20/20 Vision

Life gets blurry sometimes. Things that used to seem so crystal clear begin to get distorted and are difficult to see clearly. Try this experiment: Put a book close to your face (about an inch from you nose) and try to read it. Can you? Why? You're too close to it. Often we are too close to a situation to see it clearly. Step back...WAY BACK. Look at the situation from a different vantage point. Ask a friend to "read" the situation for you, from where they stand. Listen carefully to what they read to you. Marriage, or relationship with a child, a sibling, a parent, can get really distorted because you are too close. Love is a funny thing. It hurts. It's the nature of the beast. So step back and take a look from outside yourself. Seek counsel from someone who isn't quite so "close". You may be surprised at how different the scenery looks from the shoulders of a friend or confidante. Take a look at the picture. Do you see an old hag? Do you see a lovely lady? They're both there. Adjust your vision. It's amazing what you can see when you look at a situation differently.

"...seeing they see not. Hearing they hear not, neither do they understand."

Matthew 13:13 [paraphrased]

Open Doors

Ever have a door shut in your face? It's embarrassing and humiliating. You have to be made of pretty strong stuff to endure it. Yet life is full of slammed doors, dreams dashed and goals unrealized. How do we handle the door that has been shut right before our very eyes? After the weeping and the grieving, the subsequent anger and resentment and ultimately resignation to the fact, what then? In the midst of an uncontrollable situation, do we have any control? The answer is, yes. There is a life within us that is governed by our own resolve. No one can touch that internal governance unless we allow them to. There are strong gates, boundaries, sentries that are set before the city of our soul. We determine who or what enters in. Though the billows may roll on the outside, tidal waves of tragedy and disappointment, there is a place on the inside of us, a retreat, where we can experience peace and tranquility. It takes time to go inward. It is a journey not unlike a submarine ride to the bottom of the ocean floor. It's deep. But it is worth the trip, for there we can relax and ponder the rat-race of society and the cruelties of which mankind is capable, and know that we do not have to participate. It is there that we can contemplate an open door, heretofore invisible to us. It is in the confines of that inner place, the place where God comes to visit, that we become aware of opportunities, capabilities, and new horizons. Sad that we do not take advantage of that retreat more often.

Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing
that we see too late the one that is open.
~ Alexander Graham Bell ~

Kindred Spirit

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart

and can sing it back
to you when you have forgotten the words."

(Author Unknown)

It's easy to forget the words to the song in your heart when you've met with an overwhelming disappointment, a betrayal, or a loss. The music that tranports us on wings of eagles can be silenced in a heartbeat. The death of a loved one, the loss of a coveted position, the betrayal of trust, the wound of a friend can leave you in silence, devastated. But a friend comes along and reminds you of the truths that are the composition of self. We are NOT defined by who or what people think we are or by how people choose to treat us. Our value is intrinsic. It is God given, defined by One greater than ourselves. Sometimes, when we cannot think clearly, we need a reminder of that fact. A true friend will know when we need that reminder.

ONE FRIEND
To walk through paths of life without a friend
Prince or peasant, kith or kin
To walk earth’s highway ere without
One comrade
Death of living, corpse of existence

To long, deep wrenching quest of hope
Frantic, desperate search
To dream, warm embrace of love
One mirage
Momentary relief, vapor of promise

To encounter, ere by providence or chance
A kindred spirit, twin of soul
To breathe the breath of communion
One heart
Ecstasy of fortune, gift divine

To cherish, with reckless abandon truth embodied
Clear sighted, heart and mind
To hold with freedom’s tender palm
One friend
Lighthouse on a hill, eternal harbor.

Joan Elise 2/14/03
joanelise@bellsouth.net
[please do not use without permission]

Grateful Matthew Henry

It's all in the way you look at it. Perspective is a weird thing. Wisdom, according to Bill Gothard, is "seeing life from God's perspective". If we can adjust our vision, and look at the world and the things that are happening around us from God's vantage point, everything makes a lot more sense.

Many years ago, Matthew Henry, a well-known Bible scholar, was once robbed of his wallet. Knowing that it was his duty to give thanks in everything, he meditated on this incident and recorded in his diary the following: Let me be thankful, first, because he never robbed me before; second, because although he took my purse, he did not take my life; third, because although he took all I possessed, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.
(Matthew Henry (1662-1714), English Non-conformist Bible commentator)

Encourage One Another Daily

We all need pep. In a world that drags you down and through the mud, you long for someone to come along side and lift you up. This site is designed to PEP you up. The P.E.P (People Encouraging People) Club is an effort to ignite a wave of encouragment, a tidal wave of pep, to lift the sagging soul to new heights.

Come along and enjoy the ride!