I won’t give away who wrote this until the end because I don’t want it to color what you read. Just read this true story and be ready to have your mind blown and your heart encouraged.

“Once when I was a teenager, my father and I were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus.

Finally, there was only one other family between us and the ticket counter. This family made a big impression on me.

There were eight children, all probably under the age of 12. The way they  were dressed, you could tell they didn’t have a lot of money, but their clothes were neat and clean.

The children were  well-behaved, all of them standing in line, two-by-two, behind their  parents, holding hands. They were excitedly jabbering about the clowns,  animals, and all the acts they would be seeing that night. By their excitement you could sense they had never been to the circus before. It would be a highlight of their lives.

The father and mother were at the head of the pack standing proud as could be. The mother was holding her husband’s hand, looking up at him as if to say, ‘You’re my knight in shining armor.’ He was smiling and enjoying seeing his family happy.

The ticket lady asked the man how many tickets he wanted? He proudly responded, ‘I’d like to buy eight children’s tickets and two adult tickets, so I can take my family to the circus.’ The ticket lady stated the price.

The man’s wife let go of his hand, her head dropped, the man’s lip began to quiver. Then he leaned a little closer and asked, ‘How much did you say?” The ticket lady again stated the price.

The man didn’t have enough money. How was he supposed to turn and tell his  eight kids that he didn’t have enough money to take them to the circus?

Seeing what was going on, my dad reached into his pocket, pulled out a $20 bill, and then dropped it on the ground. (We were not wealthy in any  sense of the word!) My father bent down, picked up the $20 bill, tapped the man on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, this fell out of your pocket.’

The man understood what was going on. He wasn’t begging for a handout but certainly appreciated the help in a desperate, heartbreaking, and embarrassing situation.

He looked straight into my dad’s eyes, took my dad’s hand in both of his, squeezed tightly onto the $20 bill, and with his lip quivering and a tear streaming down his cheek, he replied; ‘Thank you. Thank you, sir. This really means a lot to me and my family.’

My father and I went back to our car and drove home. The $20 that my dad gave away is what we were going to buy our own tickets with.

Although we didn’t get to see the circus that night, we both felt a joy inside us that was far greater than seeing the circus could ever provide.

That day I learnt the value to Give.

The Giver is bigger than the Receiver. If you want to be large – larger than life, learn to Give. Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get – only with what you are expecting to give – which is everything.

The importance of giving, blessing others can never be over emphasized  because there’s always joy in giving. Learn to make someone happy by acts of giving.”

~ Katharine Hepburn

I’ve been wanting to watch these old movies for a while now, and with being quarantined, I finally got my chance. The movies are Marius, Fanny, and César. If you’ve seen the movie Fanny with Leslie Caron from 1960, you know the story.

If not, the gist is that a young man named Marius, who works at a bar with his father César, loves a young woman, Fanny. He also yearns for the sea and to get away on a ship. An older man has asked the woman to marry him, but the Fanny loves Marius.

The girl becomes pregnant, but not before Marius has gone off to sea. So she marries the older man who will claim the child as his own and save her from the shame of being an unwed mother (this is the early 30s, mind you).

There’s one part that particularly struck me. When she’s giving birth to her baby, the older man, Panisse, asks her to hold on to his hand. In her pain, she digs in with her fingernails and leaves scars.

That got me thinking. Doesn’t love always come with scars? I don’t mean that love is destructive and bad. I mean that love is always costly. Any kind of love, not just romantic. C. S. Lewis once said that to love anyone is to have your heart broken, and that the only remedy for that is to keep your heart locked away and never allow yourself to feel or to care.

The proof of Panisse’s deep love for Fanny is the scars that he bears on his hands. Doesn’t that sound familiar? There’s another who bears the scars of His sacrificial love. That’s how the apostle Thomas is able to recognize the risen Jesus. That’s how we will know Him when we see Him.

Henri Nouwen talks about those believers who serve in love as wounded healers. We have all made poor choices and suffered the consequences of our own stupid actions, but we all bear the results of living in a fallen world. We have scars and wounds that we carry as a testimony to what we’ve endured, and those scars and wounds can also be the best part of our witness to the saving grace of God who heals and redeems. We are the wounded healers.

Love always seeks the best of the beloved, no matter the cost. God in His infinite love didn’t spare anything for us, and He’s called us to love each other the way He loved us. He’s called us to love the lost in a way that shows His great mercy and grace, not ashamed of scars but mindful of Him who was obedient to the point of death for the love of us.

I’m thankful that God did that. I’m thankful that God didn’t leave it to me to figure out a way to get myself cleaned up and out of my own mess. I’m super thankful that He didn’t leave me on my own, trying my best to bridge that unfathomable gap between me and God.

The language that God was speaking through Jesus was the language of love. Not the gushy romantic kind of love like in all those Nicholas Sparks books. Not even the love of parents for their children.

It was the love of sacrifice. It was the love that laid down its life for me when I needed it most but deserved it least. It is the love of the unmerited favor of grace for undeserving sinners. Because we could never get to God, God came to us and spoke to us in a language we could understand. He became the language we could understand.

The language of Jesus. The language of love.

Hi, my name is Greg Johnson, and I’m a bit of a packrat. Actually, I’m more of a borderline hoarder.

I made that discovery when I was doing a bit of very early spring cleaning, i.e. winter cleaning, this week. It was a bit of an eye-opener.

I think I found at least eight old AAA membership cards that I managed somehow to not throw away. I also found multiple old credit cards and health insurance cards.

On the plus side, I found an old National Geographic magazine from December 1988 with a holographic cover. It’s not worth a whole, whole lot, but it sure is pretty. Plus it has all those fun vintage advertisements scattered throughout.

Between recycling and Goodwill, I got rid of a lot of stuff. I mean A LOT. Like it took two car loads to get it all. But being able to see my counters again (and actually being able to find stuff when I’m looking for it) made it worthwhile. Plus, I hopefully won’t have to do nearly as much next year.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw away any greeting cards. But at least I can find them now. That’s a win.

This is not autobiographical. I do like my job. I put this out there for those who don’t like their jobs or for those who may have had a very bad day at work or just someone who needs a laugh.

Remember this at the end of the day. Be thankful you don’t work for Johnson & Johnson. Also, remember tomorrow is a new day. Things will get better.

I found this list of alternatives to cuss words in case you get good and miffed and calling someone a “meanie head” just won’t cut it. There are places where the real cuss words are inappropriate, so it’s good to have words to fall back on when the real ones won’t do.

Thanks go to Tim Hawkins, who put these all on one handy-dandy list:

“Insecurity is an internal alarm that reveals you’re trusting in something that could be taken from you, instead of Christ” (Rick Warren).

In the times when I’m feeling insecure and anxious, I have to ask myself where my hope lies in that moment. 9 times out of 10, the answer will be anything and everything but Jesus. If it’s social media or a political party or the news or any of my comforting crutches, I will find myself becoming fearful and insecure.

I also have found that some deal with anxiety by doing their best to make others feel equally as anxious. It’s their goal to make you as fearful as they are, and they will get mad at you if you don’t give in to worry as much as they do.

But Jesus said, “Don’t fear. Don’t be anxious. Come to me and exchange your yoke for mine.”

Jesus never ever told His followers to be afraid or for them to make it their business to instill fear into others. He said, “My peace I leave you,” and that we are to be peacemakers with others.

What are your internal alarms that are showing you what and who you are trusting in other than in Jesus? What daily rhythms can you bring into your life that will bring about less worry and more peace? At what point will you and I stop trying to fix others and ourselves and start simply trusting in Jesus as the Prince of Peace?

Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve been exposed to COVID-19, so now I get to be in quarantine for a bit. I’m not sure how this will play out as far as my job, but I’m confident that as in all other matters, God will navigate me through this new passage safely.

I’m so ready for this pandemic to be over. I pray every night for an end to COVID-19 so that no one else gets sick or dies from it. I pray with ultimate confidence that one day, hopefully sooner than later, it will end. After all, no storm lasts forever. No hardship or trial is permanent. Even pandemics end at some point. But the love of God never will.

So I get to figure out a new normal for the next 10-14 days. At least I will save in the cost of gas. But in the grand scheme of things, thing won’t be too bad. As a friend of mine always says, if this is the worst thing that happens to me, I’m doing alright.

I just now looked up and it’s almost the end of January. What? Where did the whole month go?

I was just getting used to the idea of 2021. So far, I’ve managed to be a good little adult and write 2021 on all my forms and documents. Mostly.

Then I turn around and it’s February. Or it will be on Monday. What the actual heck?

For the math nerds out there, you will notice that we’re now officially in the 20s again. Last time, we had F. Scott Fitzgerald and all those great writers who were living in Paris. We had the Charleston, the beginnings of jazz music, silent movies, and Prohibition.

Who knows what we’ll see this time around?

But back to my original question. Where did those 31 days go? I knew I laid them somewhere, but I just can’t seem to put my finger on them. . .

“Let us end on a very simple note: Let us listen to simple words; our Lord speak simply: “Trust Me, My child,” He says. “Trust Me with a humbler heart and a fuller abandon to My will than ever thou didst before. Trust Me to pour My love through thee, as minute succeeds minute. And if thou shouldst be conscious of anything hindering that flow, do not hurt My love by going away from Me in discouragement, for nothing can hurt so much as that. Draw all the closer to Me; come, flee unto Me to hide thee, even from thyself. Tell Me about the trouble. Trust Me to turn My hand upon thee and thoroughly to remove the boulder that has choked they river-bed, and take away all the sand that has silted up the channel. I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. I will perfect that which concerneth thee. Fear thou not, O child of My love; fear not.”

And now…to gather all in one page:

Beloved, let us love.Lord, what is love?

Love is that which inspired My life, and led Me to My Cross, and held Me on My Cross. Love is that which will make it thy joy to lay down thy life for thy brethren.

Lord, evermore give me this love.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after love, for they shall be filled” (Amy Carmichael).