Marcia Moston

exceptional living

The other day I got a Twitter post, which I suspected was hacked. Still it got my attention. I knew better than to click on it, but I waited a while. Like a dog sniffing around roadkill, I circled around the temptation inviting me to be outraged.

Because that’s what the lure incited: “You should see the bad things they’re saying about you,”—or words to that effect—words we used to whisper to each other in fourth grade to gain the alliance of a friend and not be third man out.

So why was I even tempted, I wondered? What‘s with this proclivity to mull over the negative like a tongue obsessing over the tiny hole in a chipped tooth? Or to be curious about a bad report about myself or my book?

Proverbs 26:22 advices that “the words of a whisperer are like dainty morsels, and they go down into the innermost parts of the body,” where they sit, releasing their fats and sugars into the bloodstream, but “the words of the LORD are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times.”—Psalms 12:6.

I don’t know about you, but I know it takes a disciplined mind for me to stay focused on what is “true, honorable, and of good repute.”  Sometimes I just want to sit in a corner like a thumb -sucking kid while I nurse a hurt. 

But today as I’m getting ready for an up-coming trip, I’m mindful of those streamlined overhead bins that have redefined the meaning of “carry-on.” And as I choose what will pack and what will stay, I realize I have neither the time nor the room for carrying on old, heavy hurts.

I’m choosing to travel light today and leave room for something good I might find along the way.

Blessing abundant, friends.