I will not let you have it!!! I just will not do it:)

   


 Monday~~Monday~~so good to me! A beautiful day here in Utah, 48 degrees, sunshine, cloudless sky and blue, blue, blue as far as the eye can see, the rains came last evening and washed all of yesterdays muck from the sky and also pushed the warmer temps with it...it is clear, sunny and crisp, the prefect start to the day! I pray that you are all up and at em' that your morning has been without incident and that you are walking tall with a smile on your face telling the dreaded "Monday" monster to stay away from you!
I pray that this day will be one filled with hope and with happiness! That you face each issue head on and that you are the light that will shine upon someone praying for help.
     In prayer this morning I prayed my usual prayers, asking God to provide each and everyone of you with mercy and grace, that he would look into your hearts and recognize where there was need and then would bless you by taking your problems and concerns and replacing them with hope and ease of worry. I prayed for my sweet friend who is suffering a terrible migraine and asked God to lay his healing hands upon her head and allow the pain to drift away, to be gone completely and it only be a dim memory, I asked God to heal the problem so that the  headaches do not recur. I prayed for my sister's, sister in law, she has fought the cancer battle now for a very long time, she refuses to let it win. I am so in awe with her strength, her positive energy, her zest for life and her never, ever, letting it take over a win. She has been in the hospital for a while now but is hopeful of coming back home and going back to work! Please Father God, place your healing hands upon all of her affected areas and begin a mighty miraculous healing, she has proven herself time and again that her faith will not be taken, that her spirit will not be broken and that she will not give up the fight! We ask that you bless her abundantly for her perseverance and her will to live, her positive attitude is strength to others and she inspires so many with the gift of not letting go, of holding fast to faith and in keeping her eye on the prize..bless her today with positive news from her doctors! In Jesus' beautiful name, amen. As always I asked God to bless me with someone who was in need of a smile, a kind word, a heartfelt hug or anything that would lighten their burden today, I have no doubts that someone will be presented, and that my faith might be an example for them.
     I had a phone call this morning and find that it is funny that our moods can be interjected over the phone, when I took the call the person was in a cranky mood thus I automatically shifted from my smiling demeanor to a more guarded one. As the conversation progressed I began to become cranky and before it came to a head we were actually bantering back and forth to see who could dominate the conversation! After the call came to an end I hung up and was literally shaking...why, because I had allowed myself to be drawn in by this persons mood! Today I will make sure that when I talk to anyone whether it be on the phone or in person that I am smiling, that if it could become heated that I will take the high road to ensure that it does not...In all of your dealings be upbeat and positive, I can so see where I could have redirected this person and set them at ease instead of allowing the chat to get out of hand...they say hindsight is 20/20...but the lessons we take away are in the here and now! Thus..today I will begin to be that ever smiling and calm person when I am dealing with anyone, I am anxious to see how it works..no one is going to take my positive and make it a negative today! I love each of you and pray that if you have to deal with cranky..that you will not allow them to take your good juju! :)

      

It’s hard to believe, I know, but the Lord loves that difficult person in your life just as much as he loves you. And he seeks that person’s welfare as well as yours. That’s why Jesus commanded us to love the difficult people in our lives. Love doesn’t mean a soupy, sentimental feeling toward these people. It means a commitment to their welfare, their good, their salvation. This commitment may require that you and I put our own feelings to one side and try to emulate God’s attitude in a difficult situation. Jesus told us we’re to strive for God’s perfection. That sounds presumptuous, but listen to how he explains it, in the Sermon on the Mount:

I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect(Matthew 5:44-48).

What’s God’s perfection in this situation? It’s a posture of impartiality, an attitude of fairness. It’s having the mind of Christ, who “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6-7). It’s remembering who I am when people make things hard for me. They may be sinners, but so am I, and the apostle Paul’s words come ringing across the ages: “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13).