Here's Pastor Dave McDowell's weekly devotional that he sends out to members of his church. Dave is my brother and serves as the Music Minister at Stewartstown UMC in PA.
If three is the charm,
then consider me charmed......
to death!
March 17 is to me Christmas, the sequel.
Nothing breaks me out of the winter doldrums
like a Shamrock Shake.
Each year,
I make my one trip to that outstanding fast food mecca,
to imbibe on creamy mint.
When the calendar turns to March,
my excitement level rises
like a child giddy to open the first gift under the tree.
That was, until March 14......
That's when I started to feel it...
that slight tingle in the back of the throat.
A sure sign for me, that a cold was on it's way.
It was my first brush with sickness the entire winter.
By March 16,
I was fully immersed in a sneezing, runny nose,
eyes watering marathon.
Daytime was bad enough,
but it was at bedtime when the worst came....
the total collapse of the sinuses....
the inability to breath while laying horizontally.
It was on this 16th day of March,
that a dear friend brought me a Shamrock Shake.
I salivated upon the sighting of it.
Then I remembered that my head
was swimming in a vat of mucous.
It has been said, feed a cold and starve a fever,
but feed a cold some dairy products,
and you might as well head directly to the ER
to have your sinuses drained.
I placed the extra big biggie shake in the freezer,
first noting that it is against all moral codes to
drink a Shamrock Shake on Christmas Eve, the sequel.
It is also against all medical wisdom
to inject your body with creamy dairy products
when you are already swimming in mucous.
I'll feel better tomorrow, I thought
and then I can inhale that big green mound of dairy delight.
Christmas morning, the sequel arrived.
I awoke realizing that I hadn't breathed in oxygen for the last three hours.
Nothing that a hot steamy shower couldn't fix, I thought.
By mid-morning, I was intaking oxygen at a rate sufficient to sustain life
and then I remembered the frothy delight sitting in my freezer.
Oh, I shouldn't, I thought.
So much for thinking......
It took ten minutes to intake that shake.
It took five minutes after that,
for my head to fill up like a block of concrete.
Oh well, it was worth it, I thought.
I can breathe any day of the year.
That was until one of my afternoon piano students
came for lessons with another Christmas, the sequel, gift.
I knew you liked them, so I brought you one, she said with great glee.
I knew immediately, that she expected me to drink it during the lesson.
For the sake of the arts, I knew I had to down shake #2.
By etude #2,
I couldn't hear anything except
a hollow ring inside my head,
My head felt like a freshly poured slab of green concrete slowly hardening.
By early evening,
I was anticipating that trip to the ER
to have my sinuses drained.
That was when my last student came in with....
yeah, you guessed it....
shake #3
If Christmas has twelve days,
then I anticipated being mucoused to death by day four of Christmas, the sequel.
Fortunately it was a small
(which is really a medium biggie).
By the time I got home,
my head was firmly solidified in green.
Another steamy shower,
then insertion of a vaporizing ointment up my nostrils
in an attempt to bulldoze an airway to survival.
As I sat in the most upright position I could muster in front of the TV,
the commercial came on....
the commercial from that fine outstanding fast food establishment
Yeah, I may have been loving it,
but that love was keeping me from oxygen,
I think I will return to my first love....
air.
It's easy to be swayed by all sorts of things that entice us.
Churches and individuals can quickly forget what is most important in this walk of faith.
The church in Ephesus was reminded of the reality of losing its first love (Rev. 2:4)
If we are honest with ourselves,
many of us have done the same in our lives.
Sometimes it takes three Shamrock Shakes to realize
that a breath of air is more precious than cream.
Sometimes it takes us chasing after all the temporary pleasures of life,
to realize that nothing fulfills us like embracing the goodness of God.
As we enter holy week,
take time to ponder
that it took three nails
to give us all
a fresh breath of life......
a life that is eternal.
To that I say...
I'm loving it.
May you say the same this week.
Greater love has no one than this,
that one lays down his life for his friends. - John 15:13
If three is the charm,
then consider me charmed......
to death!
March 17 is to me Christmas, the sequel.
Nothing breaks me out of the winter doldrums
like a Shamrock Shake.
Each year,
I make my one trip to that outstanding fast food mecca,
to imbibe on creamy mint.
When the calendar turns to March,
my excitement level rises
like a child giddy to open the first gift under the tree.
That was, until March 14......
That's when I started to feel it...
that slight tingle in the back of the throat.
A sure sign for me, that a cold was on it's way.
It was my first brush with sickness the entire winter.
By March 16,
I was fully immersed in a sneezing, runny nose,
eyes watering marathon.
Daytime was bad enough,
but it was at bedtime when the worst came....
the total collapse of the sinuses....
the inability to breath while laying horizontally.
It was on this 16th day of March,
that a dear friend brought me a Shamrock Shake.
I salivated upon the sighting of it.
Then I remembered that my head
was swimming in a vat of mucous.
It has been said, feed a cold and starve a fever,
but feed a cold some dairy products,
and you might as well head directly to the ER
to have your sinuses drained.
I placed the extra big biggie shake in the freezer,
first noting that it is against all moral codes to
drink a Shamrock Shake on Christmas Eve, the sequel.
It is also against all medical wisdom
to inject your body with creamy dairy products
when you are already swimming in mucous.
I'll feel better tomorrow, I thought
and then I can inhale that big green mound of dairy delight.
Christmas morning, the sequel arrived.
I awoke realizing that I hadn't breathed in oxygen for the last three hours.
Nothing that a hot steamy shower couldn't fix, I thought.
By mid-morning, I was intaking oxygen at a rate sufficient to sustain life
and then I remembered the frothy delight sitting in my freezer.
Oh, I shouldn't, I thought.
So much for thinking......
It took ten minutes to intake that shake.
It took five minutes after that,
for my head to fill up like a block of concrete.
Oh well, it was worth it, I thought.
I can breathe any day of the year.
That was until one of my afternoon piano students
came for lessons with another Christmas, the sequel, gift.
I knew you liked them, so I brought you one, she said with great glee.
I knew immediately, that she expected me to drink it during the lesson.
For the sake of the arts, I knew I had to down shake #2.
By etude #2,
I couldn't hear anything except
a hollow ring inside my head,
My head felt like a freshly poured slab of green concrete slowly hardening.
By early evening,
I was anticipating that trip to the ER
to have my sinuses drained.
That was when my last student came in with....
yeah, you guessed it....
shake #3
If Christmas has twelve days,
then I anticipated being mucoused to death by day four of Christmas, the sequel.
Fortunately it was a small
(which is really a medium biggie).
By the time I got home,
my head was firmly solidified in green.
Another steamy shower,
then insertion of a vaporizing ointment up my nostrils
in an attempt to bulldoze an airway to survival.
As I sat in the most upright position I could muster in front of the TV,
the commercial came on....
the commercial from that fine outstanding fast food establishment
Yeah, I may have been loving it,
but that love was keeping me from oxygen,
I think I will return to my first love....
air.
It's easy to be swayed by all sorts of things that entice us.
Churches and individuals can quickly forget what is most important in this walk of faith.
The church in Ephesus was reminded of the reality of losing its first love (Rev. 2:4)
If we are honest with ourselves,
many of us have done the same in our lives.
Sometimes it takes three Shamrock Shakes to realize
that a breath of air is more precious than cream.
Sometimes it takes us chasing after all the temporary pleasures of life,
to realize that nothing fulfills us like embracing the goodness of God.
As we enter holy week,
take time to ponder
that it took three nails
to give us all
a fresh breath of life......
a life that is eternal.
To that I say...
I'm loving it.
May you say the same this week.
Greater love has no one than this,
that one lays down his life for his friends. - John 15:13
.
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