Greetings from Arizona! I'm spending the next three weeks with Hubby. We just spent the weekend at the Grand Canyon enjoying marvelous vistas.
It's Monday and time to start a new chapter. Chapter 20 is about facing disappointment and defeating it. Joel says, "When you do something wrong, don't hold on to it and beat yourself up about it. Admit it, seek forgiveness, and move on. Be quick to let go of your mistakes, failures, hurts, pains, and sins."
I wonder if Joel doesn't face disappointment over the way his message is received sometimes. Many ministers and some Christians feel like that Joel offers too much hope. Some prefer to live in pessimism. If you never get your hopes up, you won't face disappointment. Right? As absurd as the idea that too much hope can be dangerous is, many people buy into it. Michelangelo said, "The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." Wayne Dyer, a psychologist turned writer, said, "The danger is not in false hope, rather it is in no hope or low hope, and consequently our objectives and aims are diminished by our beliefs before they can be worked on and materialized." Let's keep hope alive by remembering Einstein's remark, "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." The great danger is not in having too much hope, but in reaching what you have perceived as hopeless.
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I'm defeating disappointment today by enjoying 73 degree weather in Phoenix, AZ, while back home in Lawrence, KS, the high temperature is the reverse--37 degrees. Br-r-r-r!
Back to the subject of defeating disappointments, I was reading about Joel's dad going through a divorce and I remembered my own divorce and the ensuing disappointment and depression. Frank experienced that in his earlier life too. We, too, like Joel's dad, were able to eventually get on with our lives. Frank & I found each other! God has blessed us richly in our marriage as we combined our families with such joy. We truly feel blessed. Lamentations 3:23 says that God's mercies are new every morning. I'm so thankful for that. Shakespeare wrote in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, "The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath; it is twice blest,--it blesseth him that gives and him that takes."
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