Messiness in Our Health and Well-Being ~ Jeff Key

Staff, February 25, 2021

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones"  ~ Proverbs 17: 22

I’d like to say I knew about the verse I used for a long time, but I haven’t. I found it doing a search for a relevant verse for this week’s topic.  When I saw it something struck me about it. These times we are going through certainly can crush the most optimistic spirit---if we let them!! A pandemic, lots of snow and cold weather, losing family and friends, and our routines completely thrown out of kilter. All of that and more can contribute to crushing our spirits. Now to what the beginning of the verse says about a cheerful heart.  We are children of God!!  That statement right there should give us cheerful and thankful hearts. No matter what happens here on Earth we have a Father in Heaven that knows us, cares for us, loves us, and looks out for us.  If we can find and maintain a cheerful heart we can and will make it through anything the world can throw at us.  Best of all if we have a cheerful heart, we can draw others to us and pass some of that on to them and they can take it and pass it on and maybe we can spread that feeling faster than any old pandemic. Why not try it? What is there to lose?

Heavenly Father we stand at the beginning of another Lenten season.  Who knew that last year instead of some of us giving up something, we would all be giving up a lot of somethings? As we move through this Lenten season from Ash Wednesday to Holy Week finally arriving at Easter and Your Glorious Resurrection guide us, protect us, nurture us, and strengthen us to follow Your ways and spread Your love here on Earth. Amen.