A few years ago I read this story in an issue of Homiletics.

In the early 20^th century a woman went to her doctor with a catalog of complaints about her health. The physician examined her thoroughly and became convinced that it was her negative outlook on life, her bitterness and resentment that was the key to her feeling the way she did.

The wise physician took her into a back room in his office were he kept some of his medicine. He showed her a shelf lined with empty bottles. He said to her. "Although all these bottles are shaped differently, basically they are all alike - they have nothing in them. I can fill one with enough poison to kill a person or I can fill it with enough medicine to fight bacteria in one part of the body. The important thing is that I make that choice. I can fill it with whatever I choose."

The doctor then said to the women, "Each day that God gives us is basically like one of those empty bottles. We can choose to fill it with love and life-affirming thoughts and attitudes, or we can fill it with destructive poisonous thoughts. The choice is ours.

Every day, the sun rises and sets. Those are the borders within which we make our daily choices and decisions. We can choose to dwell on the disappointments and failures of the past and thereby become stagnant and idle. Or, we can choose to move forward from this day, dwelling on the opportu­nities that stretch out before us and deciding which of those we will tackle today. Either way, regardless of how we choose, the choice remains ours.

What is your faith community doing to find the healthy and positive things that are occurring in the life of the people each and every day?

Les Robinson August 2010