It says a lot about life, when you are so busy that you've not been able to exchange Christmas gifts with a friend until the middle of July!
My gift to my friend was a tin of really nice cookies (I hope they are still nice - and worth waiting for - after seven months), along with some home-made greeting cards.
Her gift to me was well worth waiting for:
She knows I love birds, and especially cardinals, and these are kind of cute: - but her gift means more to me than just that.
I've been thinking and praying a lot about JOY recently. Sometimes, in the midst of a busy and somewhat stressful life, JOY can be a bit elusive. I have made it a priority to seek out JOY and and put it into practice as much as I can.
Someone has said that happiness is dependent on our outward circumstances, whereas JOY flows from the life of Jesus within us.
I think that's why, even though we can be pretty 'down-in-the-dumps' sometimes, there can still be song, a hymn, or a chorus flowing through our heart and making its presence known in our mind. Even as I write this, there's a little Hillsong Kids chorus running 'round in my head:
Never give up, 'cause He's always there
Never give up, anytime, anywhere
Never give up, 'cause He's always there -
remember God is always by your side!
I have determined to stop and listen for a song that's running 'round in my head and heart, when I am a little down. Especially so that I can give expression to it by singing it out loud (well, maybe not in public -- but I can still hum it!) ...and allow the JOY of Jesus to well up from within. I've said before on this blog that I may have to grow old, but I don't have to be old and grumpy!
So, although this gift is a little tacky (I can say that, as my friend is completely computer illiterate and will never read this!), and although it is a Christmas decoration, it is going to stay out on display, in my office, all year round.
Do you have a Christmas decoration that stays up all year round?
A few years back, billboards bearing "messages from God" appeared along American highways. Those arch one-liners were commissioned anonymously and conceived by Charlie Robb, former creative director for the Smith Agency in Fort Lauderdale.
Some sample messages, each signed, simply, "God":
Loved the wedding. Invite me to the marriage.
Will the road you're on get you to my place?
That "love thy neighbor" thing -- I meant it.
Do you have any idea where you're going?
Follow me.
Keep using my name in vain, I'll make rush hour longer.
Need a marriage counsellor? I'm available.
I don't question your existence.
What part of "thou shalt not" did you not understand?
We need to talk.
Don't make me come down there.
(Tom Kuntz in The New York Times
Can you think of others you'd add, if you were God?
Well, many thanks to my hundreds of followers for all your comments :)
It seems it's not altogether easy to assess exactly what it is that makes us laugh.
In my research for the magazine article, I remembered something that, many decades ago, really made me laugh. Maybe you will get a chuckle out of it too:
But I want to share with you something that my British sense of humour really enjoys.
I am reading Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. Jerome wrote it in 1889. I've probably read it three times in my life -- that's a lot, considering I rarely read a fiction book more than once.
Here's the introduction:
...a merry, but scandalously lazy band of well-to-do young men -- and a plucky and rather world-weary fox terrier named Montmorency -- (decide to take) an idyllic cruise along the River Thames.
Feeling seedy, muses one of them dreamily, "What we want is rest." What they find instead is one hapless catastrophe after another.
Soggy weather, humiliating dunkings, the irritating behavior of small boats, and the "contrariness of teakettles" are just a few of the barbarisms our genteel heroes are forced to endure. But to which a delighted reader can only sing, Hooray!
But it's a passage about Montmorency the dog I'd like you to read:
To look at Montmorency you would imagine he was an angel sent upon the earth - for some reason withheld from mankind - in the shape of a small fox terrier.
There is a sort of Oh-what-a-wicked-world-this-is-and-how-I-wish-I-could-do-something-to-make-it-better-and-nobler expression about Montmorency that has been know to bring tears into the eyes of pious old ladies and gentlemen.
(At first) I used to sit down and look at him, as he sat on the rug and looked up at me, and think: "Oh, that dog will never live. He will be snatched up to the bright skies in a chariot, that's what will happen to him."
But, when I had paid for about a dozen chickens he had killed; and dragged him, growling and kicking by the scruff of his neck, out of a hundred and fourteen street fights; had had a dead cat brought round for my inspection by an irate female who called me a murderer; and had been summoned by the man next door but one for having a ferocious dog at large that had kept him pinned up in his own toolshed, afraid to venture his nose outside the door for over two hours on a cold night; and had learned that the gardener, unknown to myself, had won thirty shillings by backing him to kill rats against time, then I began to think that maybe they'd let him remain on earth for a bit longer after all.
If you've never read Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), I can only encourage you to get a copy. If you don't have much to laugh about, this book will change everything!
It is an incredibly moving volume of stories recorded by children who experienced unimaginable horrors. They are 'tales of fear and courage, of tragedy and transcendence.'
What I found interesting was that many of these children had a sense that they were putting their experiences on paper expecting that someone, somewhere, at some time, would read them -- even though many of these children were also convinced that they would not live beyond their childhood years because of the horrors they were enduring (and many of them didn't).
It is, indeed, quite remarkable to read how their diaries, written industriously on scraps of paper, in the covers or down the margins of old books, well-hidden from enemy eyes, were somehow discovered, preserved, and ultimately published in some form or another, decades later.
I have learned so much from the remarkable wisdom expressed in these diaries - about human nature (both the good and the evil), about how children process and survive terrible trauma, about being thankful for life and wanting to make the most of it while I can, about the enduring element of faith.
More than anything, I want my grandchildren to read these diaries, so that they can learn by them. My grandchildren -- who want for nothing, who have no comprehension of hardship, never mind of living in ghettos, being chased down by Nazis and seeing their parents shot to death, or of hiding in bomb shelters and wearing gas masks, or of dying gruesome deaths -- need to read about what other children have lived through and be thankful that they haven't.
Maybe they need to read these diaries in preparation of what lies ahead for them in this world. I don't know. I just know they need to read them.
I keep a journal....have done for about 15 years. I don't write in it daily, but what goes into it comes from the deepest part of me. So it's not something I would ever want anyone to read while I am alive.
But I can't help having this overwhelming feeling, every time I write in it, that there will come a day, long after I'm gone, that someone, somewhere, will be reading what I've written and will benefit greatly by it.
How about you? Do you keep a journal? What do you write in it?
Do you have a sense that maybe you are writing for a future generation? That sometime in the future, after you are gone, someone will read it and be grateful for what you have written?
The beauty of a blog is that it's a place where we have the freedom to post our own thoughts and opinions.
So if I post something you don't agree with, that's ok...you can just move on. But, if you decide to comment, please be polite - and I will respond accordingly.
I am 72 years old. When I was a child, I was told by my art teacher in primary school that I would never be able to draw - so for 60 years I never tried!
Thanks to some great encouragement from my sister, a number of years ago, I actually tried - and discovered that I actually do have a bit of talent.
Art is a work of creation, that we inherited from our Creator. It is in our DNA in one form or another. I don't do as much as I would like to, but I will post my attempts, from time to time.
- but her gift means more to me than just that.
or of hiding in bomb shelters and wearing gas masks, or of dying gruesome deaths -- need to read about what other children have lived through and be thankful that they haven't.
