Our Arms Are The Ones God Holds His Children With

For me, there was nothing better in the world (well, maybe with the exception of chocolate!) than being held in my Daddy's big strong arms when I was a little child. He was my hero...so tall and handsome...always more than willing for my twin and me to tumble all over him when he came home after a week on a business trip. He would lie on the floor and become the jungle gym as we laughed at his tickling us and basked in the joy of being in his presence. Daddy was home! All was well with our world.

In today's world many children do not know what it is like to be hugged by a Daddy on a regular basis. With the divorce rate  high, as well as the deaths or absence of our military overseas, there are children who go to bed night after night without a time of play or a good night hug from their dad. 

Those children need loving arms wrapped around them and it is our arms that are the only ones God can utilize to hug His children. That is a very powerful thought. There are so many people who need a father's hug...or a mother's hug for that matter.

  

We have a loving heavenly Father who loved us so much He sent His Son to die on a cross for us, but are there times when you yearn for His physical presence and a hug?

There is a remedy. We need to grasp the concept that we can be the loving arms of God. We, as His creation, are the only beings He has endowed with the capability to give a hug to His children , as well as to our pets… those precious creations He placed on earth to demonstrate the power of selfless, devoted love.

The next time you see someone who looks like they have lost their best friend, you might ask them, “Could you use a God hug?” Tell them God loves them and cares about them and you realize our human arms are the only way God can hug us.

Always ask. Never assume. Perhaps what will mean the most to someone is not the hug, but that you noticed them or cared to reach out.

If given, your hug may be the only hug a person has for a day or a week or a month and by hugging them you will allow their soul to feel the hug of a Heavenly Father who cares enough about us individually to know the number of hairs on our heads.

Who can you offer a God hug to today?  Perhaps it will be the only touch they will  experience today or even this week or month. And you most likely will receive a hug in return!!! A bonus for the receiver as well as the giver.

Heavenly Undertaking from the heart of God!

Those Who Beef Too Much Land In The Stew

Would you prefer filet mignon steak or beef stew?

For most folks there is no comparison. Filet mignon wins hands down, especially if someone else is buying!

There are as many grades of beef as there are human attitudes. Now I am not saying all life experiences should be prime ones. Ground beef, ground chuck, pot roast and beef stew are viable alternatives. A diet of all candy or a diet of all prime beef is not as good for you as a diet of various cuts of beef as well as chicken, seafood or even occasionally a vegetarian meal for us meat lovers.

Attitudes also have various grades just like beef at the butcher shop. A perennially “do gooder” is questionable company as is a chronic complainer. Both are seldom listened to for more than a few minutes. Do you really want to spend your valuable time with someone who cannot find even the tiniest bit of good in anything? Perhaps a Pollyanna is worse yet! Both can do a mighty fine job of getting your dander up.

It is wise therefore, for us to each take an inventory of our verbalized attitudes. Solitary grumpiness is our choice to make, but we need to button our lips in public for the well being of others.  Although valid feedback can lead to prosperity of businesses and even in folks’ lives, incessant negativity is as deadly, and unwanted, as a viper bite.

Beginning tonight, and every night to come, take a truthful inventory of your lip service during the day. Was there an appropriate balance of negatives and positives being “fed” into your surroundings?  Did your cohorts benefit from your care-filled lip service today?

Neither all sweetness and light nor all negativity is appropriate, but hopefully there was far less gristle-y beef in the stew of your surroundings. The news headlines have more than enough gristle for all of us, so consider adding some sweetness to your day tomorrow. Perhaps not full strength sugar, but rather some lighter, low calorie sweetener to evoke a smile and gratitude for your presence rather than making stomachs turn at your approach.

Were you a sugar cube or were you stew today? You may not know the answer, but I bet your colleagues do!!

When You Lose, Don’t Lose The Lesson

It is a fact of physics that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Sir Isaac Newton was addressing the laws of physics, but his theory can also be applied to life experiences.  There are wins in life, but also losses.

It is easy to be a winner.  We watch the Olympics and applaud the winners of the gold, the silver and the bronze medals as THE athletes in a particular sport, but not winners are not on the top of the awards podium. The opponents of the winners can be winners as well if they do not lose the lessons learned from the winners of their event. In the case of the Olympics, perhaps the lesson is devoting additional hours to future training or replacing a coach or moving to another city where the world’s most renowned coach trains a particular sport.

We win by learning lessons just as a toddler learns how to get peas in his mouth after numerous failures exercising not only his patience but his mother’s picking up the flying peas from her kitchen floor.

The toddler must learn the lesson of getting food to his mouth in an orderly manner. The athlete must learn additional lessons from his or her coach and devote the necessary hours of training to reach the gold medal platform. In both instances, loss is the greatest motivator.

The greatest positive, although it might not seem to be so at the time, is failure, IF the failure results in renewed efforts to succeed based on the lesson learned by failing.

No great inventor succeeded the first time. Thomas Edison said, “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”  

Helen Keller, deaf, mute and blind from birth said, “Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere and you will find joy in overcoming obstacles.”

Winners win because at some point in their life they experienced loss and were motivated by it.

You can sit and suck your thumb and hold a pity party or you can focus on the gold medal awaiting you atop the victor’s stand of life. Which will it be?