Dear Reader:

I have been accused by others of being a “Just Fine’er” and they are right. When people ask casually  “How are you?” I figure they really don’t want a verbal dissertation on a decade of continued cancer treatments…and quite frankly I don’t want to give it any more than they want to hear it.

If we truly live in the moment….then in that moment… if I am up and about and talking to people…I am fine…because it means I am alive and out and about on another precious gift of God’s…life within a new day.

I do like the relatively new commercial airing on television now with a patient telling her doctor “She’s fine” while her inner self is reproaching her for not telling the doctor she is not fine and in fact she is in a lot of pain.

At times we are all guilty of this most popular response to others’ polite questioning …but then I read a daily devotion from Quinn Caldwell and he made me pause and re-think just how grateful we should be when we really are fine. Grateful enough to remember to thank God for what we have.

“Lord, listen to me and answer me.  I am poor and helpless….You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.” – Psalm 86

“Psalm 86 is the kind of prayer usually reserved for when things go really bad.  A prayer for when it has all fallen apart and you’re at the end of your rope.  If that’s where you are today, then pray it, hard.

But it’s also the perfect prayer to pray when things are going just fine, a prayer for those who have enough money, health, and power to get them through the day.  Praying it when you’re feeling broke down and no ‘count is a no-brainer.  Prayed when you’re flush and feeling good, it takes on a different cast.  Then, it becomes something like a call to humility, a reminder that all you have is nothing without God.

Only the dead are invulnerable.  When all is well in your world, Psalm 86 becomes a proclamation of this fact, an acknowledgement that all life is precarious.  It is an affirmation that, ultimately, all your hope lies in God.

So, to you who are in a good place, who are having a pretty good day: praise God and congratulations.  The world could use a few more of those.  Enjoy it.  Enjoy it, and pray this prayer to remind yourself that even if things weren’t going so well, still you would have the only thing that will finally matter: the love of the God who made you.  It’s a belief worth cultivating.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

So until tomorrow… God, things are going pretty well right now.  Even so, all my hope is in you.  Amen.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

The title photo today is a photo I took of the second bloom on my Mr. Lincoln’s rose bush…it burst open late yesterday afternoon….I think all the rain showers helped it open….and it is more than “just fine”….it is spectacular!

“Slow” (Learner) Blogger Alert:

If you receive my blog on Facebook I accidentally cut all of you off by trying to renew the Facebook connection Monday evening before I set the publishing time… Instead I somehow managed to disconnect my blog from my Facebook readers. (And that is the majority of you) *If you are a subscriber you are fine.

All my attempts to “un-do” the problem have come to a screeching halt. I think that most times I am a “functional” adult until my iPhone corrects it to “fictional” adult….a true Freudian slip…which is actually closer to the truth when it comes to technology.

I am one of these people who can work the computer beautifully when all goes well…one hiccup…and the cookie crumbles. I am sure sooner or later the mistake will be corrected…in the meantime if this blog didn’t pop up on your facebook this morning just google it each day (to pull it up) until there is a “return to normalcy” or you can sign up as daily subscriber…the Chapel of Hope blog stories go on. 🙂 “It is fine.”