Day 2 ~ 21 days to a Positive Attitude

If you want the 21 day plan, or you want to read day 1, click here.
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Day 2

1) Every day write down 3 good things that happened that day for which you are grateful.

A. Total knee replacement surgery is a blessing beyond measure. Already I can tell that the bone on none pain is gone.

B. I did not have my kindle or cell phone when I woke up, after surgery, so I asked for a bible from the hospital. St. Vincent's chaplain gave me a new testament.  It was a translation I would never have tried on my own, the Contemporary English Version. It is a meaning translation rather than a word for word translation leaving it open to possible translation anomalies,  however, it does spend much effort in putting the language and context together.  Better, its annotations when it drifts or when there is doubt is awesome.

C) My body cooperated well today,and I got Physical Therapy in for day 3 rather than day 1.

D) I got get well cards from KOTK, my former Sunday school class, and from McCoy's Action Karate.  Feel great.  People care. I feel it in my soul.

2) Journal about one positive blessing. One of the three, and explain why that good thing is better than the bad things that happened.

The CEV bible made the pain and the absence of my wife (she had to work) and the recent badness at church, see day 1, vanish into nothingness. 

I read the entire gospel of Mark. This language and notes used by this bible taught me more than I have ever learned from simple reading. The Holy Spirit jumped off the page into my heart with this clear presentation.  No effort to disguise or even apologetics was evident. It was the best time I have ever spent in the word.  Life changing.

3) Meditate and detach from multi-tasking, buy focusing on scripture~ read it, research it, think about how it might impact your life, your day, maybe even right now.

I read the book of Mark in the CEV bible. I see, for the first time, how often they Jesus and the Holy Spirit us apology to make the point. Everywhere,  old and new Testament.   Literal translation of a mustard seed is, to example, a waste of time.  God is after our hearts.

4) One random act of kindness a week. You can do more. (Try one a day)

Told Anne Not to visit me in the hospital all day, so add he could have a life.

5) Pray. Lay down the hurtful things and gather strength.

Had a discussion with my night shift RN and my orthopedic roommate about the need for prayer.  Universal acceptance was: confess and seek foregiveness,  pray anywhere, anytime about anything, and God is Great.

Dare to be Different - Mahl Kita

Used by Permission by www.GoodJobNotes.com

The biggest problem with being different is that you, just by being different, fly in the face of what everyone thinks is right and what they expect from you.  Most of the time, being different is considered being wrong, and causes overt and direct attacks as well word of mouth and rumor attacks.  It almost never causes success in the world, unless it answers the question, "What's in it for Me."

In the west, what's in it for me means $$$ most of the time.  Nothing wrong with $$$, but if that is not your goal, your mission, your calling from God, then whatever your calling is, is not going to go over so well with the population at large most of the time.

This is my story about being different.

In the early 80's, which you might know already if you have read Dark Well of Despair - Light of Hope, I fell off a bicycle and sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury.  Up unto that point, I was 3 credit hours from getting my Masters in Physics, though I had temporarily abandoned that path, I was a fairly successful life insurance sales person in a team with my wife, and I had a 2 year old daughter.  Life was good, and I was rolling in money.


That stopped when I hit my head.  I nearly lost my house, with one of those can't get if from anyone else emergency mortgages.  If just so happened that the bank I had originally borrowed from was being bought out, and the loan officer was attending the same church we were attending.  I knew there was a God, and that it was important to be seen going to Church in our community, but I had not idea who God was.  Seems he knew who I was though. The load officer called my wife, and said my credit rating was horrible, since I had not paid any bills since my injury, at least 6 months earlier.  He was going to rewrite the loan anyway, and pay for the second mortgage, the water pump that just blew up, and the unpaid mortgage, because "it was going to be the last good thing the bank would do, before it went under."  At the time, I had no idea that was God.  I was so drugged out on pain pills, and well over 100lbs heavier than I was 6 months earlier, I was only aware of my own pain.  I did not really know we were losing our house.  My wife was dealing with that.  Seems God was helping her.

I was told that I could sue the state, since they mis-aligned the sewer grate that flipped me over, but I was also told that I was possibly partially responsible.  I was on the bike.  So I would only get $200,000.  Never entered our minds after that though.  Why?  Because my wife was different.  If I was responsible, then I would pay for it.  So we did.

We owed over a 1/4 of a million in debt, not counting the house, which a year earlier was not an issue, but now that I was messed up, could not think, was in pain, and was never going to come out the other end, all that debt was oppressive.

My house was falling apart.

My income had fallen apart.

I was going down, and I was not born for failure.  I tried to kill myself. That was a call out to God, though I would have denied that at the time. I was reaching out of my despair and he reached out and grabbed ..... no, not my hand.  That would have been too freaking easy.

My daughter was found by God when she was 8ish, and by the time she was 15ish, God had found me too.  Turns out he had found my wife decades before. Anyway, that changed everything.  Everything.

Now, getting rid of the debt, anyway we could, was not the priority.   Paying the debt was.  I borrowed it, so I was going to pay it back.  Different.  But that is what the spirit told us to do.  So we did it.  It took us until my daughter graduated from college.

Eventually my Disability Insurance agreed to pay.  My doctor told me to learn karate.  I broke every window in my house in anger.  Life was just getting weird.  The neurologist was right though, but for a reason he never would have predicted.  Turns out I am a gifted teacher.  Since we were now following the Spirit when ever we knew what was being asked of us, we discovered I could give back to the community by helping others defeat their issues.  After all, I was never going to work again, but I could teach karate.  We tried to pay me, but every time we even talked about it, I got ill, so the doctor, my wife decided they were right.  I would never work again, yet I could give back.

We were different.  We teach karate not to make money, but to help others.  We always have, since we started.

What was the reward from the world?  My insurance company stole my insurance payments from me, and two years of my life, as they tied to steal much more.

Some students, though a small percentage, can't understand what's in it for me, so they vocally accuse us for all sorts of strange stuff.  Why?  Because we are different.  I have never been paid, and never will be.  I don't do it for the money.  I could not do it for the money if I wanted to.  I do it for the students, because that is what I do for God.  I use his gifts to give to his people.

The worldly reward have not yet arrived.  Only more difficulty, but God's rewards have been outstanding.  Let me list a few.

1)  I am not supposed to be married anymore.  No one with my injury is.  I am.  God 1 Point. (Well, ok, 1,000,000 points, but no one would understand that scoring.)

2) I get to teach karate and at the same time, all the values that God has taught me.  The Bible is a living book, and I get to pass it on, to everyone.  God gets another point.

3) I get to teach Sunday School, when crowds in stores, outside, or anywhere near me make me ill, but he has again surrounded me with people, like at karate, that understand, and help me help others.  God gets another point.

4) I Lost all my physics.  I can't even add 2 digit numbers.  I gained teaching.  God gets another point.

5) I have had financial set back after financial set back, and the people around me and my family for the most part have stepped in and helped us help others.  God gets another point.

6) I got to go on a mission trip with my family and a few close friends.  We taught karate and God in the Philippians.  God gets another point.

7) As dumb as it sounds, I have 5 cats.  They love me.

6) I have the best adult daughter in the world.  Period.  I will fight you over that.

My wife, my daughter and I dare to be different.  Why, because it takes different this day and age to follow the Lord, but Love is Love.  We have it. We share it.

So, I beg you, Be like the apple at the front of this blog.  Be Different for the Lord.

Mahal kita.

My God Rocks, even though I am a Stone

Photo used by Permission www.GoodJobNotes.com

One of my facebook friends recently put up a few pictures that pointed out that one of the World Trade Center buildings was blown up by the CIA or perhaps the SEC, since they both had space rented in that building, and no plane hit it.  His claim was that it just fell down all by itself, and that was enough for him to post the picture.

Cool.  I love the fact that in the US, people can say pretty much whatever they want.  Free Speech is protected.  Yet, I saw two things that were really wrong with this particular way of being different, because he could.

1) I have enough physics, maybe 100 credit hours if I counted undergrad and grad school, to know that the engineering reason that was given was probably accurate, and enough statistics and thermodynamics to know that the easiest solution is almost always the right solution, so I kinda blow that type of claim off.

2) He published it on September 11.  On the day we are recognizing the 3000 who died, the heroes who helped, the thousands who are sick and dying now because they were first responders.  I commented on his post, and suggested that the 11th was probably not the right day to bring out conspiracy theories, and suggested it was akin to blaming Micky Mouse for being the shooter on the overpass in Dallas who shot JFK, so Disney would not have a problem with a liberal.

My first thought though, was for the relatives of those who died, and the first responders who are still dying. I made the caustic Mickey Mouse remark, because I am a fool, but my heart was in the right place.  His response was other worldly rude.  I answered that the reason I would not have made the remark that day, given that we live in the USA and can make any remarks whenever we want, was common courtesy.  I thought that would end the argument.

I was wrong. I pulled the tigers tail with the Mickey Mouse remark, and there is no going back. He went nuts again. I bit my tongue, and ignored it, and moved on. I had made a big enough mess already, given that everyone on the planet who knows me, knows that I stand for Christ. At that moment, I was more like that guy in California, making fun of Islam. I was within my rights as an American, but I was not within the Holy Spirit. (How do I know this? 1 Peter 2:1-3 "So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." (ESV) - I was full of malice and by acting on it, I was full of hypocrisy and asking at that point if "indeed you (I) had tated that the Lord is good," would have been a fair question.)

If you are not walking with the Lord, then who are you walking with.  There are only two sided.  You are either of God, or of the enemy.  I was walking with enemy, and I acted it out.  Errrr.

So why did I start this note with Psalm 22:22? "I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."

Because our God Rocks. I was clearly wrong. I gave a very bad witness of our Lord. I behaved as the Enemy of God would have me behave, and I did it in a public forum. And God has already forgiven me, and Loves me anyway. (Psalm 103:12 (esv) "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."& 1 Timothy 1:15-16 (ESV)"The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.")

SO I TELL YOU, OUR GOD ROCKS!  I WILL BE DIFFERENT, AND TELL THE WORLD THAT I AM A SINNER, AND MY GOD LOVES ME, AS I LEARN TO BE THE MAN THAT CHRIST JESUS WANTS ME TO BE.  MY GOD ROCKS, AND HE LOVES YOU TOO.