Ah...It's just a penny.

How many times in one day do you come across a penny? For some strange reason I find a penny or two in every room of my house. Inside the dryer, behind the cauch. On top of the refrigerator, behind the toilet. In my car, in my purse, but then again in my purse you can find everything except what you're looking for, anyway that's another show. There is nothing more aggrevating for me than finding pennies. A Penny tends to purposely appear when your hands are full or when you don't have a place to put it at that very moment. So what do you do? You toss it, at least I do. I just don't want my purse to get any heavier and besides, it's just a penny. See, we forget how valuable and powerful a penny really is. A penny has the power to turn any person into a millionaire. A penny has the power to turn 99 cents into a dollar, 99 dollars into 100 dollars and so on. A penny can even turn $999,999.99 into a big million dollars. Now that's powerful.

Many times, in my everyday life, I feel like penny. An old, invaluable penny. I am a stay home mom and since I don't have an outside job I don't bring a paycheck to contribute to the household. So when I see the bills coming in, and I see my husband trying to be as creative as he can possibly be trying to stretch every dollar to the max, I feel like a penny. When I need something for myself and have to ask for it, I feel like a penny. Those are my penny moments.

Now, your penny moment could be totally different than mine. Yours could be at work, you might feel you are not capable of doing what is expected of you. You might feel like you are just another employee, with nothing to offer other than what you are doing. Other penny moments could be in relationships. Your marriage, your friendships. In any case, when we allow ourselves to feel like a penny all we are really doing is disregarding our true value and disregarding God's master piece. Penny moments are part of every day life. What makes a difference is what we do with ourselves in those moments. Do we toss the penny and forget what it's worth? Or, do we pick it up and put it in a place where it can make a difference. See, we all have the power to turn this world around. We all have such value and power to make a difference. I may not be bringing home a paycheck every week but I'm raising a man and a woman of God. I'm teaching them family values that they will take with them for the rest of their existence and beyond. I'm raising a great man who will be a great husband, a great father. I'm raising a man with integrity. The same with my girl. I'm raising a great woman that will be a wise wife and a wonderful mother. A woman that will know who she really is. Now, with a contribution to our society of that magnitude... Am I making a difference or what!

So next time you feel like a penny pick yourself up, remember who you really are and place yourself where you can really make a difference. You are NOT just a penny!

Come on, you can do it! Give me one more!

Come on, you can do it! Give me one more. That is just one of the expressions a personal trainer at a gym or in one of those famous exercise videos would say trying to encourage you to get to the completion of your exercise routine. The trainer knows it hurts, the trainer knows you are tired and fatigued but the trainer also knows that if you keep at it and don't give up, the results will be far greater than the pain. Then and only then you'll be glad you didn't quit. Exercising is all about commitment and endurance, specially if your goal is to build muscle. When you're trying to built muscle you really have to commit to a very rigid exercise routine that includes lifting heavy weights and a strict diet. You will have to stop eating carbs and fat and concentrate on in taking protein, a lot of it. At this point I know you are ready for me to explain, well here I go. In life we go through difficult situations in which we think we're alone, or we feel the pain is so much you actually feel like if you are going to die. Situations that don't seem to have a positive outcome for you, situations that get you so tired you feel you can't get up in the morning. They could be in your marriage, in you job, in your relationship with your kids or your parents. In any case these situations are exercise routines for our souls. The trainer, GOD, knows how much pain you are going through but He also knows that this exercise is the only way to built those muscles that will make you stronger. You will have to eliminate bad carbs from your diet. In other words, you will have to eliminate some friendships that really, all they do is hold you down. They hold you down by feeding your depression with their negative perspective of your situation. They hold you down by giving you wrong advice that don't conform to what God says in His Word. Trust me, you know when you are being held down in any way. You will also have to eliminate fat from your diet. That means you will have to get rid of some habits that are really affecting you in a negative way. One could be your constantly focusing on just what's wrong in your life instead of counting your blessings. Another one could be desiring someone else's fortune and by that I mean being envious of others. And I know that you know what bad habits you need to loose, trust me I have many. So having said that, let's talk about what you can eat, proteins. In this case our protein is God's Word. In His Word (The Bible) we find motivation, rest, hope, strength and everything it is that our situation calls for. You can't get enough of His Word, the more you intake, the more results you'll see. Now I'm not saying it's a magic potion. We still feel the pain whenever we have to lift those heavy weights. We still get tired and feel like we just want to quit. But there is when The Trainer says; COME ON, YOU CAN DO IT! GIVE ME ONE MORE.

Yes! I'm blogging too, so let's talk photography

Exposure, talking photography, is the amount of light that your film or sensor is exposed to. Now, exposure is determined by aperture. I guess you want me to define aperture, right? Aperture is the size to which the lens opens and this opening determines how much light will land on your film so it can be exposed. What's your point Cynthia? you might be asking. Well, let's imagine we are a camera, our heart is the film, God is the light and our willingness to open up to him is our aperture. The question is, are we exposing our heart to God at the right aperture? See, sometimes we don't open our heart to God to the maximum aperture because we are afraid that what's printed on it is not a pretty picture. I don't know you but that's the truth for me. Anger, envy, bitterness, unforgiveness just to name a few of the elements that compose my picture. I mean with a picture like that, who would want to be exposed. But what we forget, or I should say what I forget is that the more I expose my heart to the Light the more like the Light my heart will become. The more we open our hearts to God and let His light expose everything that is in it the more like God we will become. Once our film is exposed and we see the ugly picture He will then give us the strength, the wisdom and the power to change and become more like Him. And I don't know if you think the same way but that's a pretty picture!