“Keep it up!” “Atta-boy!” “Good job!” “You’re doing great!” Did you smile, reading those encouraging phrases? Hearing (reading) words of encouragement brings about smiles, grins, and lifted shoulders. Yes, when someone speaks those positive words to you, something changes in the atmosphere around you. Maybe you were feeling dejected, or…
Remembering the games of my childhood, I fondly recall playing Blind Man’s Bluff (tag), Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and Taste Test. The commonality of these games is that they require a blindfold to play. Although being blindfolded removes the sense of sight while playing, all your other senses…
One of the nastiest tasks that I volunteered to undertake at the church we pastored was to bring the aluminum cans home for recycling. You might ask how that could be nasty. All that’s necessary is to toss them in a recycling bin somewhere, right? Well, that would work, IF……
One of my favorite worship songs right now is “Looking Up,” as sung by Nashville Life, and featuring vocalist CeCe Winans. The chorus alone is worth the listen, but there are two lines that thrill my soul with HOPE : All of my problems are below You. All that I…
“Open confession is good for the soul” (Psalm 119:26). “Confessed faults are half-mended.” ~Scottish proverb “A confession has to be part of your new life.” ~Ludwig Wittgenstein Confession is — acknowledgment; avowal; admission. A declaration or statement of belief. We sometimes mistakenly believe a confession is the revealing of secret…
In the children’s book, “The Little Engine that Could,” the small train is chugging uphill, chanting the entire way, “I think I can, I think I can.” Eventually, when it reached the top, the train said, “I KNEW I could!” The premise is, of course, that with faith and confidence…
The use of euphemistic speech has nearly deserted us in this tell-all, bare-all, no-holds-barred world in which we live. I am so saddened by the lack of tact and decorum in our behaviors and conversations. We think nothing of talking about “unmentionables” in public and in ‘mixed company’ (males and…
My mind moves almost non-stop. My lists are never-ending. My tasks mount up faster than I can accomplish them. One appointment leads to another obligation, until I feel like the proverbial gerbil on the wheel in a cage going nowhere fast! It sometimes feels as though both sleep AND rest…
“For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says (Mark 11:23 NKJV). Does NOT doubt…BUT believes. This…