One Thought at a Time

This morning I was attracted to the view out the French doors of our river and our back yard. It has been days since we’ve seen sunshine, due to Hurricane Rita’s cloud cover. The sun was shining through the oak and cedar and birch trees, the river was sparkling, the wind was gusting, and the chickens looked as lovely as can be as they roamed among the jungle called “lawn” that needs to be . . .

. . . mowed. Badly. And there are broken limbs that need to be cut out of the trees. The logs that are stuck in the river from the hurricanes, what will we do about those? We can’t canoe until we get their massive selves out of the way. More tropical systems may come our way, like Rita. Oh, just great, look, Rita knocked over the lawn chairs and the tarp is in the neighbor’s yard again. And it is so blasted hot! When is it ever going to feel like late September? . . .

In the middle of those unlovely thoughts came an unexpected one:

“Never complain about anything. Not even the weather.”*

I remembered something that I read a long time ago: We can only haveone thought at a time.That seems impossible for us multi-tasking moms, but it is true.We can only think one thought at a time. That means I can eitherdwell on our hard times, and negative things, or thank God for what I can find that is good.

Once I was reminded of my choice, I decided to again look at the good in the yard, and I thanked God that we are healthy and can do all of those big jobs we need to do. We will have months of lovely weather soon. And . . . I thought with a smile, if it wasn’t “so blasted hot,” I wouldn’t have lemons and tangerines to pick from my trees!

Now, I know that all of you do not have lemons to cheer you up, but you have something!

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite sayings:

“Two women looked through prison bars; one saw mud, the other saw stars.”

Lori Seaborg

p.s. *Both of today’s quotes are from my favorite nonfiction book, Calm My Anxious Heart, by Linda Dillow. Click here to view the book on Amazon. Or, click here to view it at Christian Book Distributors.