Instead of Complaining....

So there I was in our kitchen at 5:30 this morning making Tom's lunch for work, half-watching the local weather man and groaning, snarling when he said this is our coldest April in 85 years.

And I thought of that pastor in Kentucky who began this bracelet-wearing, anti-complaining campaign which has spread exponentially, especially since he appeared on Oprah. It came to me, "He's right, you know. Complaining about this miserable, eternal winter will only use-up the energy I could have spent to accomplish something valid, lasting and real."

Complaining. It's the easiest thing in the whole world to do! And the hardest thing to quit, especially when you consider that "who can tame the tongue?" verse. But of course, with God's help, even taming a complaining tongue is possible.

I can talk myself into feeling up or I can convince myself I deserve to feel down. 

And so instead of complaining about our upcoming long string of bleak, frigid, rainy-snowy days ahead, I'll try, instead, to apply my complaining energy to painting my walls warm colors instead. I'll switch the lamps on at strategic spots and polish the windows, mirrors and hutch glass so they'll shine. I'll trim the dead, brown leaves off my house plants, open all the curtains and dust the furniture.

All in an effort to create on the inside what I am hoping will someday (oh please!) arrive on the outside-- Springtime. 

There is a Springtime of the heart and today I'm aiming for that, but I'll never, ever get there if I waste away all my energy on useless, whining-style complaining.


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Numbers 11:1
"And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp."


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