Winning Words 6/22/11
“The good without the bad ain’t no good at all.” (Laura Dern) Life was not always good for Laura. Her parents divorced when she was two. She hated her looks as she was growing up. Her boyfriend dumped her. But the bad turned into good, and she became an award-winning movie star and an advocate for charitable causes. The quote is a line from her movie, “Everything Must Go.” ;-) Jack

FROM TS IN MICHIGAN: You must know hate to appreciate love? Or you must know discomfort to appreciate pleasure? Not sure that I agree with the "opposites" approach.////FROM JACK: Sometimes those who've gone through particularly difficult situations are able (with the passage of time) to look back and say, "I'm better because of what has happened." Time has shown me that what I thought was "bad" at one time, turned out to be "good." I think that Laura Dern was speaking of her own life, rather than generalizing.////MORE FROM TS: I always counsel people that many events that seem traumatic at the moment will be barely visible in the rear view mirror. Always nice learning of your perspective, and others,

FROM OUTHOUSE JUDY: Interesting quote. The bad mixed in with the good makes one appreciate the good all the more after the bad in gone. I guess that's all I have to say about this one. Have a GOOD day! ////FROM JACK: Maybe you should have said, "Have a good day, mixed with some bad, so that it will be a really good day."

FROM PLAIN FOLKS CHESTER: You don't need bad to appreicate good. Down with bad!////FROM JACK: Have you ever wondered why Good Friday isn't called, Bad Friday?

FROM BLAZING OAKS: I'm sure none of us pray for bad things to happen to us, in order to have the perception to appreciate the good that befalls us, in contrast, but it is true God does use these things to bring good from them. One of the best books I've ever read is THE FLAMES SHALL NOT CONSUME YOU, by Mary Ellen Ton, a beautiful pastor's wife in Indiana who was severely burned and disfigured by a fire in their church. She will always wish that it hadn't happened, and would LOVE to have her former looks back, but my, what a ministry she has had using this experience. Talk about an admirable person!! Interesting quote from the talented Miss Dern. She deserves her success!////FROM JACK: Today's subject led me to Google the word, "rationalization." This, in turn, led me to look up, "cognitive dissonance," which brought me to the sentence: "Our own God is the right God, and the other god is the strange god." Hmmmm....What part does "rationalization" play in what we believe? Thanks for sharing Mary Ellen's story. Wouldn't it be a different world if our judgment of others wasn't based so much on sight?////FROM OAKS: Yes. Mary Ellen prefaces her book with the words, " if your self-esteem is tied up in how you look, this book was written for you." And I have to admit, it was! If none of us could see, how would we judge, eh?!

A STORY FROM BLAZING OAKS: Brenda was almost halfway to the top of the tremendous granite cliff. She
was standing on a ledge where she was taking a breather during this, her first rock climb. As she rested there, the safety rope snapped against her eye and knocked out her contact lens . 'Great', she thought. 'Here I am on a rock ledge, hundreds of feet from the bottom and hundreds of feet to the top of this cliff, and now my sight is blurry.' She looked and looked, hoping that somehow it had landed on the ledge. But it just wasn't there.
She felt the panic rising in her, so she began praying. She prayed for calm, and she prayed that she may find her contact lens.
When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but it was not to be found. Although she was calm now that she was at the top, she was saddened because she could not clearly see across the range of mountains. She thought of the bible verse 'The eyes of the Lord run to
and fro throughout the whole earth.'
She thought, 'Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me.'
Later, when they had hiked down the trail to the bottom of the cliff they met another party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, 'Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?'
Well, that would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it? An ant was moving slowly across a twig on the face of the rock, carrying it!
The story doesn't end there. Brenda's father is a cartoonist. When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a cartoon of an ant lugging that contact lens with the caption, 'Lord,
I don't know why You want me to carry this thing. I can't eat it, and it's awfully heavy. But if this is what You want me to do, I'll carry it for You.'
I think it would do all of us some good to say, 'God, I don't know why You want me to carry this load. I can see no good in it and it's awfully heavy. But, if You want me to carry it, I will.'
God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.