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.