The Most Important Question

Yesterday, I made a comment to a client which triggered him to share his testimony with me. It resonated with me, because I felt God calling me to witness--to actually speak up and ask someone "Do you know Jesus?" This client said that he was living a very rough life and one day he and the guys he worked with went to a restaurant. He noticed there were some beautiful girls working in this restaurant and he was able to obtain the number of one of them. He was very excited and he called her the next day and the very first question she asked him was, "Are you saved?" He, having no religious experience, totally misunderstood and thought she was worried about him being a safe person to be with.  He quickly assured her that he was safe and assured her of his good intentions. She said, "No, no! You misunderstood.  Are you saved? If you aren't saved then you are lost." He again glossed over the question assuring her that he was a really good guy. She hung up on him. Although, he said from that point he was tormented over her question and what she really meant. It was the beginning of his search for spiritual meaning and his search for God.  He never heard from this girl again, and she doesn't know that she asked him the most important question he ever heard.  

I have felt God tugging at my heart these last months about witnessing. I have lost the vision and the burden for the lost that I once had. Where I once had a burden to help needy and hurting people, it has now become a burden to help needy and hurting people. My husband is a Gideon--one of those men that hands out Bibles. I am in the Auxiliary and I carry a KJV New Testament and a Spanish language New Testament in my purse at all times. I have given out a handful of Bibles in my membership, but not near enough. I pass untold numbers of people everyday who need Jesus. They sit in the very place I work and I never think to ask them "Are you saved?" Last week at church camp I felt God renew my strength and renew my burden. My heart was softened, and it seemed like I couldn't quit crying. Today I prayed, "God send someone to me to witness to today", and tonight I sat thinking "God didn't send me anyone." Then like a lightening bolt he reminded me of the boy that was in my office with his father.  This young man is headed down the wrong road right now, and all I did was take care of the administrative work that needed completing. I forgot to witness. 

I am always waiting for someone else to start the conversation, and so many times I realize that they are waiting for me to tell them why I have hope. They want me to tell them why I am so happy with the life I live. It may be that they don't even know they are lost. I am praying that God will quicken my spirit when that person I need to witness to comes into my presence.  A preacher, that I have a lot of respect for said, "We can't change the world, but Jesus can."  The world has drifted farther and farther from God, and we worry about the political and social ills of our society.  I have heard people bemoan how Christians just want to tell you about Jesus and not take care of their earthly needs of food and shelter. I believe that until we do take care of their earthly needs they won't hear the message, but be careful that we don't spend our time feeding the poor and never telling them they need Jesus more. They may need clean drinking water, but more than that they need the water Jesus gives that they will never thirst again.  The only way our society will change is if we start introducing them to Jesus and then ".......do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. (1 Samuel 10:7 ESV)

Laughter Toxicity

I love to laugh; it is better than chocolate in my opinion. In college, I wrote a research paper on laughter and discovered that laughter has been proven to actually work like a medicine.  At the time I wrote my paper, there were laughter clubs in India.  They got together in the park, much like exercise groups would, and they laughed.  They tried to tell jokes in the beginning, but they ran out and discovered that you can make yourself laugh and it works just as well.  I am currently in the process of updating my research, and I see that there is now laughter yoga. The goal of http://www.laughteryoga.org is to bring "good health, joy, and WORLD PEACE through laughter".  Laughter knows no language barriers. 

The last three years have been stressful years, and I started this year with the goal of laughing more. I tried to incorporate things in my life that would make me laugh because I know that laughter releases the bad stress from your body. It just seems like life continued to distract me from laughing. Apparently the average four year old laughs about 300 times a day and the average 40 year old laughs only four according to Psychology Today. These statistics differ depending on what authority you are reading, but they all agree that children laugh vastly more than adults. I do believe I am above average in the laughing department, but I do allow the stress of my life to dictate how much I laugh. 

This past week I went to church camp. When you go to church camp, you always expect to get spiritually pumped up, and I did. I didn't expect to develop "laughter toxicity!" I was sitting around talking with some friends and one of my friends was telling the story of how a poor little girl was stuck in the bathroom stall with no TP. She kept hollering and begging for some TP and nobody would pay attention. I had walked in about this time and finally my friend was handing her a roll of TP over the stall and I noticed it was the wet roll. The thought then went through my mind "Oh no, that is the wet roll.  Why did I not throw that away? I have picked it up and put it back down about ten times. Did I think it was gonna dry out?" Then the little girl cries out plaintively "This TP is wet!"  For some reason this story struck me as hilarious. I was trying to tell my side of the story and I got so tickled that I laughed harder than I have laughed in ages. I lost my breath, I cried, and just could not stop. Everyone was amazed. They hadn't seen me laugh like that and teasingly wondered if I was drunk.  I did eat a Rainbow Pop right before, and it may have gotten blamed for it. In fact, the Rainbow Pop sales shot up after that. It felt so good to laugh, and I still felt the effects of it the next day. I am actively trying to make myself laugh, even if there is nothing funny. Who says you need funny stuff to make you laugh. Just smile and fake a good belly laugh, and you will probably start laughing for real.  I promise you, that if you ever laugh so hard you cry, you will feel better than drunk and the hangover will be glorious. 

Here's the link to my research paper on Laughter
Laughter: Is it Healthy?
http://home.hiwaay.net/~garson/laughter.htm

Church Camp Bubble

This Monday, July 1, I will be entering the church camp bubble where there will be few worries, no stress, and very little anxiety.  There is lots of good music, singing, preaching, devotionals, recreation, cold showers, and that lovely camp food (yes, I speak with some sarcasm here.) I have decided that heaven will be a lot like church camp–except we will all have mansions, a delicious feast  (which will not make us fat), and we will be able to see Jesus always.  

Every year, I get to feeling the need to go to my church camp bubble and this year I have needed it for several weeks.  I just need to get away from the cares of this world and the needs of others.  No, camp is not perfect.  The food, well, the Bogg Burrito has a reputation–if you know what I mean.  The beds have been around since the Civil War, and in order to get cell service you have to stand in the middle of the field, hold out your tongue and lift your right arm in the air while standing only on your left leg. All of this pales in comparison to the love, joy, and peace I get out of church camp.  At the end of the week we all leave full of, what our pastor’s wife has termed, “pumpedupedness”  

On Friday, the church camp bubble will officially “pop” as we all arrive home and face reality. We will still have bills to pay, laundry to wash, grass to mow, and sometimes more serious matters to fill our lives. It makes me long for heaven even more.  The older I get, the more I find myself understanding the saying, “Come Lord Jesus, come quickly we pray.”  

Themepark Therapy

The stress of being an adult gets to everyone eventually and sometimes you just have to take a break from it all and be a kid. Today I took my twelve year old daughter and her best friend to Magic Springs, a theme park in our town. My daughter is a scaredy cat and I have had to make her ride every ride she has ever ridden. I haven’t pushed the roller coasters because I thought at my age it probably wasn’t a good idea.

 

 

Somewhere in the middle of Big Bad John as I began to scream and laugh like a crazy woman, I realized that was exactly what I needed. Sometimes you just need permission to let loose and scream like a banshee. So with all the laughing and all the screaming I have done today, I feel euphoric. I have literally laughed and screamed myself sane. Themeparks are cheaper than therapy and a lot more fun.

Take a Virtual Ride of Big Bad John

The twist on this coaster was the plunge into darkness at the end.
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Take a Virtual Ride of the Arkansas Twister

The Arkansas Twister which used to be at Six Flags over Texas has a 92 foot drop and goes 50-60 miles per hour over many twists and turns.

Fairytales Will Never Be Reality

What makes fairytales so attractive? I am a cynical, practical girl, yet I love a good fairytale. I know that based on statistics almost one-half of all marriages eventually end in divorce. So why do we still buy into this undying love, meeting "the one", finding our soul mate, and falling in love business? Actually, I think that we are addicted to falling in love. I mean who doesn’t like that new feeling of being pursued and having somebody love you more than life itself. When we first fall in love we are willing to change how we dress, where we live, what we eat, our religion, etc. When we fall in love, we can move mountains, cross the ocean, and go to the moon and back; then we write a song about it.

 

 

I wonder if watching and reading all these fairytales are harming our psyches. Do they just help us escape from the nasty now and now or are they making us hope and wish for a different reality? We have allowed ourselves to become completely controlled by our feelings. The problem is that our emotions are fickle. One moment, I want ice cream and the next, I want to go to the beach, and then later I just want to go to sleep. Our wants, emotions, and feelings are causing us to lose grip with reality and screw up the lives we have.

 

 

So take a look in the mirror and embrace the zits, the gray hairs, the bulges and the stray facial hairs. Love the life you have and the one you are with. Realize that the grass still has to be mowed on the other side, and you can’t hire a Gardner. Our relationships are shaping our world, and by tossing them away so easily, we are teaching our children to not commit to anything that doesn’t feel good. The old adage, "if it feels good, do it" is just not working out for us. Sometimes you have to do it because it’s right, and the feelings will follow.

My Story

When writing the story of your life, they always say to start at the beginning.  The first crystalline memory that I have is at the age of twenty-three months.  I remember a warm, summer day under a tent in a grassy area with lots of trees.  There were chairs with people sitting in them all in a row, and my mom was crying.  Nobody wanted to hold me and I was passed from lap to lap.  I remember a lady named Andi Miller singing and then the memories end.  I cannot remember the casket that was there or the huge hole in the ground. My mom says that she had me potty trained before my brother died and that I completely digressed at that point.   

I was about five years old when I started having this memory disguised as a dream.  I kept having the same dream every night, and my mother had just had my other brother, Daren.  I now realize that I was probably worried that he was going to die as well.  When I told my mother the dream, she said, “that sounds like your brother’s funeral.” Since she had never told me about another brother, I was floored. She had a box of momentos from his birth and a picture of him in his casket.  She told me about John David Swisher, Jr., and how he had died the day he was born. She was holding him in the hospital and she commented to the nurse that he was a little blue.  The nurse whisked him out and she never saw him alive again.  Mom always blamed herself, thinking she must have done something that caused it although there was nothing she could have done to prevent it.  They said his lungs must have not been developed right.  

A few years ago, I bought a gravestone for my brother’s grave.  At the time of his death, it was all my parents could do to pay for the funeral and burial and then they got busy raising me and later my two brothers.  It always bothered my mother that they had not bought a marker.  So for Mother’s Day one year, I decided to buy a marker for his grave.  My mother still goes to visit the grave and remembers the baby she only held once. 

I have often wondered what my life would have been like if I’d had a brother just twenty-three months younger than me, but God is writing my life story, not me.  Sometimes I help mess it up, but he ultimately puts His signature on the pages.  We cannot change our past, we can only use it to help guide us in our future.  I have to say that God really is the best at writing my story, but it seems that sometimes I hear myself yelling, “Cut!”  I mean surely that was not what he intended.  I can’t believe that he wants to take this character out or put this character into my life story.  In the end, I always see where God was on the money.  So God, I give you back the reigns again–write my story, and make it sensational!

Just Mud!

So many times we humans do stupid things. Everyday I deal with people who are going through distresses, many times as a result of poor choices they have made. I often wonder as we go about our lives if God and the Angels are watching us and shaking their heads. "Don’t they know where this path is leading?" "I can’t believe they are doing that!" So many times we react to those around us in anger and meanness. We just don’t act very Christ-like. As I was reading Psalms 103, I came across verses 13 and 14

"As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.  For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust."

I can just imagine God walking up on the angels as they are shaking their heads at our shenanigans and saying, "Now you must remember, they were just made with mud." It is so awesome to think that the God who created me has given me a little leeway, because He realizes He just used dirt to make me. He also wants to remind me that I can’t do anything in my own strength, because I am nothing but dust. Everything good that comes from my being is a direct result of Jesus living in me. There are times that the feelings of failures are more prevalent than others. Paul said he died daily, but I am afraid that I must put my flesh to death more often than that. The awesome thing about God is that His love never ceases and his mercies are new every morning. (Paraphrase of Lamentations 3:22-23.) Everyday I need a fresh dose of mercy and grace to wash away the past and help me face the future.