Be Brave Not Safe

Have you ever been infected by poison ivy?

Anyone who is allergic and has come into contact, surely remembers the experience 🙂

I’ve been infected a few times in my life, with only minor irritation.

This time, however, it would seem that I must have rolled around in it. The source is not entirely clear. I must have come into contact with it a couple weekends ago, as we were cleaning up our yard and putting down over 150 bags of mulch.

A few days later it began. And, over the course of the following week the rash continued to spread.

The itching is difficult to get your mind off, UNLESS you are fully engrossed in an activity you truly love.

That was the case several days ago, for me…

The day began with “the itch.” I then began writing, cranking out 3-4 blog posts over the course of a few hours. During that time there was no itch. Because, I wasn’t thinking about it. I was doing something I love! Imparting (hopefully) useful information.

This seems to be the case with many things in life, that represent a sort of thorn-in-our-side. That is, the more we focus on it the more we notice it. And, in some cases, actually make it grow and become worse!

2 stories to illustrate the power of the mind…

The first is about a hobo who jumped on a train, in the dark. Upon closing the door and “lighting up” he realized he was in the refrigerated box car. The door would not open from the inside. In the morning he was found dead of apparent hypothermia. However, the refrigeration unit was not on and the temperature never approached the point that would cause someone to freeze. The man “thought himself to death.”

The second is about a famous person (I cannot seem to remember his name or find it online) whose hands were crumpled and deformed from arthritis. As a result, he was in constant pain. However, when he sat down at the piano his fingers gently unfolded and he was able to effortlessly play beautiful music. Upon stopping, his fingers would return to the previously crumpled position.

The morale of the story is this: let’s focus on what we love doing – and do it! Upon doing so we soon realize that many of the minor (and sometimes major) nuisances of life quite simply “fall away”.

And, if there is something in our life that is “bugging” us, and we’ve done all we can (or need to) then it is time to let it go.

Life is too precious and short, and our time too valuable, to focus on what we don’t want or like…

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8

All the best!