I'm still learning.

Lately, I've been learning a new lesson. 
There is power in positivity. 


When this came up in my training at work I thought, as all good military brats do, "what a lot of yuppie, new age malarky." But, as a good employee, (and, as I was being observed) I put the principle into practice. 


In my job, when I'm occasionally in the water with the students,  "NO RUNNING!!!" becomes, "Walking feet! Lets see your WALKING feet!" and "NO SPLASHING!" becomes, "It's not very nice to splash people in the face, let's practice ____." Perhaps not surprising to anyone but me, this ended up being extremely effective. The children responded very well to redirection and direction rather than my previous negative instructions. They learned what behavior I desired, rather than just knowing I was unhappy with their current action.


In my life, I have long been learning this lesson, thought I couldn't have put it in words. In my long struggle with depression, it is necessary to quickly learn to stop negative thought spirals in their tracks. If you cannot turn an experience into something positive, it could truly ruin your whole day, or even longer. Thinking positive, and declaring, and remembering the positive is a difficult habit to make, but it could change your life.


But let me cut to the chase. 


The truth is, in everything, I think we could take a more positive look at life. 
Many of my friends are dieting for the new year, my husband is also dropped soda from his diet. Too often, these changes in our lives, or even lifestyles we adopt can focus too much on the negative. We are against not grass fed meats and against sugar and against dairy. We become anti fast food and anti fluff novels and anti country music. On top of this, Christians my age are anti "religion" and find that most all churches have terrible policy of one thing or another. In general, and perhaps most frustrating, people my age are constantly changing jobs (and complaining about them on social media) because of all the terrible conditions and hours and coworkers....
and it goes on and on and on....


But what I propose is this, I believe we should be for well cooked wholesome foods, for the wonderful taste of grass fed, free range meats. Why cant we wax eloquent on the beauty of good novels and expound on the fabulous band we just found? Why cant we talk about how wonderful it is to eat food that is made and raised with care instead of bashing food we don't agree with and making those around us feel unfit? Why don't we spend a little more time discussing the wonderful things the lord is doing in churches we may not love rather than disparaging local churches about their size and policy? Why cant we be ever so thankful to be working in a era of unemployment and discuss a wonderful thing that happened, or the terribly strange and interesting people we met?


Now in all these cases, the negative might be, probably is true. YES, the chemicals in food are bad for you. YES, people, churches make mistakes. YES, I have worked many a menial job and I know that they are very rough somedays. YES, taking soda out of your diet is a good thing to do. Its true. 


 All I'm proposing is that we remember the power our words have and 


..."whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Phil 4:8