Good advice

Best advice of the day:


Growl less. Wag more.

Being Pollyanna is Hard (apologies to Stephen Green)

During this past week:

• I attended the memorial service for the husband of a dear friend who drowned on their honeymoon
• I found out that my BFF's pancreatic tumor has been rendered "all dead" from the radiation and chemo, there is no sign of other tumors and she is officially in remission
• I visited a beautiful hospice patient who is only a few years older than me whose body is being ravaged by ALS. She welcomes my visits with joy on her face and loves to pat my face with the one arm & hand that still work. She loves Jesus and cries tears of joy when I pray. 
• My community group that was formed to make our neighborhood a better place to live is imploding due to grown people acting like spoiled pre-teenagers.

Guess which one makes me not want to give a rat's rear? And yet I feel compelled to love, care, and pray for them all, even the badly-behaved ones. Sometimes being Pollyanna is a pain in MY rear. Good thing that God provides what I can't muster up for myself. 

Unforgettable...

I have noticed something in my visits with hospice patients who have dementia. There is one thing that will often get a reaction out of them when nothing else will and that is to sing "Jesus Loves Me" to them. Often, dementia patients who can't put together a coherent thought much less a sentence will join me in singing the entire song. It's a beautiful thing.

Jesus loves me, this I know.
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong
they are weak, but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.

Amen.

Prayer du jour

St. Theresa's Prayer:

May today there be peace within.

May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you....

May you be content knowing you are a child of the universe....

Let this presence settle into your bones, and
allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is here for every one of us.--Unknown

Happiness is an Inside Job

I started leading a book study yesterday on John Powell's book Happiness Is An Inside Job. Great little book that helped me to learn that I am the one and only person who is responsible for my own happiness. It doesn't come from anything or anyone else and I can't pursue it directly. It comes as a byproduct of doing other things. Conversely, nothing and no one else can make me unhappy. It is my choice how I act and react to people and situations in my life.

God, help me to act more thoughtfully and deliberately and to react less and less. Amen!

Get Certified!

I think everyone deserves to have one of these

 certificate of right to play

That's Irritating

"But in a sense I welcome irritation. Irritation keeps you alert. It keeps you from settling down too long in one spot. For a speaker, it forces him or her to find new approaches, new insights. Who knows, if people get enough sand in their shell they may, like the oyster, make a pearl. Without the challenge of irritation it is possible to answer questions eloquently that no one is asking, to invent cures for disease that no one has." - Dr. Maurice Berquist, The Miracle and Power of Blessing


Well that is certainly a different way of looking at life's irritations than I have seen before. I know that God speaks to us in many different ways but I have certainly never thought of life's irritations as a being a message from the Lord. I have just thought they were irritating. I guess I am going to have to pay closer attention when God is trying to tell me something. 


I found this book on the Two Listener's website this morning and it looks like a veritable gold mine of blog posts so stay tuned.