What Keeps You From Flailing?

"He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand."  ... Psalm 40:2


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Is it Autumn yet?

What a Bad News Summer, stuffed with worse news than usual which, yes, is really saying something.

Yet I had to laugh when a friend posted this cartoon at Facebook and asked, "Can anyone else identify?"

Heh. (For fans of The X-Files, it's even sillier.)

Yes, 'these are the times that try men's souls'--and make them want to run away to gentler places, say, out to a country cabin or to a beach beside the sea.

And if you can do that, do so. In fact, take me with you, please.  :)

But if you can't? Please find ways to press down the projector's Off Button inside your head. You know, the one which replays (and replays) the bad news you watched this morning, bringing an all-day sort of heavy feeling there in the darkness.

What works for you? What keeps your head's cinema playing this discipline-worthy verse, instead?

"...  whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."   ...Philippians 4:8


Do you know? Have you already found your projector's Right and Pure Buttons? Do you know what it takes to keep the films up there excellent and praiseworthy so that you're (nearly) always steady enough to help others change the film inside their heads?

If not, today's a great day to begin the search. Let God lead you to the right books (or Book) or friends or movies or music or to praise or a healing silence beside Him. To a coffee shop, walks around the block or to a friend/stranger who's waiting, asking God to please send an encourager with some answers now.

To a chat with a friend. A reread of your gratitude journal. An hour in the garden, a new project--or an old one never finished.

Always there is something we can do/think/be rather than bogged down, flailing around in Today's sorrows. Always there's Someone who waits to lift us up so we can then reach around and lift others.

"With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands, and encourage those who have weak knees."   ... Isaiah 35:3



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These past two Sunday afternoons I've Netflixed episodes of the old Emergency tv series. Sometimes that show just feels so right, you know? And both times I've come away feeling as though I, well, maybe didn't go on vacation, exactly, but as though I went back in Time to a world I once knew. For awhile.

Hey, it's one of the things which works for me. And that's what I'm speaking about here--what are the ways God uses to keep you from sinking--do you know?

And a comforting place where I found myself this morning? This website for vintage wallpaper. Wow, the evocative-ness of it all. But oh dear--the high prices!  Yet even so, lovely, lovely stuff, indeed.

And ah.... I so enjoyed Susan Branch's welcome home post. So sweet, but oh no! I gasped and became all teary-eyed at the end. And then prayed for Susan and her family.

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We were warned so very long ago:


"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive,disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,  treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—  having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people."   ... 2 Timothy 3:1-5

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