Stop,drop and roll..Is that the best we can do?

A man is on fire and we get him started on calisthenics. This response sounds really small and insignificant compared to the situation at hand. Stop? Really? We have to tell you to stop what you're doing? How important of a chore are you in the middle of that you continue even with flames on you? Drop? Not much better here. If I'm roasting like a campfire marshmallow I'm dropping all right. And roll? Now this takes faith. Let me see if I can actually spread the flames over the rest of my body. Unless I'm rolling off a dock and into the lake this sounds like a cruel joke. But sometimes the instructions don't tell the whole story.

Did your parents ever tell you "Make sure you don't get her too drunk or she'll throw up"? Nope, mine didn't either. That would have been good instruction. The fact is we often look for guidance from the people who are least qualified to give it. The Pope is going to tell me about sex? He better not have any of those tips I see on the cover of Cosmo. Politicians are giving me advice on how to spend my money wisely? They are much better than I. How do you get to a trillion anyway? The same politicians who had 8 years to talk about these tax cuts give me advice to send my return in early. Now that is funny.

Eat your vegetables. Do your homework. Clean your room. Take out the trash. Comb your hair. Brush your teeth. All well meaning and somewhat useful advice. Self explanatory in most cases but your parents had to say something. I thought maybe we could come up with better dollops of knowledge.

*Never give your banking information to a prince from another country. He should already have a checking account if he is the son of King. *Never tell the mechanic fixing your car that you have a new job or that you know nothing about cars. First of all, he will charge you more if you can afford it and second he will charge you more if you don't know the difference. *When you are complimented for opening the car door for your wife don't say "I just got a new one". People will not know if you mean a new car or a new wife. Both answers make you look shallow. *For the middle aged men, it is acceptable to ask your Doctor if all the men in his family had big hands when scheduling your first prostate examination. *Never tell the bartender you left home with just enough money for two drinks. You will never get the second one.

The best quote I know of concerning advice is to always pass along good advice. There isn't much else you can do with it.



Till next.....

* denotes pearl of wisdom

How strong are you? Part 2

After yesterdays blog I wanted to give everybody some advice on answering our question. How strong is your forgiveness, empathy and grace? Well I am about to make it a whole lot stronger. Please do not ignore this advice.I try not to give any unless I am sure it's correct.
The MOST important person who needs your grace and forgiveness is you. That's right, you. All the bad crap you did, the mistakes you made, the commandments you broke and all the rest need to go on one long list. Ask for grace and forgiveness and then let it go. You are not perfect and the whole reason we are celebrating is so you can get forgiveness. "But I did really bad stuff" and so did I. I was granted forgiveness and shown grace and I knew I did not deserve any of it.
Then a not so funny thing happened. I never forgave myself. Oh I could grant you forgiveness or have empathy for a lot of folks but not me. I hung onto every mistake I'd made in the last 20 years. And beat myself up over it over and over again. At some point I was a bigger judge of my sins than God. How's that for a big ego? He forgives me but I know better. Nobody can be that arrogant. And I wasn't. I was scared. Afraid to turn all my crap over and let God take it. What if he turned away from me too? Funny how brave you have to be just to ask to feel better about yourself. He did not turn away. He embraced me. He still does.
Guess what happened? He gave me the gift of grace so I can pass it on. And I try to as often as possible. He granted me forgiveness so I can do the same. So now you know the way to become stronger. And it is all in your power to do it. So will you? Do you want it? All you need to ask? Ask yourself for forgiveness? And then grant it and rejoice. For now it's your turn to pass it on. And it feels so good to do so.

Till next........

So you think you're strong? How about a beetle?

That's what I said. The Rhinoceros beetle can lift and drag something 850 times it's weight. To put it into couch potato terms, that would be like your favorite idiot getting handcuffed on Cops and then turning around and throwing the cop car over a fence. Pretty strong little insect when you think in those terms. The problem is the definition of strength is always changing.


Now that little bug is strong in his world but if he meets the heel of my Nike he is going to be a dead beetle. 850 parts of him will be smeared across the floor. Not so tough now is he? Then maybe strength should be relative to the situation and surroundings. Pro football players are tough. Tough enough to hold the hand of a dying homeless man? Hockey players are tough. Legendary tough. Tough enough to counsel an abused mother of four about how to leave her husband and raise her children by herself without a job or skills?


You see, tough is not always about strength. Being physically strong is great. Being intellectually strong is great as well. Being emotionally tough can be good too. But how strong is your grace? Your forgiveness? Your empathy? Are you strong enough to forgive when you have been treated badly? Strong enough to not cast judgement on the shortcomings of others? Are you empathetic enough to love people who have shown you no love at all? These are the tests of strength that don't wane over time. Grace goes on forever once granted. Forgiveness doesn't get a roll of belly around it's middle. True empathy doesn't have to do sit ups.


Here is the strangest thing to me. The toughest among us are usually not the strongest. The truly tough have to fight and claw through life because they may be smaller or weaker. Or just born into a bad situation that forced them to become tough long before they should have. Show me a tougher man than one who had to keep his Dad from hitting his Mom. Show me a tougher girl than one who grew up at her Grandmothers because her Mom left her. Show me someone tougher than a kid growing up bouncing from one foster home to the next. Now that's tough.


Maybe now is the perfect time to ask ourselves,"How tough am I?" "Who am I helping this holiday season? Am I extending grace to people? Am I giving my time to those who need it? Am I leaving judgement of people to whom it belongs?" Because those answers really determine how strong we are or are not. And I prefer to strong in the qualities that go on forever. Give me strength in grace, forgiveness and empathy and I'll be happy. Because the heel of God's Nike is probably pretty big and I don't want to find out.

Till next......