Its THAT Time Again

On Sunday The Red Wings (46-15-9) were the first team to reach 100-points and clinch a playoff berth this season, their 18th straight and the league’s longest active streak.

Go Wings!!!!

"I'm So Dizzy,

My Head is Spinning..."*

That was me a few weeks ago, if I lifted my head up from the horizontal position the whole room started to spin. I went to the doctor to find out that I had a case of Labyrinthitis. Basically I caught a cold in my inner ear. There is no cure, just like with a cold; they can only treat the symptoms with industrial strength Dramamine™. The fluid in my inner ear became a little cloudy and less viscous due to the virus. This caused an imbalance of my equilibrium. Normally the inner ear fluid if free to move and therefore helps us stay balanced. But when it thickens, the fun begins.

Our bodies are so amazing. Such a slight change can throw us off balance. This is true in all areas of our lives. If we get a little sluggish, overly tired, not eating right, neglecting time refreshing our spirit with Bible reading and prayer, we become less fluid and it throws off balance. It doesn’t take much to start the spin out of control. It is the small things, our inner ear is one of the smallest areas on our body and yet.

So what is the treatment, rest, healthy eating, and quality time spent with the Lord. Find your favorite CD of Christian praise and worship and sing to it every 4 hours until you are back in balance.


*Dizzy by Tommy Roe was #1 on April 10, 1969

“Look Into My Eyes”

Blue, green, hazel and brown, what was the color of the last person you have a conversation with? The direction of one’s gaze indicates to others where their attention is. Eye contact shows personal involvement and creates intimate bonds.

Of all the ways we communicate with people eye contact is the most powerful. The way we look or not look at someone when we are talking to them says volumns. Looking at people and meeting their eyes are the first steps toward making positive impressions and deep friendships.

There is this woman at church that I have been watching for a while. It doesn’t matter what else is going on around her, when she is talking to someone, friend or stranger, there is nothing else in her immediate focus. She will look directly at you while she is engaged in conversation, totally interested in your every word as if it is the meaning of life and death. She does this in a way that gives the other person value and security. I’m not sure she even knows she is doing it. If it isn’t natural for her, she has done an excellent job in learning this skill.

I have a bad habit, or a natural tendency, to know everything that is going on in a room so I can jump in and help someone else. This is good when I’m not talking to someone, but the reality is that I probably come off cold and un-caring when I talk to someone in a public setting. Get me in a one on one situation and I do a little better, but I am still aware of everything happening around me.

Lord help me to be able to focus on the person in front of me and to give them my undivided attentions.

Matt 6:22

Friends - On Purpose

I have a Facebook account ; it is fun to keep track of ‘friends’ and what they are up to. You add Friends that you want to be connected to or stay in contact with. In face it was a friend from New Mexico that convinced me to sign up for Facebook. It is an easy way for us to connect on a daily basis if we choose. In some aspects I think social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linked In are also bad for relationships, if we don’t watch out our friendships will become casual.

Starting this weekend I will be attending church at our new 2nd campus and that means that I won’t be able to have our normal brief chat and hug each Sunday with some of my closest friends. I remember the night I told one of my friends that we wouldn’t be together on Sundays and she got mad at me. She felt as if I was abandoning her. My response to her was that it only meant that we had to be more intentional in our friendship and not just let it happen on Sundays.

I have some close friends that live in other parts of the country and I have to work at being On Purpose with those relationships because of the distance between us. I have friends that live within a few short miles of my house and it seems that I am don’t spend much more time with them than I do my long distant relationships. I can sometimes take them for granted.

Deliberate, planned, designed, purposed, intended, calculated, prearranged, premeditated. Are these words that describe your friendships or do you like most of us take them for granted? So what is a friend, per good old Webster they are person you know well and regard with affection and trust.

I continue to be On Purpose with my friends even in these busy times.

Prov 27:6; 17:17

green bananas

Each week my husband buys a small bunch of bananas for us to eat during the week. I really don’t like overly ripened bananas so we only have a few in the house at a time. Some weeks we run out of them because it seems that everyone is eating them and then other weeks they get too ripe and I have to throw them out. There are not many things that bother me as much as throwing out food. I would rather run out and have to get more then to waste it. Maybe that comes from the days in my past when food was scarce and I went to bed hungry some nights. Anyways back to the bananas.

Bananas are shipped into our region so they are not always the ripest when we bring them home. We had a bunch of bananas in the house a few weeks ago that were so under-ripe they were almost a florescent green color. I had to do a double take when I first saw them. I guess the correct term would be that they were raw. In that state they are really not very good for you to eat unless you actually cook them. So we hung them on the banana hanger and waited; waited for them to ripen. It took several days but they finally did ripen into something that was eatable and rather good for you.

I find myself like those bananas sometime, flat out raw, not yet ready for general consumption. I need to sit and ripen for awhile. Seems funny when you consider that I am over 50 and yet I still have to ripen in some areas of my life. I am formed in the right image, just not ripe yet. If I were to run out and do what I was created to do that early I would cause a great big stomach ache. Instead I have to hang around for awhile and let that part of me, that skill, that dream, that idea, that vision, that desire ripen until I have reached the state where I am rich with nutrition and sweet to be around.

So as I hang here and ripen, please don’t throw me out, I will come out the perfect fruit.

Col 3:10

A Handshake Said It All

It is common practice in the US and in most cultures to greet each other with a handshake, especially upon the 1st introduction. Handshakes tell a lot about a person. Do you make direct eye contact? Do you initiate the handshake, demonstrating your eagerness to meet the other person? Nobody likes a limp handshake. You show respect for yourself and the other person through a handshake.

It was a bright sunny, Sunday morning and I was greeting at the front doors of our old church building. A stranger walked up and I immediately reached out to take his hand and introduce myself. We had never met before but as soon as his eyes lit up and his warm hand grasped mine, I knew I had met a special man. By that one handshake many years ago I knew that he was a kind, gentle and caring man; a man that knew who he was and had lived through much only to come out of every situation better.

I remember that handshake and every other one afterwards and came to know him as someone I would call a friend. Always quick to take my hand in his and just say hi. Never in a hurry, there is always time. Over the years his body became weaker, but the warmth and gentle strength of his handshake has never lessened.

This week my friend Manfred shook the hand of Jesus face-to-face.

I will forever remember that handshake.