1.1.18-2018 is for the birds.

1.1.18-

2018 is for the Birds.

Thursday it started with seeing C***** at the NRH Centre where I hang out during most days during the week day.  We chatted about her Christmas and with some hard times coping with the memory of her mom who had been in a concentration camp, with an outcome of a harsh attitude in the family.  "I had to learn to not worry about that, but rather focus on forgiving her as the Lord’s Prayer says I must do."

Friday it started with trying to take a nap in a chair after my workout starting at 5.30am.  I had already enjoyed some good work with the weight machines and assisted my grandson, Jared, with some Vlog shots for his Utube channel.  After some conversation with my son and it being still early I decided to put my cap over my face and sleep a while during Jared’s workout.  I assumed no one would both me if I went to sleep with my Mavericks cap over my face.

A tall man walked up and said, “You must have had a hard workout?” 

I replied, “It could be a weak workout for a weaker guy.” 

After a long conversation with him I found out he was a 2^nd Lt. in the Viet Nam war who had gotten shot because his main job was to draw fire away from other people toward his boat in the middle of the me kong river.  He was hit and had to come home.

He had get up after his rest and go work out for a short bit.  He came back and we rejoined our conversation.  He revealed the reason he was wearing a surgical mask was that he had received a lung transplant operation. I mentioned a nephew of mine received a liver transplant about 10 years ago and was doing well.  He said, “He is very lucky.”

I replied, “Lucky and blessed.”

We talked for about thirty minutes between his brief, five minute workouts.  He said that he considered not getting the transplant, but he had a wonderful wife who was a teacher, but had learned how to be his nurse during this time.  His wife returned from her aquatics workout and they left.

After they left I turned and looked outside the window and there was this tiny bird on a barren limb.

 After heading by the grocery store we got home to have some leftovers for my brunch I grabbed a nap, vacuumed the house and sat down to do some study and reflection on a short article for the New Year, 2018.  I looked out the window and there among the orange, red, brown and yellow leaves of my tree was another bird.  I could tell it was not a Cardinal or Bluebird, but a Robin I think.  Both of the birds the tiny one at the health club and the one in my back yard had seemed somewhat lethargic.  Maybe it was the cold.  They weren’t pecking for food but being fairly quiet.

Both Thursday and Friday I had talked to two people who had major problems they could have worried about.  They both seemed to be focused on doing things to overcome these things rather than sitting around their home and worrying.  One had had a mother who had been very difficult and I knew her husband was physically challenged, but both workout at least two days a week.  The man, J***, who though 71 years old and a shot up disabled veteran, he had submitted to a lung transplant to survive another few years if possible.

Would you join me this year with a goal in 2018 to not worry? 

Jesus tells His followers bluntly, “Do not worry.”

God takes care of the little birds without their sowing or reaping. 

It is more like a pagan than a child of God to chase after things which will only be subject to deterioration and theft. 

It is not possible to serve God and money.

Matthew 6.
²⁵ “For this reason I say to you, ^[n]do not be worried about your ^[o]life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the ^[p]air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? ²⁷ And who of you by being worried can add a single ^[q]hour to his ^[r]life? ²⁸ And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, ²⁹ yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! ³¹ Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ ³² For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But ^[s]seek first ^[t]His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be ^[u]added to you.

Larry Wishard