This (last) weekend, I was in Marshall, Texas, emceeing this year’s 2009 Miss ETBU Pageant. We had a grrreat time!
Meeting all the contestants and their families and getting to hang-out with them brought laughter to my heart! 
….. this reminds me of a couple of verses in Proverbs: A happy heart makes the face cheerful (Prv 15:13a) and A cheerful look brings joy to the heart (Prv 15:30a).
May your heart smile today! Â
This morning, I was reading a newspaper article that some friends in Arlington emailed me. It was about a traffic crash…in fact, its title was “The vast aftermath of one alcohol-fueled crash in Arlington.”
One of the lines finished with these words, “…unaware of what was about to happen.” That’s how it is with all of us…we don’t know what’s going to happen next in our lives - in the next moment, the next breath, the next step… This is part of the reason why my motto for living (M.A.D. Now!) is SO HUGE and IMPORTANT to me!
We must choose to Make A Difference Now!
Sometimes, when we have to step out into the unknown of life - the place where we don’t know what to expect or what to watch for - we can definitely experience, what I lovingly refer to as, some stretchmarks of the faith!
Corrie ten Boom often quoted this truth, by M.L.Haskins, in times like these:
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I might tread safely into the unknown.” He said to me, ”Step out into the darkness. Put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
Trust God…He’s holding on to you.
Earlier, I was thinking of George Beverly Shea and one of the “hymns of the faith” that he and Miller penned years ago - I’d Rather Have Jesus.
The first verse says this: I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold,
                                  I’d rather be His than have riches untold;
                                  I’d rather have Jesus than houses or land,
                                I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand…
How about you? How would YOU fill-in this blank and end this sentence: I’d rather have Jesus than ___________________.Â
As life goes on day-by-day, there are more and more things that cross our paths and throw us off-track…things/people/situations that knock our focus off the point of what’s important and what matters.
May we run the race God has marked out for us with perseverance and stick-with-it-ness to His decrees, His ways…
Search out this verse and take a “Calgon Moment” in it with God: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us (Hebrews 12:1, NIV).Â
God will make a way!