CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS - YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE, THE WORLD

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It's January 3 of 2014.....

So the celebrations have all gone and in its place a new set of wonderful memories to add to life's treasure chest which keeps filling up year after another. All well and good.

Now it's time to take up where we left off.....  jobs, the laundry, the shelves that need fixing, the shoes that need to be taken to the shoe repair shop, the cupboard that needs to be replenished as it always is at this time of the month, and the relationships which holes in it need some patching up and sewing up too. Much more as we sort through the bits and pieces from the past year still waiting to be resolved.

I was in that sorting mood when the phone rang and Sally's (not her real name) voice blasted the phone and my ear with a Happy New Year's greeting! And then predictably we settled down with a nice chat as friends usually do.

'So kumusta ang buhay-buhay?' (So how are you.. how's life?' I asked.)
'Ala lang...' (Nothing...) she replied unenthusiastically.

And that's all I will share about our chat. Suffice it to say that it went on for about an hour.

'Ala lang...' (Nothing...)  We always say that when we have nothing better to say or we can't quite sort out our muddled thoughts and come out with some good sense out of it or we don't want to tell the world what bothers us.

NOTHING. Looks like an empty word but truth is there is much in it that could shake a life unpleasantly, yours and others too. Inside a 'nothing' remark is contained a person's potpourri of worrisome thoughts. But unlike a potpourri of nice soothing scent, this one reeks of a collective stench brought about by one's confusion, disillusionment, frustration, hurt, pain, embarrassment, fear, anxiety, missteps, faltering or the absence of faith, and other unpleasant stuff we tend to hide to the world. Yet like a hot kettle of boiling water it just might come to that point of blowing out, spilling over and messing up the territory some more (or so we tend to think)...... and we don't want that. It makes us appear as weak managers of our lives...... and again we don't want that. So we try to cap it down hard with the lid remark (pantakip) called 'Nothing'.

What to do? How about changing the lid with a new and better one? Try the lid called......

-- 'Got some issues now but I'll work it out for sure.'
-- 'Everything's fine, not perfect, but good.'
-- 'Nothing that I can't handle with God's help.'
-- 'Just taking the time to recharge myself.'
-- 'Working on something good. Might take awhile.'
-- 'I'm fine!' (and mean it)

And other words of strong honest positive affirmations. Such words are beneficial to the mind, heart, body, and spirit. That makes the big difference.

Because if you have really paid close attention there really is nothing which God cannot do for you if you humbly ask Him to. And in this line, the word 'nothing' hints at wonderful possibilities ..... meaning that wonderful miracles can happen..... far more than your heart can ever imagine. All glory to a Magnificent God!

Happy New Year, everyone! God bless you.