Smile Power

The cashier had such a acerbic look on her face that I avoided her check stand at first. She looked like her dog had just died this morning; her husband had asked for a divorce; her children had run away from home, and she had a pain in her gut. She looked so totally inapproachable that no one was at her stand even though customers were lined up on either side of her.

I hadn’t had a good morning either. My husband’s physical condition had declined so rapidly that he could no longer lay down in bed at night and we had both slept in recliner chairs; my husband could no longer walk and could not stand by himself, so I had to help him up and down from the chair and give him a sponge bath, etc. Not a good morning. But as I looked at the cashier’s face I silently prayed for Jesus to right whatever was so dreadfully wrong in her life. Then I forced the biggest, widest, most genuine smile I could produce on my face. The effort made my cheeks hurt.

Astonishing, Acerbic Cashier smiled back. By the time she had run my items across the scanner, she and I were engaged in a friendly conversation. Without the scowl and the glowering countenance, she was an attractive woman. The power of a smile.

Give away smiles endlessly. They are free. And they have the power to free others.

“A person who has friends must be friendly.” Proverbs 18:24

Amazon.com: Stephanie Parker McKean: books, biography, latest update Amazon.com: Stephanie Parker McKean: books, biography, latest update

Old vs New

I love old cars and old houses. Given my childhood, it’s strange that I would favor old over new.

After our house burned down when I was in the ninth grade, I never had an indoor bathroom or running water in my house until after I left home. Back then, I was embarrassed by the holes in my jeans. Nowadays, I would be in style.

We never thought of ourselves as poor, yet my mother never had enough money for groceries or new clothes and new shoes for our family. I went to school often with the soles of my shoes held on with a thick rubber band from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution newspaper.

We lived briefly in an old antebellum house in Georgia that Sherman missed on his march to the sea. One winter the roof fell down in my brothers’ bedroom. Bees lived in the walls of the bedroom I shared with my sisters. We frequently got stung. There was no heating in the house. Nor was there a bathroom or any running water. We carried water from town in empty milk jugs. The house was so cold in the winter that the jugs of water lined up in the kitchen froze. We had to use that frozen water to take a sponge bath with before we left for school.

As bad as living conditions were in that house, it had a classic beauty that I loved. And it was an improvement over the unfinished log cabin in Splendora, Texas. That house had only half a roof and when a hurricane came inland from the Gulf, the water in the house was so deep that our grandmother had to stand on a folding metal chair to cook for us kids. We were on the only bed in the house and the water level was up to the mattress. My grandmother was scared to death of snakes, but when a poisonous water moccasin floated into the cabin and across to the bed where we kids huddled, my grandmother went after that snake with a broom. The goats and chickens came into the cabin with us to get out of the rain—which was funny since we were nearly as wet as they were.

Then there was the plywood shell of a house in the Texas Hill Country…it had a finished roof, but a dirt floor. No heating, no air conditioning, no running water or indoor plumbing.

Still, I love old houses and old cars. The craftsmen who built them followed their eye for beauty and the integrity of their hearts to produce a legacy.

However, growing up in old houses with no heat in the winter might explain why I hate cold and winter now.

Still, when I see a classic old vehicle or pass a historic old home, my heart trespasses into another era.

Not so with my flesh. New visits of pain and weakness get no welcome from me. I remember what Jesus said—warned? “When you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” John 21:18.

I’ll pick an old car or an old house over an old body any day!

Amazon.com: Stephanie Parker McKean: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

Hedgehog Thinking

You can’t blame the hedgehog. He is small with short legs. The gate separating him from the garden is lengthy. Little steps mean that it takes a long time to get around the gate to the opening into the garden. So he looks for a shortcut.

Not every shortcut is bad. Some are excellent. But this hedgehog’s shortcut failed due to hedgehog thinking—a malfunction common to humans. As the hedgehog journeyed down the alarmingly elongated fence it poked its nose into every piece of metal scrollwork looking for a wider gap so it could get through. However, the factory manufactured fence was uniform and no gap was wider. So the hedgehog took the shortcut anyway—and got stuck. (Not to worry—he was rescued.)

We humans do that in life. Take shortcuts doomed to failure. We want to harvest success in our life, but without the planting, weeding, watering, and nurturing required to guarantee it. We just want it to happen.

We want to skip the training process and get right to the rewarding qualification. We just want it to happen.

We want to lose weight—but not exercise. We want to maintain our perfect body size and shape and still eat everything we enjoy regardless of calories. Perfect health? We just want it to happen.

We want joy, but without giving up resentment, anger, and criticism. We just want it to happen.

We want our lives to be stellar, our trials short, our hardships easy. And when we disagree with something in the Bible, we want to change the words to ones we prefer and reject verses that tell us to endure hardships as a good soldier of Christ, or that remind us that, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10.

Hedgehog thinking. It’s not just about hedgehogs.

Amazon.com: Stephanie Parker McKean: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

The Devil is a Sociopath

drug-addiction

Years ago I sold my property in Texas, but never got paid for it. When I received a threatening letter about overdue property taxes, I was forced to return to the property and become something I had never desired to become—a rental agent.

Because there were tenants already living in the two nice houses on the property with running water, bathrooms, working kitchens, and air conditioning—I was forced to live in an open-end garden center with no bathroom, no kitchen, and minimal electricity. Living in that building and collecting rent from tenants living in the comfortable houses I had helped build was my only hope of getting enough money to pay the overdue property taxes before I lost the property. I slept on a lawn chair mattress on top of wide wooden planks. My clothes hung from the rafters. I took cold showers with the garden hose. I learned to survive the 100-plus degree summer temperatures without air conditioning. When winter arrived, I stacked up hay bales and covered them with plastic to protect myself from the cold. I had two small heaters, but because of such low voltage electricity—they wouldn’t work at the same time.

There were positives. Peace. God’s peace lived with me as a constant companion. The birds who had nests in the hanging baskets overhead became so friendly that they warned me of approaching hawks. When their fledglings left the nest, the babies hopped to me and scrambled up into my lap. The two toads that lived in my dog’s water bowl scolded me when I got home from work late. It was almost like having two very short parents.

There were negatives. Not the third-world living conditions. The sociopath next door. I didn’t realize he was a sociopath at the time. I just figured it out recently when watching a rerun of “Judge Judy.” She commiserated with a mother on the show and told her that her son was a sociopath. Wanting to learn more than I thought I knew about “sociopaths,” I started reading more about them. That’s when I realized I already knew. I had rented a house to one. Upon further reflection, I concluded that God’s enemy, satan, is a sociopath.

According to Power of Positivity, sociopaths don’t feel badly when they hurt other people’s feelings. They have no feelings of guilt, shame, or embarrassment. Check. Both for my renter and for the devil. The Bible says satan came to this earth to kill, steal, and destroy.

They have intense mood swings and may become violent. Check. In a fit of rage, my renter attempted to shove me out of my own house. The Bible says the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and that he is angry because he knows his time on earth is short. His time on earth is short because Jesus is coming again.

Sociopaths have to be in control. Check. Satan uses tools like drug and alcohol addiction to keep people in control. I don’t know whether my renter was a sociopath because he was born one—or because drug use had robbed him of his soul and conscience.

Sociopaths are impulsive. Satan decided to one-up God by attacking the righteous man Job and making him curse God. When his first attack on Job didn’t work, he impulsively cranked up the pressure. My human sociopath renter spent recklessly and his desires changed frequently—so he overspent and was always in debt. Meaning I didn’t get paid either.

Sociopaths are charming in the beginning. The Bible warns that satan masquerades as “an angel of light.” His charm and beauty give sin its allure, and he uses sin to trap people. Human sociopaths shower folks with compliments in order to gain control over relationships. People who met my renter and didn’t know him thought he was enchanting. They said, “He could sell igloos to Eskimos. True. But he wouldn’t have paid his bills—including rent.

Sociopaths are manipulative and must be in control. My renter told so many lies that he could never keep them straight. They will lie to get their way. Satan is the father of lies. They gaslight folks making them question their own sanity. Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden by saying, “Surely God didn’t say that…Surely eating the fruit of that tree won’t kill you.”

Sociopaths feel they are above the law and their actions are often illegal. They disobey laws and social norms. My renter had a huge file at the courthouse—but I didn’t see it until after I rented the house to him. Satan refused to obey God and declared, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars…I will be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12)

Sociopaths make extreme promises and statements without backing them up and alternate between positives and negatives to manipulate and keep control. They make and break promises. Check. Both for my renter and for God’s enemy the devil. Satan attempted to tempt Jesus by making promises he had no authority to deliver.

They smile, smirk, or laugh at the pain and misfortune of others. Check for the devil. He came to steal, kill, and destroy whether the subject of his attack is a child or an adult. Their pain is his pleasure. Check for my renter. He thought pain was funny—as long as it wasn’t his pain.

I usually eschew labels. I try to take people and situations at face value and judge independently without referring to labels.

But my renter should have come with a label.