Michele Huey's Blog: God, Me, and a Cup of Tea, page 23

ADVENT 2: Piece of Mind or Peace of Mind?

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. – Romans 12:18  (NIV)

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” – Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 5:9 (NIV)

I almost blew it one Sunday evening.

I almost made a bad situation worse, a complicated situation more complicated.

The temptation was strong. My words and actions would’ve been justified—so I thought at that moment.

While I can’t give the details of what happened, I can say this: I was ready to give someone whose behavior was offensive—and had long been offensive—a piece of my mind. I’d kept my mouth shut far too long, I reasoned. Enough was enough.

Before I picked up the phone, though, I took a prayer timeout. I slipped into my bedroom, shut the door, dropped to my knees, and poured out my anger, frustration, and pain to my heavenly Father. The battle between what I wanted to do and what I knew I should do—what God would want me to do—was intense.

The needle gauge on my faith tank was pointing to Empty. Faith that God would answer my prayers for change, for healing for the persons involved, for a transformation of heart, mind, and spirit—something only God can do.

I left my prayer room still shaken, still trembling with emotion, clinging to something called self-control for all I was worth.

Over the next week, I had time to reflect on what happened, and I realized several things.

I can’t control another person’s words or actions, however hurtful they are, or their impact and consequences. I can only control, with God’s help, my own actions and reactions, which should reflect the growing fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,  goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Acting in the heat of the moment, succumbing to pressure, saying words that can’t be unsaid, doing something than can’t be undone, is never the right choice. What is the right choice is taking the situation in all its ugliness, your emotional turmoil, and your jumbled thoughts to God. It’s never right to give a person, however offensive they are, a piece of your mind. It is right to set firm boundaries and let them know, in a loving way, where those boundaries are.

Convincing another person they’re wrong is not my job. I need to remind myself often what Billy Graham one said: “It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and my job to love.” Even when loving is hard. Even when there’s no love left in your heart for that person. Even when you don’t even want to allow God to love that person through you.

I can’t always be the peacemaker, no matter how hard I try. But I can pray for God’s peace to prevail—in the situation and in my own heart, mind, and spirit. I can pray that my negative emotions shrivel and die, crowded out by the love, joy, and peace that come from God.

Sometimes we have to live with the thorn in the flesh, but God’s grace is all we need to endure and triumph over it (2 Corinthians 12:9).

And finally, God reminded me of another impossible situation, many years ago, that I thought would never change—another person who was a thorn in my flesh for a long time despite my prayers. In His time and in His way, God worked a miracle, and that person was transformed.

Tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Advent, when we light the candle of Peace. While we have little control over external peace—or the lack of it—we do have control over our own inner peace. It’s simply a matter of submitting to the Prince of Peace.

As I light the second Advent candle, Lord, may Your peace prevail in my heart, mind, and spirit—and be a beacon of light in a hurting world that so needs Your peace. Amen.

Read and reflect on 2 Corinthians 12:7–10.

NOTE: I wrote this several years ago, and I can’t even remember whom I was upset with or what the situation was. That’s how God answers our prayers. Isn’t He just awesome?

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea for the Seasons­, © 2018 Michele Huey. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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ADVENT 1: Chicken Soup, Nudgings, and Hot Seats

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The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him “Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.” – Matthew 1:23 (NIV)

I can never remember a time when I doubted the presence of God in my life.

There are, however, occasions I struggle with my feelings. Sometimes the One who promised never to leave or forsake me seems to do just that.

Like the time I was in the hospital after giving birth to my second child by Caesarean section. I’d developed a mild but mysterious fever, so my doctor determined I shouldn’t nurse my baby until the matter was resolved. While I accepted this outwardly, my heart cried, I want my baby!

The hospital was miles from family and friends, and winter had arrived, so I had few visitors. Feeling miserable and abandoned, I remembered my mother’s homemade chicken soup, which she made when I was sick, and which never failed to make me feel better. Suffering with Alzheimer’s disease, though, she wouldn’t be making it for me now. Lord, I prayed, when I get home, I want some homemade chicken soup.

Eventually the cause of the fever revealed itself, and I was discharged to spend another week in bed. A day after I got home, my friend Sharon arrived, bringing supper. Yep, homemade chicken soup.

Coicindence? I never believed it was. For me, it was God-incidence.

In the 41 years since, God’s presence in my life has been evident over and over. Not every time I think I need a tangible sign, but enough to bolster my faith and hope in the silent, where-are-you-God times.

Like the time one November I sensed a definite nudging towards the end of my quiet time to go to town and get groceries. Go now, the inner voice urged. My prayer chair became a hot seat. I glanced out the window. Overcast, but no precipitation.

We all know how fickle the weather could be in these parts. Especially in late November. I checked the forecast online and knew that if I didn’t go then, our Thanksgiving would be minus homemade pumpkin pie with extra creamy Cool Whip, my special candied yams, and the aroma of turkey wafting through the house, unless I wanted to fight Old Man Winter on the 12-mile drive to town and then back. I left within the hour—and got home just as the snow, ice, and wind arrived.  

Then there are the Bible verses that leap off the page and burn themselves into my mind and heart, the gentle proddings, the encouragement from others just when I need it. I could go on, but like the apostle John wrote as he closed his gospel, “If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:15 NIV).

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent, a time for preparing our hearts for the celebration of Immanuel’s birth. As the first Advent candle is lit, remember the times God showed up in your life, the occasions He clearly whispered and sometimes shouted, “I’m here!”

During this Advent season, be like Brother Lawrence, the monk who saw God even in the hectic kitchen where he worked, and “practice the presence of God.”

Because He’s here, you know. For He has said, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5), “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

As I light the first Advent candle and begin preparing for the celebration of the birth of Your Son, dear God, give me an increasing awareness of Your abiding presence in my life. Amen.

Read and reflect on Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:18–25.

© 2016 Michele Huey. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

The Thanksgiving Day Cemetery Run

[image error] Dean, Todd, and me on our Thanksgiving Day Cemetery Run – Nov. 26, 2015

Remember the days of old; consider generations long past. – Deuteronomy 32:7 (NIV)

Our Thanksgiving traditions were, once again, changing, and not of our own doing or choice.

Growing up, my husband and I had different Thanksgiving traditions. While he spent the day with a whole clan of relatives, enjoying Grandma’s pies — and she baked plenty and a variety — I spent the day quietly reading while my mother, who shooed everyone out of the kitchen, prepared a turkey dinner for just the five of us. If any relative stopped in, it was for only a few minutes. We certainly never went anywhere on Thanksgiving Day.

Fast forward 20 years. Now married with my own family, I wanted to begin a new tradition: We hosted Thanksgiving dinner and invited Dean’s parents, and his sister and her family.

By then my own family was scattered. My brother and sister, both out-of-state, had established their own Thanksgiving traditions. My father had passed away, and my mother was grappling with Alzheimer’s Disease.

This tradition ran its cycle until our three children grew up. I never wanted them to feel obligated to come home for the holidays but rather to establish their own traditions. After all, isn’t that what we raise them for? To live their own lives, to make their own mark in their corner of the world.

But we still celebrated the day with some of our ever-growing family. I didn’t have to cook the entire meal any longer — just bring a dish or two — and that was just fine by me.

Then life changed. Again. This year we faced spending the day by ourselves. I realize there are those for whom Thanksgiving (and any other holiday) is “just another day.” But we didn’t want it to be that way for us. We have too many good memories of Thanksgiving past.

So my husband suggested something unusual: take the day and visit the cemeteries where our parents and grandparents are buried — to thank them for what they contributed to our lives.

And with our oldest son accompanying us, that’s what we did. On Thanksgiving Day, we drove 246 miles, stopped at six cemeteries, and visited our forebears — his parents and grandparents, buried in Jefferson County, and my parents and godparents in the Mon Valley (near Donora). We reminisced — even our son had memories of these precious folks, even though I’d thought he was too young to remember.

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We drove through two cemeteries where my grandparents are buried. I didn’t know exactly where their graves were, but just driving through was like a trip down memory lane, my mind and heart making connections I’d avoided making for far too long.

No, it wasn’t morbid. It was enlightening. And freeing.

Connecting with our past, touching base with our heritage, we realized how truly blessed we are. We are what we are because of what they were and what they did.

Seeing those gravestones gave us not a sense of loss or finality, but of continuity and hope. We are, we realized, the connection between the past and the future.

“We should note the days of old. They are what mold us.” (Curt Lovelace, “Memorializing the Past, A Practice in Remembering God’s Goodness”)

Who knows? Maybe we started a new tradition: The Thanksgiving Day Cemetery Run.

Thank you, Father God, for reminding us of the rich heritage we have. Help us to pass along that legacy to our children and grandchildren. May they, too, comprehend the continuity of life. Amen.

Extra tea: Read and meditate on Joshua 4:1–7.

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea for the Seasons, (c) 2018 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

Beauty in Brokenness

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Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. – Isaiah 64:8 (NIV)

If your place is like ours, you have a collection of broken things that have been mended—a favorite teapot or cup, a figurine, a ceramic trivet made by a grandchild.

Sometimes things can be mended so well you can barely see the cracks. Other times, slivers or shards are missing, so you display the piece with the mend toward the wall, or in a position where the scar cannot be seen.

But the Japanese art of kintsukuroi, instead of hiding the imperfections, actually highlights the brokenness. Ceramic pieces are put together not with transparent adhesive but with a lacquer laced with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.

The effect is stunning. Your eyes are drawn to the golden cracks, and the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

We all have been broken, haven’t we?

It’s called “life,” and our brokenness comes from different sources. Relationships, divorce, death, illness, accident, injury, and finances constitute some causes outside of ourselves.

But sometimes our brokenness comes from within: a hurt held onto for far too long, a physical imperfection—remember the man who overcame a disabling stutter? We see physical, emotional, and mental disabilities as flaws, as ugliness we must deal with or hide.

I’ve endured a hearing loss in both ears since I was an infant. I spent most of my life trying to hide it. I refused to wear a hearing aid until I had to if I wanted to get a college education. Even then I hid it with long hair. I learned to be a talker because if I was the one always talking, I didn’t have to struggle to hear what someone else was saying—and usually getting it wrong.

We also hide emotional and mental flaws. How long will someone suffer with a learning disability, such as dyslexia, before admitting they need help? Or bipolar disorder?

We do our best to conceal our imperfections, don’t we? If we can’t lick ’em, we hide ’em.

It doesn’t help that our society overstresses perfection. You can’t believe a photo anymore because it may have been photoshopped, air brushed, or otherwise tweaked so the subject appears flawless.

That’s what intrigues me about kintsukuroi—the artist doesn’t treat the brokenness as a flaw, but rather something to be made beautiful. The breakage isn’t concealed but brought out by the gold in the adhesive that bonds it back together. Brokenness is not something to be hidden, disguised, shoved under a rug and forgotten about, but rather something to be celebrated—a part of the object’s history.

You are what you are because you have been broken. You’re more beautiful because of your flaws. Your imperfections don’t damage you in such a way that you’re no longer useful.

On the contrary, because you’ve been broken, you can be even more useful.

How? By giving your brokenness to the Master of Kintsukuroi and let Him transform what you consider ugly into the beauty He sees in you even now.

I’ve always thought of brokenness as something ugly, something to be shunned. But You don’t see it that way, do you, Father? As the Master Potter, You see beauty in my brokenness. Help me to see it that way, too—and embrace it. Amen.

Read and meditate on Jeremiah 18:1–4.

 From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea, 101 devotional readings to savor during your time with God, © 2017, Michele Huey. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Remembering the Forgotten

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There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. –John 15:13 NLT

My late cousin Mary Ann’s career as a military nurse was the inspiration for my second novel, The Heart Remembers.

While my cousin served at a U.S. Navy hospital in Japan during the Vietnam War years, Vangie, the main character in my novel, was a fictional Army nurse who served during that conflict. Vietnam, specifically Pleiku, a town in the central highlands, was the setting for Part One of the book. However, the story wasn’t about the war. The war was but a backdrop of the romance between Vangie and Seth, a medical evacuation helicopter pilot.

Through my research, I pored through several books, including A Piece of My Heart by Keith Walker and Home Before Morning by Lynda Van Devanter, true stories of military nurses who’d served in Vietnam. I learned of the Army’s medical evacuation program in Rescue Under Fire: The Story of Dust Off in Vietnam by John Cook. I read about the bravery of Dust Off pilot Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Novosel that earned him a Medal of Honor. I learned of the Medcap program that provided medical care to the Qui Hoa Leper Hospital.

In short, I discovered there was good done in Vietnam that never saw press.

The Heart Remembers is a story that patriotic me wrote with passion and sorrow. I was a high school, then college, student during the Vietnam War years. I knew of the protests and the shameful treatment the Vietnam veterans received when they returned stateside. Not a hero’s welcome, that’s for sure.

I hoped my book would somewhat right the wrong by showing at least a glimpse of the courage, grit, and compassion shown in the midst of a very unpopular war. I’m not saying everything done in Vietnam was humane. But since when is war, at any time, humane? When is any war a “popular” war?

When the manuscript was finished, a local Vietnam veteran who was a former Navy Seal read it for accuracy. Then I sent it off. Several publishers seriously considered it. A senior acquisitions editor for a major Christian publishing house liked it so much she presented the manuscript to the committee that determines what gets published and what doesn’t. I had high hopes.

Until I received her email: “Our editorial board met yesterday, and I regret to say we won’t be moving ahead with The Heart Remembers. There was still a lot of concern about the salability of the Vietnam War even as a partial setting, and I’m sorry about that.”

“Even after all these years,” I told my husband, “these poor Vietnam vets are still getting slammed.”

So I published it myself as an independent author-publisher.

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The Heart Remembers stands as my tribute to the brave men and women who served their country during a war that some folks still try to hide in the closet. Yet the Vietnam vets I know proudly fly Old Glory in their front yards.

Every Veteran’s Day, this heart remembers.

Thank you, Lord, for the selfless men and women who have served and are serving their country. Bless them and protect them. Smile upon them and be gracious to them. Show them Your favor and give them Your peace (Numbers 6:24–26 NLT). Amen.

Read and reflect on John 15:9–17.

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea for the Seasons, © 2018 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

The Heart Remembers is available on Amazon in print and Kindle editions. Click here to get yours. Or you may contact me for an autographed copy at michelethuey@gmail.com.

A Glimpse of the Harvest

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Be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.  –1 Corinthians 15:58 NLT

It was my first time teaching Good News Club, and I was so scared, my hands shook—surprising for someone who’d spent years as a teacher.

But this was different. This was teaching more than grammar, composition, and reading. This was teaching God’s Word and telling 25 boys and girls from my children’s elementary school about Jesus. This had eternal consequences.

Woven into the Bible lesson was the GOSPEL: God loves you, so He sent His Only begotten Son to take away your Sin by shedding His Precious blood on the cross so you can have Eternal life. Won’t you Let Him be your Savior and Lord?

This was the most important part of the lesson, the reason why I hosted and taught this weekly Bible club in my home after school. God had transformed my life, and I wanted to tell these young people about Him so they could get started on the journey of faith sooner than I did.

At the end of the lesson, I asked the children to close their eyes and bow their heads. Then, to make sure I didn’t forget anything, I read from index cards.

“If you prayed this prayer and asked Jesus into your heart, will you please raise your hand?”

I was astounded. Nearly every hand was raised! Later, I drew a heart beside those names on my prayer list.

Years passed. My children moved on to high school, and I returned to teaching English. A friend took over the club.

Occasionally I’d take out the tattered prayer list and wonder what happened to those children. Two met untimely deaths in their teens. I checked the list: beside their names, a heart. I had no idea where the others were in their relationship with God. I knew how powerful the lure of the world is.

One morning 23 years after I taught that club, I drew my daily Bible verse out of my basket of verses: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously (2 Corinthians 9:6).

“Lord,” I whispered, “I’ve poured my heart and soul into so much for You. I’ve planted generously, yet I see so little in the way of results.”

The next day I attended a prayer breakfast for the National Day of Prayer. Afterward a man approached me.

“Do you remember me?”

His face was familiar. I glanced at his nametag and smiled.  He’d been in that Good News Club. “Of course I do.”

“I’ve been wanting to contact you,” he said. “I’m a youth pastor. You gave me a Bible. You planted the seed.”

It’s hard being a seed planter because you rarely get to see the harvest. Well, God showed me this harvest and reminded me that my labor for Him is never in vain. Only in eternity will we see the true harvest.

Until then, with God’s help, I’ll keep on planting!

Dear God, sometimes You just blow me away! You knew I needed that glimpse of the harvest. Thank you. Amen.

More tea: Read and meditate on 2 Corinthians 9:6–15.

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea, 101 devotional readings to savor during your time with God © 2017 Michele Huey. Used with permission.

A Breath of Fresh Air

So then faith comes by hearing … – Romans 10:17 (NKJV)

t took more than two months for me to get used to the CPAP machine. CPAP stands for “Continuous Positive Airway Pressure,” and I need it every night to keep me breathing. Without it, because of sleep apnea, the oxygen level in my blood wouldn’t be up to par, resulting in a constant fatigue that saps my joy of living.

But wearing a mask that covers my nose at night—even though it provides me with the air I need—took some getting used to. Once I did, though, I was able to sleep for several hours at a time, waking only once or twice through the night. The fatigue slowly dissipated.

But one night I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. When sleep still evaded me after a bowl of cereal and a cup of Sweet Dreams tea, I asked the Lord, “Who am I to pray for?” Immediately the name of someone who’d been fighting a vicious recurrence of MS came to mind.

The next day I emailed my friend and told her of my midnight prayer. She responded that one night was particularly bad for her and she’d gotten little, if any, sleep. But she seemed to have turned a corner and, although still feeling weak, she felt the worst of the attack was now behind her.

I almost didn’t tell her of my midnight prayer session. I mean, aren’t we supposed to keep quiet about our good deeds, never letting our left hand know what our right hand is doing?

Nah. That verse is for those who do good only for the attention and praise it gets them. Letting my friend know I prayed for her and then getting her response that she’d needed prayer that night bolstered my faith.

Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do—build each other up and encourage one another? One way we do that is by telling how God met us in our time of need, often in the person of a friend or brother or sister in Christ. Each testimony we hear is like a breath of fresh air for our faith.

But how often do we hear such stories? Have we become too busy in our personal lives or too organized in our church life to take the time to give others the opportunity to tell of God’s grace?

I don’t know about you, but not hearing how God is working in the lives of others does to my spirit what sleep apnea does to my body. The result is spiritual fatigue and a shriveling of faith.

What we need is a CPAP for the soul—the frequent telling and hearing of Continuous Proof of Answers to Prayer. For “how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them?” (Romans 10:14 The Message)

Do you have a story to tell? Are you telling it?

I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love. I love to tell the story, because I know it’s true; it satisfies my longings as nothing else would do.*

Thank you, dear God, for giving me a story to tell. Let me never be ashamed or afraid to tell it, for only You know how badly someone else needs to hear it. Amen.

Read and reflect on Romans 10:14–17; Matthew 5:13–16.

*From “I Love to Tell the Story,” by Katherine Hankey (public domain)

© 2008 by Michele T. Huey. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

The Rearview Mirror

[image error] Image by Erin Alder from Pixabay

Remember the wonders He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He pronounced. – 1 Chronicles 16:12 NIV

Before the days of digital devotionals, I used the blank backside of the front cover of my printed copy of Our Daily Bread to record prayer requests. This way, my prayer list and my daily readings were all in one place. When the month was up, I often tore off that cover and stuffed it into the new booklet until I had time to copy the prayer list.

One day while cleaning out my devotional basket, I came across those old prayer lists. Reading them over, I was amazed at how many of those requests had been answered. Perhaps not in the time or manner I’d wanted them to be, but, looking back over time, I could definitely see the hand of God. And my flagging faith was fortified.

While we focus forward and avoid looking back at our past mistakes, that doesn’t mean we never look back. We need to.

For it is only when we peer into the rearview mirror of life that we can see the hand of God more clearly than we could at the time, when doubts and despair, like dust swirling through the air, cloud our perspective.

As I look in the rearview mirror, I see ways God provided for my needs—a tank full of heating oil just before winter when we didn’t have the money to buy it, boxes packed with groceries left on our front porch by an anonymous giver at a time we didn’t have two nickels to rub together, money for gas so I could drive to Alabama to see my mother one more time before she died. Oh, I could go on and on and on … but you get the idea.

In the rearview mirror I see God’s faithfulness, deliverance, presence, protection and provision.

What I don’t see in the rearview mirror are my mistakes, my sins. For God has removed them from me “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). If God forgave me and remembers my sin no more (Jeremiah 31:34), why should I remember and beat myself up about it?

I often quote St. Paul, who wrote that he forgets what’s behind and reaches for what’s ahead (Philippians 3:13). What Paul was forgetting was his utter failure to meet up to God’s standards on his own.

And so we, too, should forget our failures.

But God wants us to remember the good things—His able protection, His abundant provision, His abiding presence. Why else would He command the Israelites to set up a memorial with stones from the Jordan River (Joshua 4), to observe the Passover Feast, to never forget the many ways He delivered them from the time He saved them from the Egyptians to the time they entered the Promised Land, 40 years later?

Why else would Jesus say at the Last Supper over the bread and the wine, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19)?

What do you see when you look in the rearview mirror of your life?

Thank you, God, for what I see in the rearview mirror. Amen.

Read and reflect on Joshua 4.

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea: 101 devotional readings to savor during your time with God, © 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Dancing in the Rain

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However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all. – Ecclesiastes 11:8 (NIV)

If they’d seen me, my neighbors would have thought I’d lost it.

“Look at that crazy woman dancing in the rain,” the newer neighbors might have said.

“She’s doing what?” the ones who’d known me for 30 years may have questioned.

My husband said both—within hearing.

But the Saturday afternoon sun was sweltering, and sweat oozed from every pore of my body as I transplanted, with the help of my 8-year-old granddaughter, my cascading calibrachoa into a larger flowerpot. I thought the job would be fairly simple—lining the bottom of the new pot with stones, dumping in some potting soil, then lifting the plant from the old pot into the bigger one. But the wider pot left a gap between the lip and the roots.

For a woman who wipes the counter after every little spill and pinches every penny, this was the dirty, time-consuming part of the job—scooping potting soil from the bag and shaking it into the gap, careful not to get any on the stone wall or in the grass. Dirt, as you all know, sticks to sweaty skin. By the time I was done, I felt pretty cruddy. Thank God for garden hoses and outside spigots—and summer rain showers.

Just as we finished rinsing out the old flowerpot and hosing off the stone wall, I glanced down the hollow. A sheet of gray headed our way. Hurrying to retrieve the bedsheets from the clothesline, I motioned to my husband, who was astride the lawn tractor, mowing three weeks’ worth of growth.

As we stood on the back porch, I had the strangest urge to dance in the rain. There was no thunder, no lightning—only a warm, refreshing summer shower. I stepped off the porch. As my husband and granddaughter watched in disbelief, I opened my arms wide and lifted my face to the sky.

I beckoned to my granddaughter. “Come on.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“It’s just water,” I said. “It won’t hurt you.”

As she gingerly stepped off the porch, I handed my eyeglasses to my husband.

“Come on,” I urged him. “Don’t be such an old fuddy-dud. Have some fun.”

He just grinned. Madison joined me in a few barefoot twirls. All too soon the shower ended. I was soaked to the skin—and happier than I’d been in a long time.

I used to be impulsive, frequently succumbing to a restless spirit. But time and life tamed my youthful wildness—and squeezed a certain joy out of my soul, boxing me in with a messy kitchen, piles of laundry, floors that needed swept, and bathrooms that grew mold.

Every now and then you gotta ignore that boring to-do list and do something crazy and spontaneous, even if you’re pushing 60 … maybe because you’re pushing 60.

This is the day that the LORD has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24).

Dear God, help me to squeeze the joy out of every day—even if it means being a little “crazy.” Amen.

 Read and meditate on Psalm 100.

© 2010 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

When Negative Is Positive

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Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! – Genesis 1:31 (NLT)

Have you ever heard of negative ions? Until a few years ago, I hadn’t.

I was reading in Leslie Sansone’s Walk Away the Pounds book when I came across the term.

“If you feel down or sluggish despite your new exercise program, the air might be your problem,” she writes. “Positive ions in the air, created by pollution, TV screens and computer monitors, and cars, cause fatigue, headaches, and other problems.”

I remembered how sick I felt when I taught in an old building on the main street of town, in a room with windows that opened up to truck exhaust that left a black sooty film on everything and caused my eyes to water and burn.

I read on: “Negative ions counteract this, improving mood, sleep, and energy.” Yep—just what I needed.

Where can negative ions be found? Waterfalls, pine forests, and the beach—in nature, away from the manmade.

I remembered how I fell in love with the mountains when my family vacationed in Cook Forest when I was nine years old, and then bought a small cabin not far from there. I always felt so much better at the cabin than back home in the steel-mill town where I grew up. That’s why I went to Clarion to college, and accepted my first teaching job in Punxsutawney. And why my husband and I built our home in the country.

According to WebMD, negative ions are “odorless, tasteless, invisible molecules that we inhale in abundance in certain environments,” where sunlight and moving air and water break apart the air molecules. Negatively charged ions are believed “to help alleviate depression, relieve stress, and boost daytime energy” by increasing oxygen flow to the brain, “resulting in higher alertness, decreased drowsiness, and more mental energy.”

“The more negatively charged ions there are in the blood, the more efficient the cell’s metabolism,” I read on another site.

All this—without popping a pill? Wow!

I thought of how good I’d been feeling, now that I’m retired. My country home is on top of a mountain, where pine trees surround me. I thought about how much less time I’ve been spending at the computer. I went from eight-plus hours a day to no more than four. Mostly because since my neck surgery in 2011, sitting too long at the computer (or anywhere) in a more-or-less fixed position, causes my neck and shoulder muscles to stiffen up and ache.

Less time at the computer (or in front of a TV) means less time exposed to positive ions that have a negative effect. More time outside, in nature, means more time exposed to negative ions, which have a positive effect.

So, in addition to my in-home walking DVD, I added a 30-minute walk around our property, through the fields along the tree line and along a path through the woods. I felt better than I’d felt in years.

What an awesome discovery! But what is even more awesome is the God who planned and created it all for us—even the negative ions.

I’m reminded, O Lord, of Your love for me each time I step outside, watch the different birds at my birdfeeder, gaze at a breathtaking sunset, marvel at the beauty of a flower. Thank you for creating all this for me. Amen.

Read and reflect on Genesis 1.

© 2012 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

Image courtesy of wallpapers13.com.