Tom's Message: "Opposites"
Hey, everyone!
I’m trying to type quietly because it’s still dark out…
But soon it’ll be light!!
It’s still night but it’ll be day in just a bit!
It’s kind of a cool morning out there but it’ll be a late summer warm afternoon!
Dark then light…
Day after night…
Cool and then warm…
Afternoon follows morn!
(I feel a song comin’ on!)
It’s a day of opposites!! I guess everyday is, really!
You’re asleep then awake…
You wake up hungry. Soon you’re full…(of Kellogg’s Original Raisin Bran Crunch)
(Hopefully we won’t start the Florida game happy…then sad!)
We have weirder opposites than lots of people realize! Did you know that the opposite of “postponed” is “preponed”?? It is!! (I finally know what to call it when people open their presents on Christmas Eve!)
If someone doesn’t want anyone to know they did it, they’re “anonymous”. It means “to not use their name”. If they do use it, they’re “onymous”! (When John Hancock signed his name, he was super onymous!)
“Ambidextrous” means you’re just as good at brushing your teeth or signing your name with your left hand as with your right hand. But if you’re having a clumsy day (like me!) you might feel like you’re left-handed with both of your hands! You’re having a ambilevous day!
Some words are their own opposites!
“Dust” means sweep off AND sprinkle on! (“Get some powered sugar and dust the muffins, but remember to dust the table after!”)
You can “nail something fast to the table” or “take it away fast!”
“Billy! your alarm’s going off, so turn it off!”
Some words are opposites but mean the same thing!
“Your sneakers are so cool!” “Yah! They’re really hot right now!”
So… what about “anxious”? What’s the opposite of it?
Some opposites you make by adding “dis-“…like, “I disapprove of your approval of that!”
So is it…”Disanxious”?
Sometimes you flip a word by adding “un-“ (“spoken” and “unspoken”)
“Unanxious”?
“Misbehave” is the opposite of behaving…
“Misanxious”?
Sometimes just adding an “a” will do it. Something unusual is typically called “atypical”.
So is the opposite of “anxious”…”nxious”?
Nope!! This week, I decided that since anxiety is just waking up with a troubled mind and heart full of imagining unspecific bad things waiting for you in the day ahead that may or (probably) may not happen…
the opposite of “anxiety” is… THANKFULNESS!!
It’s waking up today with a heart full of thankfulness that the God of the endless universe LOVES me!
And He has good things planned for me today!!
He’s never going to let me go or leave me alone!!!
Whatever happens is part of a plan to make me into someone I could never be in any other way!!!!
And Psalm 23 tells me Yahweh (“the LORD”) is my Shepherd Who goes before me!
Jesus is coming through every valley with me!
And Goodness and Mercy follow behind me!!
Instead of imagining all kinds of scary stuff…imagine that!!
It’s gonna be a glad, not sad…
a good, not bad…
not a gloomy but bright…
Day! And also night!!
(I feel another song coming on!)