Update:
It took me a while to get mentally and physically organized on Thursday
morning after being gone for the last three days. One of the things that I’ve got to get back
into is my exercise routine. I haven’t
done them since before I left. While I
got a constant workout on my arms and shoulders at the conference thanks to the
wheelchair on carpet, I didn’t really have room or the time and energy to do
anything with my legs and core muscles. It
is time to get it together and push it tomorrow.
I had to go into the Police Department in Altoona to take care of some
business on Thursday. I was able to see
a number of officers and spend some time getting to know the recently hired
Lieutenant. I am very thankful for my
association with the Altoona and Fall Creek Police Departments as a volunteer
Chaplain. It is a privilege for me to
serve our communities alongside of these fine officers.
Our church hosted a blood drive on Thursday. It never crossed my mind to try to give blood
until I was at the church. I found out
that the Red Cross would take my blood and I was feeling fine; so I jumped up
on the table and gave a unit of double red.
This winter has really hurt donations and the blood supply is low. Did you know that despite all of our medical
technology that we cannot manufacture blood?
We can’t produce it so the only way to get it is from people donating
their blood. I’d encourage you to go to http://www.redcross.org/blood and find
a blood drive near you.
I put a section of lamb’s wool inside my silicone liner where it had
been causing an irritation on my leg and I haven’t itched after wearing it for
almost 11 hours. Yeah! Actually I had planned to take it off earlier
in the evening and sort of forgot that I even had it on. When I get my prosthesis next week, I can
only wear it as long as I can wear the silicone liner since it is a foundation
piece, so this is good news.
My daughter Ruth and husband Cody from Chicago are coming home this
weekend, it will be so good to see them.
They’ll be here Thursday night until Sunday afternoon.
Monday (3/17) at 9 a.m. I am scheduled to get my prosthetic leg and
take my first steps. On Monday
afternoon, I am seeing a retina specialist about my vision problems. I might undergo laser surgery to correct the
problem. My vision, especially in my
right eye, has been very messed up making reading more difficult. I am hoping that my vision will improve
greatly with treatment.
With all my medical appointments lately I sort of feel like an old
classic car that is being fixed up. I just
hope my wife doesn’t plan on selling me when I am fully restored! Really thankful that I haven’t been towed to
the junk yard yet! Ha Ha!
Thought for the Day:
“The Law of Human Behavior says, ‘Sooner or later we will get what we
expect.’ Usually, the people who keep failing are the ones who expect to. They’re like the pessimist whose tombstone
epitaph read, ‘I expected this’” [John
Maxwell, The Difference Maker: Making Your Attitude Your Greatest Attribute].
After living in Wisconsin, I learned that “We see what we expect to
see.” When I first moved up here and I
was riding in the car with someone, they’d say, “Oh, look at the deer!” I would swivel my head trying to locate the
deer but before I could find them, we’d have traveled well past where they
stood. This happened over and over to
me. I finally asked one of the guys I was
riding with, “How do you do that? How do
you see deer all of the time and I never see them?” He answered, “I look for them.” Once I started looking, guess what I
found? Deer! Wisconsin has an abundance and they love to
come out into the fields near dusk.
This also works with people. If
you are in a relationship if you look for signs that your partner doesn’t love
you—you can amass lots of evidence; however, in that same relationship you can
also look for signs that your partner loves you—you can find evidence of that
too! At work, you can look for signs of
your boss’ incompetence and usually find confirmation. At election time, we can find evidence that the
candidate that we don’t like is immoral, ignorant, and perhaps downright evil
while ignoring many of those same traits in our favored candidate.
This is also true of success and failure. If we believe that we will fail at a task, it
often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Believing that we will succeed isn’t a guarantee of success; but at
least we stand a chance of making it happen.
That’s why Olympic athletes visual successfully completing their routines
and don’t dwell on their past failures.
Controlling our thinking is something that we are usually not very good
at. Most of us allow any thought to pop
into our minds and then we dwell upon it.
Any thought that we continually focus upon grows in our minds and can
easily become all consuming. Think about
the last time you got angry at someone.
Later in the day, the memory of what they did comes to mind and the
anger and negative emotions come flooding back in. If you keep thinking about it, your anger
grows and can consume the rest of your waking thoughts. But you and I have a choice. We can choose whether or not to continue to
dwell on a certain thought. We can
replace unwanted thoughts with positive and helpful thoughts. If you’ve ever been on a diet you have to do
this to survive or cravings for that chocolate cupcake will drive you stark
raving mad!!!
2 Corinthians 10:5 “…we take captive every thought
to make it obedient to Christ.”
So what are you dwelling upon? Do you have an optimistic outlook on your day
or do you dread going into work? You can
choose whatever viewpoint that serves you best.
Every day you get to choose again.
You can establish a pattern to your thinking. Maybe you tend to be pessimistic and
negative. Over time you can change your thought
pattern and typical outlook. Choose wisely and don’t let random thoughts
control your destiny. You decide what
kind of day you are going to have (sometimes despite what is happening around
you). People often comment on my
positive attitude. I could choose to be
negative and downcast about everything that has happened to me and my long-term
future; but all that would is make everything worse and harder to handle. I’m choosing the high road of optimism and
hope. I look for the blessings in
everything that happens. Yeah, sometimes
I end up being disappointed; but I am much happier and content this way. I like the Latin phrase, ‘Carpe Diem’ meaning
‘Seize the Day.’ I usually to slam a
smiley face in between the two words and interpret that to mean “Seize a Happy
Day.”
Carpe :-) Diem!
No comments:
Post a Comment