Cold enough for you?

Have you picked up on the fact that winter isn’t my favourite season?  As a matter of fact winter doesn’t even rank in the list of my top favourite seasons. (which just happen to be summer, summer, summer and autumn)  But it’s not just the weather, it’s having to listen to everyone gripe about the weather.  The other day someone commented on how cold it was and I replied, “Yeah it kind of feels like. . . the season between Autumn and Spring.”

When we moved to Australia I thought that I’d heard the last of negative weather comments, after all it was said that “In Queensland every day is perfect and the next one is better!”  But alas it was not to be.  People felt the same about the weather down under.  It was either too hot or too cold. (Everything is relative, too hot down there was 41 and too cold was 14)  And I wonder if our preoccupation with the weather is actually our attitude toward life, where we are never satisfied with what we have?

Paul wrote in Philippians 4:11 (NKJV)  . . . for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content:  Maybe we could add to that and in whatever province and whatever season!  Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.

Ouch

Recently I heard about a four year old boy in Ontario who suffered frost bite on his tongue when he licked the frozen window on his school bus. Ouch.  When I was a kid there was always the story about the kid who got stuck to a sign post in the winter when they licked the frozen surface.  I don’t know if it actually happened or not but it certainly served as a warning, I never felt the urge to lick a metal sign post in the winter, and just to be safe I never licked a metal sign post in the summer either. 

I felt bad for the little fellow, he obviously had never heard the same stories that I had heard.  But I was amazed that the boy’s parents demanded to know why their son wasn't better supervised on the school bus.  Seriously, do we need a monitor for every child who rides school buses in the winter? Maybe parents just need to remind their children about the dangers of licking cold metal.  But there will always be one kid who has to try for themselves. 

And even though God gives us all kinds of warnings in the Bible, sometimes people just have to try it for themselves.

Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.

Smile, it's good for You

Last month Grand Manan Island lost one of its oldest residents, a man that the media has embraced over the past several years.  There have been television specials aired about him and magazine articles written about him.  Part of the fascination seems to be that even in his tenth decade, Oliver Green has continued to drive a car and do odds jobs.  At a time when most of his peers had been retired for three decades or more, Green didn't seem to slow down. 

But more than anything, what attracted the media was that Mr. Green wasn't known by his given name, instead everyone knew him as “Smiles”, presumably because of his disposition.

So if people were going to nickname you based on your outlook on life, I wonder what that name would be?  The reality is that for most of us it would depend, there are times and days that I could answer to any of the Seven Dwarfs’ names. (Have you ever noticed that the only Dwarf without a beard is Dopey?”) But I digress.

Maybe the secret is found in Abraham Lincoln’s words “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”  So if being happy is a choice, will it be your choice?  Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.