Happy #10
"If all else fails, stick a pencil in your mouth"
No, really. This was one of the things I did regularly when I was learning how to manage my depression. Here is how it works:
Your muscles send messages to your brain, which in turn governs your emotions by releasing different chemicals. So if you can't seem to shake that frown and smiling seems like the last thing on earth you could do right now, fake it.
Stick a pencil between your back teeth as far as is comfortable and keep it there for a couple of minutes.
Muscle position seem familiar? It's because you are 'smiling'.
Pretty soon your brain will release endorphins because it can't tell the difference between a smile-by-pencil or smile-by-general-feeling-of-happiness.
This is the right way to stick a pencil in your mouth:
See the similarity?
This is the wrong way to stick a pencil in your mouth:
Sweet.
posted by Clare at 12:29 AM
1 Comments:
Clare! Friend! I'm so happy to hear from you. It shouldn't surprise me that you have a weblog, but I am surprised that you regularly check mine.
I would say, if God still knew whether or not we'd choose to follow Him, I would feel sad. If I were not following Him, I'd think, "What? You made me and you knew I'd say no to you? That's like sending me an invitation to a party and intentionally putting the wrong address on it. Even if I wanted to show up, you made sure I wouldn't get there."
And If He created me, knowing I'd say yes, then I would feel like my parents had arranged a marriage I couldn't escape. I might learn to love the person I'm with, but it wouldn't have the love birthed out of risk or trials (what if He doesn't like me back? What if I screw it up? Do I even feel like going through with this anymore?). The love birthed out of relationship. And If I knew that I was merely predestined, I'm not sure I'd understand Grace. This marriage was arranged, I had no choice.
But God does still have omniscience, in the same way that Jesus was still fully God while here on earth. The limitations are temporarily self-imposed in order for the events to matter. What was Satan tempting Him with in the desert? To use the power and authority Jesus already had the right to use, but in order to fulfill the scriptures, He couldn't give in to temptation.
This situation of God setting his omniscience aside in terms of knowing our choice in salvation is temporary. We will always have free will, but the conundrum of free will exists until Jesus returns or we go to Him. In Heaven, I think we'll still have the opportunity to sin. It's just that in the presence of God, we'll see sin for what it really is and the choice would look something like this: "Well, I guess I COULD cut off my leg. I have that choice. But why in the world would I?"
I hope that's a satisfactory answer to your question. I didn't even get out of bed before I wrote it because I was so excited when I read your comment. One of my roommates gave up waiting for me and brought a cup of coffee into my room.
And I think I'll like reading your posts about happiness. I've been under pressure the past few weeks and it can affect my mood. You'll get a better idea of what I mean when you read my next post.
11:13 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home