Short and sweet today: My friend Josh is one of the most positive people I know. He once said happiness is a choice. So if we have a choice to be happy or not, how come so many people choose to be unhappy?

My thought for the day--I have the spiritual gift of intercession. For those of you who don't know what intercession is, it is the ability to pray for long periods of time and get results, particularly on behalf of other people. It's not the best spiritual gift, and sometimes I wish I could exchange it for a nicer gift, like...hospitality! But intercession is my gift and keep it I must, but it is tiring. Pretty much it is "praying without ceasing", and sometimes it takes a long time to get results. It wears me out. Since people know that I have this gift, they are always saying,"Can you pray for...?" I always find this funny because we ALL have our private cell phone line to God. All we have to do is dial HIS number and talk. I do not exclusively have God's private number!
Anyway, a co-worker told me today that she has an interview for another job, a BETTER job, and she wanted me to pray for her and the interview. My thought was that I don't want her to leave, so why should I pray? Well, this is the difficulty with the gift of intercession. Sometimes we have to pray for things we don't want to happen. My cop out is to pray not for what was asked of me, but to pray,"Lord, thy will be done". That way, I don't have to pray for the thing I dislike. While seemingly a cop out, on further examination, this is the correct prayer. I should be praying for the will of God to be done, even if it is contrary to my wishes. So maybe I AM doing the right thing, just not with the right attitude!

Today is my day off, and I've stayed in bed a little later than I should have, and I've had a glorious breakfast of fresh raspberries and nectarines with sugar and real cream. Such decadence! And while this simple meal was quite good, and the raspberries looked most excellent--big berries, beautiful color--I had this thought...these berries looked good, but they didn't have very much flavor. They weren't what they seemed. Aren't people like this sometimes? They seem really attractive in appearance, but there is nothing to them, at least, not what we think they should be.
I have experienced this many times with fruit. I make jam every summer, and one of my favorites is Pear Ginger jam. Almost every year, I get pears from a friend at church. He has a tree in his yard. These pears are not much to look at. They are small, they are blemished, discolored, gnarled...Hold that thought...
A few years back, another friend went to a fruit orchard in Bend, OR, and brought me back some peaches and pears. The pears were picture perfect--large, unblemished, yellow with a red spot...the nicest pears you could ask for. So I made jam with them, thinking it would be really great jam.
Well...you can probably guess the outcome...It was the ugly imperfect pears that made the best jam, not the ones that looked perfect.
So I guess that raises a thought that I want to leave you with. We shouldn't judge people by what we see. Often the ones that look the best physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc. don't have much to them. They literally have no "taste". The people who have "taste" or character, are the ones we might shy away from because they are blemished or imperfect. These are the kinds of people that enrich our lives and make the best "jam".

So I am writing a blog now...

I have been thinking about writing a blog for some time now. Why, I am not really sure. I guess that I have always had this need to write, to organize my thoughts. I have always said, "I write, therefore I am!" I used to write letters, but with the advent of the computer, this practice became obsolete. Nobody was writing to me. So, I got with the program and joined the computer age. I now hear from my friends a lot more through e-mail and Facebook. And having seen the movie "Julie and Julia", the idea of writing a blog seemed attractive, but I didn't know what I would write, or who would want to read it. However, I have come to the conclusion that doesn't really matter, does it? What matters is that I am writing. My friend, Cameron, has encouraged me to do this, and he might be my only follower! So, anyway, for better or for worse, here I am....