receive this light. Do this and you will feel it. This is the choice the moment offers. Spend the moment drowned in the hundred heavy thoughts, concerns and worries that pollute your mind and pass by that same tree you have walked by a thousand times without even noticing it, or invite this same tree to assist you in focusing on God's eternal gift to you, the eternal present moment.

The eternal present moment is free from all past or future imaginings, free from judgments and ego-based illusions. It is that deep breath you take in and then let out, knowing that God has His arm around you and is in your corner. It is when you release all your stresses and worries and instead choose to trust God's plan for your life. It is the laying down of that heavy invisible bag of anxiety you secretly carry with you, and then allowing it to dissolve in God’s eternal love for you.

My dear friend, God is as easy to find as your desire to focus on Him. There has never been, nor will there ever be a moment in your life where God is not. There will be moments in your life that you will forget Him and choose to focus on something you deem more valuable. That is fine. There is no judgment by God in what you choose to focus on. He forever patiently waits for you to look His way, and every single time you look His way, you will feel his presence. You may have temporarily forgotten Him, yet He rests patiently within your heart and mind simply in wait for you to focus on His love for you, and on your love for Him.

Note:  To read more about Trusting God, you may want to read Chapter Six Overview: Trusting God.
 

Share Your Thoughts in the Forum

We invite you to share your thoughts and ideas about this question and response in our forum.

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MySpace Friends

We are happy to announce the launch of our My Space page - www.MySpace.com/ChosenToRemember. We hope to get an active forum going on the blogs and would love you to join us. Please consider adding us to your Friends List.

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StandUp For Kids

All of the proceeds from the book You Have Chosen to Remember go to the charity StandUp for Kids, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization founded in 1990 to help rescue homeless and at-risk youth. To learn more about this great organization, please visit www.standupforkids.org. If you are interested in making a donation directly to StandUp For Kids, please visit www.standupforkids.org/scontribute.html.

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Suggestions or Comments ?

We are delighted to be mailing out our newsletter called Invitations. Click here to let us know if you have any recommendations, subject suggestions or comments that you would like to share with us. 

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View larger images of front & back cover  of You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.