Happiness is seeing light at the end of your tunnel. Thank God for the light!
I often hear people say that they'd love to have one more day with a loved one who has gone on before them. They want one last conversation, one last hug, or in the words of Luther Vandross, "one last dance." I don't get it, do you? I don't want to see my deceased loved ones again until I can see them forever. Take my father, for example. I loved him with a fierceness that not everyone understands. My daddy could do no wrong in my eyes and I loved him with all of my heart. The loss of my father came all of a sudden, it wasn't expected, and it hurt deep. In some ways, I probably still mourn his loss, but I would never say that I wanted to see him one last time. I don't. I couldn't take that hurt again. I don't want to see him until we can spend time together in eternity. I live for the moment that I can say "hello!" and I never have to say good-bye again. Have you ever met a person or found yourself in a situation where something just didn't feel quite right? I mean, no one said or did anything negative, you just pick up a vibe that you can't shake, no matter how hard you try? This has happened to me and I used to think it was just me -- but then I realized that there is a name to it. Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to it as Chi (pronounced Chee) and I find it fascinating. It has to do with your energy and the energy that may be emitted from another person or another thing. If your energies match, good, positive feelings flow. But if your energy picks up something negative in the other energy, that's when you feel that odd, yucky feeling that makes you want to just run away. I've felt this way around certain people. They've done nothing at all to me, yet I want nothing to do with them. Such is the case with one of my co-workers. I don't know what the deal is, but I cringe whenever I see her. I speak nicely, but then I make a beeline toward another direction. Conversely, I was at a birthday party a week or so ago and a woman I'd never met ran up to me and we started talking and it was as if I'd known her all my life. Our chi obviously connected. Even more recently I was at a rehearsal that I thought I wanted to be at, yet everything just felt wrong. I managed to stay til the end, but once it was over I ran out of there! Well, my feet are bad so I didn't actually run, but I walked as quickly as I could! HAHAHA! Rather than force myself to deal with these situations, I now chock it up to chi and just keep it moving. Maybe you call it instinct. As a Christian, I call it the Holy Spirit. The Chinese call it chi. "If you can't fly, then run.
If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, You have to keep moving forward." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I asked for ideas for blogging and I got this one: "What's a song you could listen to all day?" I love this question because music is truly at the root of my soul. It can make me laugh, make me cry, cheers me up, music is medicine for me. I have a lot of favorites, but one song I think I could listen to all day is "The Power of Love" by Luther Vandross. I love the message AND I love the beat. It's one song that I can dance to and cry to, all in one sitting. The Power of Love," yep that tops my list. What about you? Name one song that you could listen to all day... and thanks Lorrie aka OF for this question. Halloween and Christmas in the same aisle? Really people? I love holiday decorations, but I was more than little bothered to see pumpkins sitting next to Christmas trees in my local department stores last month. And poor little Thanksgiving seems to be getting lost in the shuffle. Am I the only one who wishes the retail world would slow down and let us enjoy one holiday at a time? One of my favorite and my most unforgettable birthday gifts was the Easy Bake Oven my brother gave to me -- when I turned 50 years old. Let me explain... Our mother is Polly Practical. So when, as a younger person, I asked for an Easy Bake Oven she thought it would be more "practical' for me to just use her oven at home. She explained that I could go to the store and buy some cake mix and cook it in her oven. Bor-ring! That hardly sounded like fun! I wanted my own little oven and the cake mixes that went along with it. But she was the adult, and I never got an Easy Bake Oven. I got plenty of other nice things, like other toys and a college education, so II don't hold this against her at all, but I'm just saying. I never got the Easy Bake Oven until... When I turned 50 years old, my bought me one! You can't imagine how happy I was. Sure, I knew that I might never play with it the way I'd once envisioned, for by this time I did indeed have a home and an oven of my own, but still. The fact remained that I had an Easy Bake Oven and I could die a happy woman. Long live the Easy Bake Oven! My Sunday School teacher is a Biblical genius. She knows so much about the people, places, and things of the Bible that one would think she lived back in those days. Her knowledge is nothing short of amazing. Perhaps it is because of her thorough knowledge that our Sunday School classes take you on a trip through the Word. You may begin in one book, but inevitably the journey will take you to another book for background information or to gain a deeper understanding of what you're reading. Such was the case this Sunday. Our Sunday School lesson began in the Book of Matthew, but we took a side trip to the Book of Acts -- Acts 12 to be exact. To make a long story short, this chapter talks about Peter, a follower of Jesus, and how he was imprisoned for this affiliation. He was guarded by 16 men and it was expected that he would spend a few nights in jail, be brought to trial and, most likely, be killed. But during his time behind bars, the church folk prayed earnestly for him. So... The night before he was to be brought to trial, an angel appeared to him in jail and told him to get up. The chains binding him had been loosed and he walked out freely. Initially Peter thought the entire episode was a dream, but he quickly realized that he was, in fact, a freed man. Now here's the part of the story that really struck me... Peter's first stop was to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark. Many of the believers were gathered there, praying for his safety. Peter knocked on the door and a servant girl named Rhoda peeped out. She saw Peter, but she was so shocked that she didn't open the door, she just ran to tell the others that Peter was at the door. They didn't believe her. They told Rhoda that she must have been mistaken, that it may have been Peter's ghost at the door, but it certainly could not be Peter. I'm not one to judge, but how crazy is that? Why would they pray for Peter's safe return and then not believe it when he safely returned? But aren't we sometimes that way? Good church folks like us are taught to pray for the things we want and need, so we pray. But do we pray believing that God will come through for us? Or do we pray just because we're just going through the motions, just doing what we've always done. Don't answer that. :-) God sees our hearts. He knows. So, if we're going to pray (and we are), let's pray with a strong conviction and a clear realization of who God is and believe that He can do anything. If we're going to pray let's not try to stifle what God can do based upon our own human limitations. If we're going to pray, let's make it count by trusting in God, standing on His promises, and resting in the blessed assurance that He loves us and will come through for us -- sometimes not in the way we expected, but in the way that's divinely right. I will be forever grateful for the power of prayer. As the good church people say, "Prayer Changes Things." |
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