THINK BEFORE YOU WEEP

By Dorothy Metcalf, MN

If your arteries have hardened

And arthritis slows your gait,

If your tired blood is stubborn,

Not inclined to circulate;

If your aerobic days are over

And you cannot do the “twist,”

If your time is spent in brooding

O’er the many things you’ve missed;

If you’re constantly complaining

On your rocker or your couch,

If you’re ornery and cranky

And becoming quite a grouch;

Well, if this is your condition

And you get no sympathy,

Then it’s time you started trying

A new kind of therapy.

Though you have your share of trouble,

Think of others with more pain,

Like that fellow in his wheelchair

Who will never walk again.

Take time to write a letter

And while pen is in your palm,

Thank the good Lord up above you

For the use of that right arm.

Try relaxing in the sunshine,

Note each flower, bird and tree,

Then appreciate your eyesight –

There are many who can’t see.

When you tune in television

And each sound is loud and clear

Just think of those who’d give a lot

If only they could hear.

Yes, I’ve practiced what I’m preaching

And I’ve learned there’s joy to reap

If you stop and count your blessings

And just “think before you weep.”

-The Bible Friend (Vol. 106, No 6, July 2009) p.4

One of the things I have discovered in life is that there are always people around me who have it worse than I do.  It really works to ‘count your blessings!’  When we do, we find we truly are blessed people and have much for which to be grateful.  Even if we have had hardship and pain, we can worship our God because He is there to help us through these difficult times.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

By Johnson Oatman Jr. (1856-1922)

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,

When you are discouraged thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings; name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the LORD has done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?

Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?

Count your many blessings, ev’ry doubt will fly,

And you will be singing as the days go by.

When you look at others with their lands and gold,

Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;

Count your many blessings, money cannot buy

Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

So amid the conflict, whether great or small,

Do not be discouraged, God is over all;

Count your many blessings, angels will attend,

Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Count your blessings, Name them one by one;

Count your blessings, see what God has done.

Count your blessings, Name them one by one;

Count your many blessings, see what God has done.

The month of December is one of the most difficult months for many people.  There is massive depression and disappointment.  People are striving to please their family or are having enormous expectations that are unfulfilled.  It seems to be a time of extremes in indulgence and emotions.   Dad has a wonderful slant on this ‘Strange Season’.

THIS STRANGE SEASON

By Charlie Grier

Christmas is the strangest season

People just forget to reason;

Everyone is buying – spending –

Doing up their gifts and sending

To their friends, both far and wide,

Just because it’s Christmastide.

There is something in the air

Just makes people want to share;

I’ve seen folks accused of hoarding

Buying, giving, and according

To the spirit of the year

Helping to spread Christmas cheer.

What’s the meaning of this season?

Have men really lost their reason?

Or, is it that on this day

In a manger far away

God’s best GIFT to man was given,

Hope of earth, and joy of Heaven!

-Homespun Poems (Charlie Grier 1973) p.29

We have already plunged into this month of frenzy but let’s take time to worship God for Who He is and what He’s done for mankind.  The next few weeks will fly by but we need to see what’s important.  It would be good to emulate Evy Reis’s way of bringing warmth into her life!

CHRISTMAS RECEIPE

By Evy Reis

Take a bit of cheerfulness,

A pinch of laughter, too,

Next take a cup of thoughtfulness

And stir them through and through.

Add to this tranquility,

A verse of “Silent Night,”

That ever quiet we may be

When God sends His holy light.

Gently fold in some tenderness,

A handclasp or smile will do.

Perhaps it could be a fond caress,

Or a rose with a drop of dew.

Set aside a moment while you go

For spices, herbs, a scent of pine . . .

For music and fun, a candle’s glow,

And a star that was the sign.

Now mix and stir and fold again,

Then add some mistletoe,

A bit of faith, and love, and then

Into the oven your cake must go.

Where warmth and affection will combine

To make this cake come true.

Garnish with happiness, truth so fine,

Enough for you and you!

Cut a piece, but save some too

For every day of the year.

Serve with a prayer for peace on earth,

And a heavenly kingdom near.

Christmas Ideals 1966

I find it enjoyable to deliberately be kind to clerks waiting on a frantic public in December.  A smile of appreciation brings joy to their faces and warmth to our hearts.  Praising God each day gives us the peace and joy we need to encourage others.

An unknown author gives us a thought to ponder.

Praising God for blessings

Extends them.

Praising God for troubles

Ends them.

In the past few months it seems that there have been a lot of tragedies.  Many friends are suffering the loss of their loved ones; some were young and some had been married 52 years.  Others have a broken heart for one reason or another.  It seems that there is a lot of sadness going on in our land.  I think the words ‘Precious Lord Take My Hand’ is what gets many of God’s people through these trying times.

PRECIOUS LORD, TAKE MY HAND

By Thomas A. Dorsey, 1938

Precious Lord, take my hand,

Lead me on, help me stand.

I am tired, I am weak I am worn.

Through the storm, through the night,

Lead me on in the light.

Take my hand, precious Lord; lead me home.

When my way grows drear,

Precious Lord, linger near –

When life is almost gone.

Hear my cry, hear my call.

Hold my hand lest I fall.

Take my hand, precious Lord; lead me home

When the darkness appears

And the night draws near,

And the day is past and gone,

At the river I stand; Guide my feet, hold my hand.

Take my hand, precious Lord; lead me home.

THE BIRTH OF THE SONG ‘PRECIOUS LORD’

“Back in 1932, I was a fairly new husband.  My wife, Nettie and I were living in a little apartment on Chicago’s south side.  One hot August afternoon I had to go to St. Louis where I was to be the featured soloist at a large revival meeting.  I didn’t want to go.  Nettie was in the last month of pregnancy with our first child.  But a lot of people were expecting me in St. Louis.  I kissed Nettie good-bye, clattered downstairs to our Model A and, in a fresh Lake Michigan breeze, chugged out of Chicago on Route 66.

“However, outside the city, I discovered that in my anxiety at leaving, I had forgotten my music case.  I wheeled around and headed back.  I found Nettie sleeping peacefully.  I hesitated by her bed; something was strongly telling me to stay.  But eager to get on my way, and not wanting to disturb Nettie, I shrugged off the feeling and quietly slipped out of the room with my music.  The next night, in the steaming St. Louis heat, the crowd called on me to sing again and again.  When I finally sat down, a messenger boy ran up with a Western Union telegram.  I ripped open the envelope.  Pasted on the yellow sheet were the words: YOUR WIFE JUST DIED.

“People were happily singing and clapping around me, but I could hardly keep from crying out.  I rushed to a phone and called home.  All I could hear on the other end was ‘Nettie is dead. Nettie is dead.’  When I got back, I learned that Nettie had given birth to a boy.  I swung between grief and joy. Yet that same night, the baby died.  I buried Nettie and our little boy together, in the same casket.  Then I fell apart.

“For days I closeted myself.  I felt that God had done me an injustice.  I didn’t want to serve Him anymore or write gospel songs.  I just wanted to go back to that jazz world I once knew so well.  But then, as I hunched alone in that dark apartment those first sad days, I thought back to the afternoon I went to St. Louis.  Something kept telling me to stay with Nettie.  Was that something God?  Oh, if I had paid more attention to Him that day, I would have stayed and been with Nettie when she died.

“From that moment on I vowed to listen more closely to Him.  But still I was lost in grief. Everyone was kind to me, especially one friend.  The following Saturday evening he took me up to Maloney’s Poro College, a neighborhood music school.  It was quiet; the late evening sun crept through the curtained windows.

“I sat down at the piano, and my hands began to browse over the keys.  Something happened to me then.  I felt at peace.  I felt as though I could reach out and touch God.  I found myself playing a melody, once into my head they just seemed to fall into place: ‘Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn, through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light, take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.’

“The Lord gave me these words and melody, He also healed my spirit.  I learned that when we are in our deepest grief, when we feel farthest from God, this is when He is closest, and when we are most open to His restoring power.

“And so I go on living for God willingly and joyfully, until that day comes when He will take me and gently lead me home.

-Tommy Dorsey-

“For those too young to know who he is, Tommy Dorsey was a band leader in the Thirties and Forties.”

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Treasured Voices

By Horatius Bonar

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

“Come unto me and rest;

Lay down, thou weary one, lay down

Thy head upon My breast.”

I came to Jesus as I was,

Weary, and worn, and sad;

I found in Him a resting-place

And He has made me glad.

“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”  Psalm 127:3

THE PENCIL BOX

By Doris Sanford

“I was deep in thought at my office, preparing a lecture to be given that evening at a college across town, when the phone rang.  A woman I had never met introduced herself and said that she was the mother of a seven-year-old and that she was dying.  She said that her therapist had advised her that discussing her pending death with her son would be too traumatic for him, but somehow that didn’t feel right to her.

“Knowing that I worked with grieving children, she asked my advice.  I told her that our heart is often smarter than our brain and that I thought she knew what would be best for her son.  I also invited her to attend the lecture that night since I was speaking about how children cope with death.  She said she would be there.

“I wondered later if I would recognize her at the lecture, but my question was answered when I saw a frail woman being half carried into the room by two adults.  I talked about the fact that children usually sense the truth long before they are told and that they often wait until they feel adults are ready to talk about it before sharing their concerns and questions.  I said that children usually can handle truth better than denial, even though the denial is intended to protect them from pain.  I said that respecting children meant including them in the family sadness, not shutting them out.

“She had heard enough.  At the break, she hobbled to the podium and through her tears she said, ‘I knew it in my heart.  I just knew I should tell him.” She said that she would tell him that night.

“The next morning I received another phone call from her.  She could hardly talk but I managed to hear the story through her choked voice.  She awakened him when they got home the night before and quietly said, “Derek, I have something to tell you.”  He quickly interrupted her saying, “Oh, Mommy, is it now that you are going to tell me that you are dying?” She held him close and they both sobbed while she said, “Yes.”

After a few minutes the little boy wanted down.  He said that he had something for her that he had been saving.  In the back of one of his drawers was a dirty pencil box.  Inside the box was a letter written in simple scrawl.  It said, “Good-bye, Mom.  I will always love you.”

“How long he had been waiting to hear the truth, I don’t know.  I do know that two days later Mom died.  In her casket was placed a dirty pencil box and a letter.

“Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things

You have for which you would not take money.”  Anonymous

More Stories for the Heart (Billy Graham Association c1997) p.119-120

Jesus said that we have to have faith like a little child if we want to go to heaven.  Did you ever notice how much Jesus loved children?  When the disciples scolded the mothers for bothering Jesus with their children, Jesus gently rebuked them and said for them to bring the children to Him.  He sat down and held them, prayed with them and probably laughed with them.  He loved them and they loved Jesus!  Once Jesus took a child and brought him into the middle of His disciples and told them, they had to become like this child.  The faith of children is spectacular!

A CHILD’S FAITH

-Helen Steiner Rice

“Jesus loves me, this I know,

For the BIBLE tells me so” –

Little children ask no more,

For love is all they’re looking for,

And in a small child’s shining eyes

The FAITH of all the ages lies –

And tiny hands and tousled heads

That kneel in prayer by little beds

Are closer to the dear Lord’s heart

And of His Kingdom more a part

Than we who search, and never find,

The answers to our questioning mind

For FAITH in things we cannot see

Requires a child’s simplicity

For, lost in life’s complexities,

We drift upon uncharted seas

And slowly FAITH disintegrates

While wealth and power accumulates –

And the more man learns, the less he knows,

And the more involved his thinking grows

And, in his arrogance and pride,

No longer is man satisfied

To place his confidence and love

With childlike FAITH in God above –

Oh, Father, grant once more to men

A simple childlike FAITH again

And, with a small child’s trusting eyes,

May all men come to realize

That FAITH alone can save man’s soul

And lead him to a HIGHER GOAL.

-By Helen Steiner Rice, In The Vineyard of the Lord (Fleming H. Revell Co. c.1979) p.22

I couldn’t help but think about some of the times that God used a child in the bible to accomplish His will.  The first one that comes to mind is Samuel.  He was the miracle child that God gave Hanna in response to prayer.  She gave him back to Eli the Priest so he could serve God.  God spoke to Samuel (this little child) and gave him a message for the Priest.  Samuel was frightened but bravely delivered the message after the Priest encouraged him and every word came true.

I like this humorous quote:  “Maybe children could keep on the straight and narrow path if they could get information from someone who’s been over the route.” Let’s try to remember, these children are precious in the sight of God.  We should be careful to try to raise them God’s way!

-          Quote from 14,000 Quips & Quotes  (Baker c. 1980) p. 71

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