Dear Reader:

How many of you remember the old comedy sitcom Carter Country?

If so…you might, also, recall it was supposedly set near Jimmy Carter’s home site…(since he was President during the two-year-run of this comedy) in fictional “Carter Country.”

It included a really outstanding acting cast that kept this sitcom going… I remember laughing so hard sometimes I literally fell off the sofa.

The one character who rose above all the others…ended up being “The Mayor” (Mayor Teddy Burnside) who always introduced himself to members of the public as “Teddy Burnside… your mayor by a landslide.” 

The most laughs came from the mayor to everyone working in law enforcement to “Handle it, Handle it!”

“The character of Mayor Burnside coined a minor catchphrase with his manic “Handle it, Roy, handle it!”… used when delegating various details to Chief Mobey… such as fixing a parking ticket for a prominent citizen.

If Mobey protested or asked any further questions, Burnside would stifle further discussion with a dismissive hand gesture and a further “Handle it, handle it, handle it!”

I have noticed, recently, in most medical waiting rooms that all the magazines and newspapers have disappeared. In trying to keep chairs and tables clean from Covid…I am sure they were a deterrent/nuisance to maintaining sanitized side tables by chairs and sofas in waiting rooms.

But one time… (Pre-Covid)…while waiting to be called back…(at the Oncology Center) I was looking for a magazine to read to “kill time“- any fashion or local magazine depicting pictures of homes, interior decorating ideas, clothing fashions and/or landscapes of the lowcountry would have sufficed .

But they had all been taken…the only magazines left were the cancer magazines…Believe me…if you have cancer… the last thing you want to read is an article on cancer.

But this time, in desperation, I grabbed a cancer magazine… and discovered (to my delight) that it was different. It had articles on faith and hope…besides just new studies and clinical trials on treating different cancers.

And then I read a quote I loved so much…I felt like it was a God Wink for me…so I wrote it down and used it in a blog post several years back….it said.

“God will, very likely, give you more than you can handle. He will not, however, give you more than He can handle.”

Even after all these years I still get nervous before an appointment when the “monster” what if’s enter my mind and hold it hostage.

“What if they find another tumor or one has increased in size or my hemoglobin or kidney numbers are off…and so on and so on and so on.”

It is then I say my silent prayer...”God I know this situation is out of my control…but not Yours…please be with me and see me through these medical reports…I put my healing in Your Hands and oh…please God… just Handle it, Handle it, Handle it.” 🙂

So until tomorrow…

I think we should all make ourselves some homemade cardboard cut-out “passes” that we can pull any day we need them…which gives us permission to pass our troubles onto God to solve  our problems.

I have a funny feeling that if we give these “God Wink” passes on to friends…they will be used regularly. A ‘spirit-lifting surcie’!) 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I remember hearing on some commercial, in the past few weeks, that one of the new health issues plaguing Americans today is not smoking…but sitting too much for prolonged periods …it, too, can cause long-term health issues. (*I wish I had never heard that line…because every time I sit down now I feel guilty.)

Because by evening…I am ready to plop and I so love my time sitting in my recliner reading a good book or watching an entertaining show on television…I treat this time as my reward for checking off that day’s to do list… or most of it.

These days, with the shutters tightly closed at night…I feel safe and secure…and happy snuggled up in my own little world.