FEELING NEGATIVE? LISTEN TO THIS

Luky

WE MAKE CHOICES, AWARE OF THE LIMITATION THEY IMPOSE UPON US, AND IN LATER YEARS CHAFE AT THESE SELF-IMPOSED RESTRICTIONS.

  To my mind, this is a luxury one shouldn't indulge in. Once we have put our hand to the plough, we don't look back. Don't like our spouse? How is it possible to grow tired of the person we loved most in all the world in the days when we were footloose and fancy-free?

As for leaving the spouse, let's not forget the holy vow sworn at the altar.

  Don't like our in-laws? We married our spouse in the full knowledge that [s]he came fully equipped with the accessories of parents and siblings. If we can't love them, at least we can go through the motions of affability for goodness' [and our spouse's] sake.

  Don't like our job? When we first landed it, it seemed to be the best move we ever made. If we place ourselves back in time, we'll soon recall the attractions and benefits the vacancy seemed to offer when we applied for it.

  Don't like paying the money our children cost or the cheek they give us? They didn't ask to be born. Having been instrumental in giving them life, we cannot renege on them.

  Even if they [as one consequence of not heeding our advice] end up with brain damage, alcoholism, a motorbike injury, Aids or syphilis, they remain our offspring who should always be able to count on us for our support and our prayers.

  Don't like our car and can't afford another? Let's be grateful we have a car. Many people all over the world have to foot it until death. They'd give their eyeteeth to have any kind of vehicle at all to take them from A to B.

  Don't like ourselves?  We all know that feeling. We can forgive others most of their faults, especially when we love them, but we re-live our own mistakes ad nauseam. Why not be as tolerant with ourselves as we are with others?

  Sometimes, looking back, one thinks if one could live one's life over again one might have made different choices. However, we should not forget that the changes in taste we experience as the years go by are the result of an evolutionary process in our minds and circumstances.

  At fifty we are no longer the people we were at thirty or forty. Life teaches us many lessons to which we adapt in preference to facing the alternative.

  If God had put an old head on our shoulders when we were young, however, would we have dared to tackle a career, marry and bear children? The wild oats many of us regrettably sowed put us on the way to discovering, albeit in the hard way, that the only way is the right way.

  Every single ideal one strives for imposes its own set of obligations, heartaches and disappointments.Fortunately there is a great deal of laughter tied up with the sorrow.

  In old age when the leaves start falling off [relatives, hairs, teeth, hearing, sight, mobility] it will be good to recall that we were sufficiently courageous to put our hand to the plough the Creator designed especially for us.

  It will be even better is on that day we are able to recall with perfect truth that, having once done so, we never looked back.

Catherine Nicolette

I'm with Mom on all counts except one.

  If you find your job is stressing you beyond your ability to cope for whatever reason, seek good counsel and advice from a trusted friend or counselor.

  Then change your job if at all possible. Try and keep any benefits intact - such as pension - for your next employment.

  Change your job with the relevant procedure, showing courtesy and abiding by the rules of your contract.

Any work has stress or difficulty built in. However, some have more stress than others. 

  The glass ceiling which may be your experience in one employment may not be so prevalent in another.

  Whatever the reason, life is too short. A change can be as good as a holiday.

  Rather a job change, than a nervous breakdown, is what I always say.

JESUS STICKERS DON'T DO MUCH FOR ME

LUKY
"HAD enough? Try Jesus."
That's what the sticker of the back of a certain caravan laconically advises.
   Every time I see it, it gets my back up.
  It's not only that I feel the sticker is lacking in respect, offering Jesus as a pick-me-up after a bout of less than worthy doing. It's because I think that Jesus our Saviour, Christ the King and Son of God, is worthy of a little - no, a lot - more decorum and respect that displayed on that little sign.
  Besides, I am irritated by the cool assumption that every passerby is the sort of harum-scarum who never gives a thought to God.

Different view
I was discussing that offending sign with a friend, and she took me severely to task.
  "You're wrong about that caravan owner", she said. "The way I see it, he is terribly sorry for those people who don't really know about Jesus. Seeing that slogan may just bring them back to religion.
  "That man is not being smug, he's being sincere. I'm not fit to hold a candle to him. Catch me putting a sticker like that on my car window!"
  I'm with her on that. All you ever saw on my car windows, besides my third party and licence discs were the imprint of sticky fingers.

Becomes natural
Love of God, especially as one grows older, tends to become as natural as eating and drinking.
  When you're young, possessions play a great part in your outlook. So do human respect, popularity, status and good looks.
  Growing older, you seem to grow away from people and become closer to God. All these possessions and achievements bring so little real joy and satisfaction.
  Some people go on all their lives, blindly searching for power and wealth, but most of us tend to call it a day at some stage.
  
Best attitude
God uses many ploys to bring us to our knees, which is the only attitude in which we'll ever achieve true happiness. 
  I think He divines our shortcomings and guides us a little here on earth in accordance with those failings, in order to bring us back to Him so that we can be happy with Him forever in the next world.
  We suffer illness, pain, the loss of a loved one, poverty, humiliation, loneliness - and in the end we put up our hands and say: "All right Lord. You win."

  I don't think that nonchalant sticker will bring one single solitary sinner back to Jesus. What will bring us back, I believe, is the pain life brings us. 
  We are tried as iron in the fire by pain and sorrow, and by the time we're freed from all stains, Jesus will find a place for us in one of the many mansions in His Father's house.

Catherine Nicolette
Jesus stickers. I love them. Whenever my car is idling behind another vehicle at the red robot, I am thrilled to see a 'Jesus saves' sticker. Or a stylish fish on the back window of the car in front of me. 
  Another sticker recently advised, "Need a friend? Talk to Jesus". I was fully in agreement with that one.

Honk for Jesus 
 The best sticker I ever saw was "If you're a believer, honk for Jesus". A cacaphony of approving car horns broke out as we all waited for the light to change. 
  One car declined to follow suit, and the owner leaned halfway out the window to hurl abuse impartially directed between the car sticker owner and ourselves.
  As the green light glowed, the woman in the offending car made her getaway as the other car trailed behind, the owner still hurling expletives.

One-liner 
The rest of us exchanged benign nods and smiles as we placed our cars in first gear.
  The Jesus sticker had done its job well - pithily preaching the Gospel in public one-liner.
  As I slowly moved through the traffic over the bridge, a sudden thought struck me; it was just as well Mom wasn't in the car as I tooted for Jesus . . .