Triple C News - October 22, 2021
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome Frida…
Friday??
This is Friday, right?
Yes! This is my Friday Triple C email!
(Which I haven’t always gotten done on Friday lately, btw…)
So, I’m doing this hospital ministry course at a big Knoxville hospital and I’m running all over the place these days! Sometimes I’ve lost track of what day it is! This week I got to be the over-night chaplain and about 3:15am I got out of one the twelve elevators (three apiece in four of the cardinal points) and wondered…
“What’s my name again?”
I was reading this article about “how to know if you’re too busy”…
Here’s one way: “You always do tasks like eating in tandem with another activity.”
Like putting on your socks and brushing your teeth at the same time. I’ve tried! It sounds something like this…
Hop!
Brush!
Hop!
Brush!
Hop! Hop!
Brush! Brush!
Flop! Stop!
Cuss!
And drop…
the brush!
Lately, I’ve got papers to write for certain days, chapters to read for other days, a sermon to get ready for Sunday, people to go see here, patients to go see there, inmates to go see over there…
“What do I do when??”
And then the other day I was running past the hospital gift shop, on my way to something I don’t remember what when I saw something I really needed to see to help me get on top of my stuff-to-do. In the window of the gift shop…
which is kind of extensive for a little store like that…
(You can get Snickers and a coke, a card and a stamp, a tiny tooth brush with tiny tooth paste in case you didn’t brush when you put your socks on.
And you can even buy socks in a package, in case you forgot to put your socks on when you were brushing your teeth!
AND you can get packages of underwear!
In case you were going so fast to get ready for the day, you REALLY forgot something!)
Anyway, in the window of the shop there was one of those signs you can buy for your wall at home or office. It was a little bit cheesy maybe. And a little bit corny sort of. But at the speed I was going that day, trying to get everything done so I could remember the next thing to do, it was just the word I needed!
It said…
“Always be kind and thankful”
With everything I thought I HAVE to do, that’s all I really NEED to do!
What if, in every word and every job, I always remembered that simple, cheesy, corny, sign and it’s deeply profound message??
What if I was ALWAYS thankful??
And ALWAYS kind??
There was a brave young British missionary around 1920 named Florence Allshorn who decided God was calling her to go to Uganda. She was ready to face any challenge fearlessly! But she found the toughest one was getting along with her collegues, especially her grumpy, rude, supervisor. I mean, she was soooo mean and unpleasant!!
One day, Florence just broke down and wept and wept.
Desperate, she decided to read 1 Corinthians chapter 13…
all about love…
all about how much nothing else you do matters if you don’t do what really matters…
all about the fifteen things love does and doesn’t do…
all about how love’s “patient. Love is kind. It doesn’t brag or boost. It doesn’t remember a wrong suffered. It isn’t rude…”
She decided to read it…
everyday!
For one year!
And do it!
That year and that practice transformed her heart and all her relationships!
She wrote of it…
“I believe we have just got to be living 1 Corinthians 13!
I am CERTAIN of it!
I feel nothing else matters in comparison at all.
NOTHING!”
In everything you’ve got to do…
love…
being kind…
and thankful…
is all you really HAVE to do!
“…and I say to myself, What a wonderful world”