Secret #2 - Puppies and Ponies

My kids were young when the Nightmare On Elm Street series came out. It was appropriately named because when I saw a commercial for it, I had nightmares. My kid's friends were watching it. Naturally, my kids asked if they could watch it too. We said, "No." "But," they'd whine, "whyyyyyyyyyya?" "Because," we'd tell them, "when you go to sleep we don't want you to have nightmarish thoughts in your head. We want you to have thoughts of puppies and ponies. We want good and happy things dancing in your brain; Godly things; things that are true, noble, just, pure and lovely; things that are excellent and worthy of praise." (Phil. 4:8) We provided them with an assortment of stories and movies and puzzles and games about puppies and ponies (and whales). We sat with our children for hours on end reading and watching and playing. That's when we discovered the secret. It was a double blessing for my husband and I as we had hours of time with our children and when we went to bed, satisfied with the events of the day, we dreamed of puppies and ponies, too. And because we always try to practice what we teach, we watched and read and played things that were all of good report. The secret is that we have a choice of what we think on. Garbage in, garbage out or graciousness in, graciousness out? Puppies and ponies or porn and poop? You decide.

Secret #1

About 25 years ago, my husband and I were invited to a black tie affair. We really didn't want to go, but it was one of those things that we knew we should do. So, we got ourselves dressed and off we went. While we were there, we saw an older man who was dressed in his black tuxedo. He was standing in the crowd with his arms folded across his chest in a rather defiant pose. His hair was a thick, wavy, grey mess all over his head. It was quite a comical sight. My husband and I saw him at the same moment. I leaned in and whispered to my husband, "I'll go to this stuffy party, but I won't comb my hair!" We laughed and enjoyed ourselves the rest of the night. We learned a lesson that night. In this life there are things that we have to do, things we should do and things we can simple say no thanks to. The secret to finding peace and joy is figuring out which situation fits into which category and then accepting it gracefully. So when we have to or should do something that we don't want to do we look at each other and say, in a resigned manner, "I'll go . . . but I won't comb my hair!" It reminds us how we did, indeed, enjoy that black tie affair all those many years ago and that being defiant would only rob us of our peace and joy. So, we get dressed, we comb our hair, we do what we have to do and sometimes we even forget that we didn't want to go.

Look who's eating my parsley!

Don't Be Hating Eve

It's hard to imagine the perfect life that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the Garden of Eden before Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Imagine. All the fresh fruits and vegetables that hung on the most beautiful of trees. The rivers were full of gold and onyx and the mountains rich in beauty. A mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. What joy to the senses - seeing God's creation, smelling natural herbs and flowers, touching unpolluted water, hearing God's Holy voice, and tasting the sweetness of pure foods. Seriously, what more could Eve have wanted? Does it make you so mad that Eve messed all that up? How long do you think it took? How long before the serpent tempted Eve? How long before Eve caved in and ate what she knew from God, her Creator, that she should not? Oh, Eve, how could you? You really blew it! But before you get too mad at Eve, we really don't know if it was a few hours, a few days, a few years, a few decades . . . the Bible doesn't say. I'd like to believe that if God gave me all that He gave Eve, I'd be content to follow His commands forever. However, I am just like Eve, always wanting more blessings, with my eyes bigger than my stomach. Maybe Eve was just having a bad day . . . you know, off her game . . . feeling a little insecure in her humanness. Maybe we're all a little like that, so don't be hating Eve.