Try it, try it and you may. Try it and you may I say...

Knowing that I had to teach Joy School was not bringing me joy yesterday. In fact the entire morning--trying to get the kids to school on time, preparing myself to teach and thinking about my crazy writing deadline--left me feeling a whole lot of OVERWHELMED! So a half an hour before the kiddos were to show up I decided to crank some music to forget my troubles and get jazzed up for the day.

I pushed the play button on the disc player and prepared to rock. Only the disc player didn't rock it hummed. It hummed the gentle instrumental sounds of church hymns, "O My Father" to be exact. "No, this isn't what I want. I want to rock." I told myself as I quickly walked over to change the disc, but before I could, I realized that even though I didn't want that music it was exactly what I needed. I left it on and, by the time the kids showed up, felt soothed and ready to conquer the world once again.

In going through some old notes from a writing conference I had attended I read:

"Put the things of eternity first. The Lord will magnify your talents."

I realized that I haven't been doing this. I have been so concerned about my deadline that I have not taken time to study, ponder and pray about the things of eternity. So today I changed that. Today I decided to put the Lord first, knowing that he would give me the strength to conquer the obstacles that might come up throughout the rest of my day.

And as always, I found words of comfort when I read in 1 Peter:

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God...
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

These verses spoke to me because I know that I need to remain sober and vigilant, not getting too far ahead of myself or giving into feelings of inadequacy--feelings that my adversary the devil will always seek to impose upon me--and that I need to, AND CAN, cast my care upon the Lord because he does care for me. Never forgetting that it's in the TRYING that the greatest joy can be found.

Like when the kids and I threw little cookies into the air yesterday and tried to catch them in our mouths. Believe it or not, this was the first time in my whole forty years that I had played this game. And guess what, I learned that I was good at it. I could catch little cookies in my mouth! Such joy! Such rapture!

Isn't life amazing? Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about myself, I caught a cookie!

What will you learn about yourself today?

Whatever it is do it with joy,
remembering that missed cookies really do sweep up easily.