I am finally starting to feel better after a two week bug, or parasite, or stomach virus whatever you call it. To top that off I also had the flu. So there I was during my “honeymoon” sick as a dog. It must not have been very fun for Jennifer. But I promised her a lifetime of honeymoons. So our “honeymoon” consisted of flying to Houston to go through my old stuff to throw away, showing her around the town that I lived in. Other than my children, Houston does not hold a lot of happy memories for me. Then we were off to Dallas then a cross-country trip to Raleigh, NC. Even though I was sick, we absolutely had a great a time. She really is my best friend and we have so much fun together…she absolutely gets my sense of humor which is amazingly obscure. She is a good road trip partner to boot. I really did choose well. But that’s just reminds me of one more thing she’s better than me at…She chose even better than me ;o) Oh before we left Houston I felt somewhat compelled to meet Joel Osteen. After the service (which was perfect for Jennifer and I) every week Joel goes up to the corner to meet and greet whoever wants to meet him. Usually the line is about 200 or so people. We waited for about 30 min. to get to him. He always talks about his vision is to reach the entire world with the gospel. I told him about my small group that meets every week to watch his video. I told him about Pastor Jim Lewis’ support of me, and that I have Muslims, Hindus, Atheists and Christians all hearing his message each week in Bahrain. I also told him that his message was very well received with Muslims. I think he was genuinely glad to hear that. I hope in one small way I helped encourage him as he has encouraged me. His message of not focusing on the negative and believing in yourself really helped transform my life when I was walking through the pits of hell and despair in those horrible years of 2005-2008.
Jennifer and I got to talking, this morning. She was having a really hard time because of all the pressures she has on herself. She has to finish her dissertation, maintain a very important and challenging career, find a home for her dogs, re-roof her house, do taxes, sell/rent her house, sell/rent her car, and cope with missing me which must be a mammoth task. She said, “my life isn’t quite as simple as yours.” I don’t have any stress in my life. I understand what she was trying to say. That got me to thinking, Im probably under just as many challenges/hardships as she is, but I just choose to handle them differently. I just don’t get stressed or worked up about anything. For example. I don’t want to get into any salacious negative details but other than Jennifer there just isn’t a lot of really great things happening in my life at the moment. My life is certainly full of blessing but also full of challenges. Both personally, professionally, and emotionally, Im going through some pretty devastating experiences that I just can’t expound on right now, although you are welcome to email me if you want to know more specifics. (Usually when I throw that out there only AJB and my mother respond). Nevertheless I could dwell on the negative and get absolutely depressed and dis-spirited. Rather for me, its so much easier to focus on the absolutely amazing things that are happening in my life of which there are many. Im so blessed to have a beautiful, successful, and smart wife, (oh if you only knew the details like I know the details you’d be jealous too) to have 3 healthy, beautiful, and smart children, to have supportive parents, and exciting career, multitudes of friends, a comfortable life and the ability to see the world. When I break out the positives like that its not hard to turn a negative attitude into a positive one. Its just the power of positive thinking and once you think positive things, positive things start happening to you. It’s a natural symbiotic relationship. (the converse is also true.) So I just want to encourage you whenever you feel really down. Take out a list and write about what is right in your life. Before too long you’ll be sure perk up in your spirit. This little trick works every time.
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