SelahV Today by hariette petersen

THE FIRST GREETING OF THE DAY

CAN SET THE STAGE FOR EVERY MOMENT TO FOLLOW.

The first greeting of your day can often set the atmosphere for the remaining 18 or so hours till you rest your head upon your pillow at night.

Wouldn't it be lovely to wake each morning to a room full of roses and pure delight?  to hear the sweet melody of your favorite song in the background?  rather than a blaring alarm clock?  to have someone deliver a bowl of sweet luscious strawberries and blueberries to begin your breakfast?  to have a back massage following your shower?  ah... sweet bliss.

Some people are not morning people. And what I described would not interest them in the least.  Others, like me, wake with fog-brain.  When I awake with fog-brain, it takes immense effort for me to part the mist of mush within my mind.  Coffee does not do that for me...anymore.  I drink decaf.  Glazed donuts do not do it either--sugar rushes are a thing of my past.  The thing that opens my eyes and starts my day like the first push of a domino in a line of multiple events, is a Word from God. And the quickest way to receive that Word is to wake with childlike wonder and say, "Good morning, LORD, what shall we do today?"

Peter Lord, in his book, Hearing God, writes that:

"The Lord does not force you into goodness or anything else, but He can and does work through every possible means to get your attention.  He calls.  He woos. He makes Himself known to you.  He knocks on the door and comes in with your permission when you open it."

Therefore, if we rise each morning with an attitude that immediately lifts the blinds of our minds, throws open the windows of our soul and praises God from Whom new mercies are found at the rising of each sun, the doorway to God's complete presence is there to greet us with assurance and confidence.

I find myself so much better off if I take a moment and dwell on God's goodness and mercy and thank Him for another day of life, another day to praise Him-- and then watch my day unfold as He would have it unfold for me. Praise is a catalyst.  It is the fuel in a heart which seeks God's presence.  And yes, I mean presence.  Not some faraway mystical out-of-body experience.  When we talk with our family or friends we do not need to be catapulted to the moon to connect with them.  However, when we take a moment to tell another how much they mean to us, it makes their day.  It opens the portal of communication.  If it didn't, we wouldn't be so affected by a smile, or conversely, a scowling frown and grumpy attitude.  It's the same with our relationship with God.

When I choose to begin my day with thoughts of me, me, me--and all my sorrows and pain and struggles of yesterday, or my upcoming challenges, I leave God out. Then the day begins with a succession of trials and obstacles--emptied of optimism.

I don't know about you, my friends.  But I need God.  I need His strength to meet my weakness.  I need His competence to meet my incompetence.  I need His joy to meet my sorrows.  He and He alone can fill the void of my day.  He is my only hope in the hopelessness that life offers at times.  And often God meets me with a specific reminder from His Word, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me..." Psalms 138:8; "Fear not, for I am with thee..." "...lean not to thine own understanding...".  Other times He gives me a friend who writes a word of encouragement--often meant for others in the facebook of social media--yet, there all the same for me, too.  Sometimes it is a song...that comes in a sweet melodious whisper to my soul.

Life is a beautiful opportunity to show the world that God is love and the instrument of renewal.  Nothing that occurs today is routine.  We can have routines.  But God fits new things, new people, new circumstances into our day-- every day.  We merely need to open our eyes and hearts to them and to Him.

"One of the surest ways to recognize God's voice is the effect the words produce in you.  The results of hearing God's voice center around increased faith and gratitude."~~Peter Lord, Hearing God

Are you grateful today?  Are you thrilled to be a part of God's plan and purpose?  Are you?  Or are you listening to the morning news, reading the latest catastrophe, and questioning His watchcare? Are you blocking out His voice and failing to see His goodness? Is your Gethsemane as difficult as His?  Are you waiting in the garden with Jesus?  Are you watching and praying? Won't you walk with Him today?

Depression, Drugs and Death

Depression is a disease.  It is as much a disease to the thinking system as cancer is to the cells of the body.  What cancer cells eat, depression steals from the inner peace of a person's ability to think and reason and feel.

I've had depression my entire life.  I know this because, after being treated for years as an adult, and researching the ins and outs of symptoms, I was able to trace it back to my childhood.  Certainly a part of depression is environmental, situational, and is affected by relationships.  But there is a definite connection between the chemicals in ones brain that create havoc with the inner strength of ones thought processes.  And as a man thinketh, so is he.

So much of what we think comes from what we put into our minds. Positive reinforcements.  Joyful occasions.  Goodness.  However, to a deeply depressed person, even joyful occasions have no joy.  All the goodness in the world has no good.  And all the positive input has no influence.  To the person who does not suffer with this disease, it is unfathomable.  It is incomprehensible.  It is a bit foolish, and weak.  At times the healthier person who tries to help, cannot help and cannot fix the weaker and so they transfer their own helplessness and frustration onto the person who deals with enough self-deprecation to kill twenty healthy-minded individuals.

Depressed people cannot undo what is.  They can no more change it than a person with cancer or diabetes can change their ailment.  They can be treated.  They can learn to deal with it.  They can learn what affects them negatively and try to avoid the diet, outside influences, and darkness that draws them into a deeper abyss.  But they cannot fix it.  Cancer can be cut out, burned out, and chemically destroyed.  But not always successfully--sometimes it kills you.  Depression can be aided, but cannot be removed... it can be lessened but will always remain...and sometimes it, too, kills. 

The real problem with the disease is doctors keep throwing more and more drugs at you and it always ends up that the problem is YOU... and your family and friends treat you as if you are a weird wart in their lives... they tolerate your sadness, and only a few people in life actually "get it" that you cannot change what is going on no matter how hard you try.  Depressed folks are trusting God for the very breath they take to make it to the next breath.  But others do not see depressed people in this way.  They tell folks to buck up, to get over it, and to stop thinking the way they think as if a person can unthink cancer of the lung.

God be with the Warrens and all the other parents and friends and families of the Matthew Warrens in life.  I know it will be a very sad sad journey for the Warrens.  But they will find comfort in knowing their son is finally free of all his anguish and pain and struggle.  The hardest part is missing the dear son they love so much.  Life will always have a hole in it which can only be filled by the presence of God.  And even then, it will not seem to be enough to satisfy the hunger in their hearts to see their son, to touch him, to hear his voice and absorb his presence.  selahV