The Grumble Family
By Anonymous.
There's a family nobody likes to meet,
They live, it is said, on Complaining Street,
In the city of Never-Are-Satisfied,
The river of Discontent beside.
They growl at that, and they growl at this;
Whatever comes there is something amiss,
And whether their station be high or humble,
They are known by the name of Grumble.
The weather is always too hot or cold;
Summer and winter alike they scold.
Nothing goes right with the folks you meet
Down on that gloomy Complaining Street.
They growl at the rain, and they growl at the sun,
In fact, their growling is never done.
And if everything pleased them, there isn't a doubt
They'd growl that they'd nothing to grumble about!
But the queerest thing is that not one of the same
Can be brought to acknowledge his family name.
For never a Grumbler will own that he
Is connected with it at all, you see.
And the worst thing is that if anyone stays
Among them too long, he will learn their ways;
And before he dreams of the terrible jumble,
He's adopted into the family of Grumble.
So it were wisest to keep our feet
From wandering into Complaining Street,
And never to growl, whatever we do,
Lest we be mistaken for Grumblers too,
Let us learn to walk with a smile and song,
No matter if things do sometimes go wrong,
And then, be our station high or humble,
~~ <> @ <> ~~
One of my favorite ways to study my Bible is to immerse
myself in a particular subject by taking my concordance and writing down or
typing up every Scripture verse listed for that word, then branching out to its
synonyms and antonyms. On top of that, if there are any words I don't
completely understand, I also define them. Once I studied what the Bible had to
say about complaining. I was surprised to learn that there are two types of
complaining. A postive one and a negative one. The first type of complaint is
meant to change something for the better, such as when one makes a company
stand by their guarantee to replace a defective product, however, most of the
grumbling I read about in the Bible were the Israelites objecting to
circumstances or leaders over them.
Unpleasant natural consequences often followed their verbal rebellion
against God.
"Who are we? You are not grumbling
against us, but against the Lord." Exodus 16:8
Following all that I had learned, it wasn't easy to admit
that I too was a grumbler. I repented then and there and am now more aware of
the pitfalls of that nasty habit -- ugliness that leads in a downwards spiral
to bitter resentment. The opposite of complaining is praise and thanksgiving.
2. I didn't think I
could thank God for the circumstances the night our dog ran away when my husband
let her out before bedtime. It had been snowing all that day and was very cold
and dark, but as I prayed, I thought of a way I could be thankful by the time
we went to bed at 2:00 in the morning. I could thank God for my caring husband
-- he thought enough of my feelings and the well-being of our dog to go look
for her for two hours that night. At 6:00 am,
I was extremely grateful for God's protection when she loudly barked
from somewhere in the backyard and ran to my husband when he called her. She
still had her sweater on and although her ears and feet were extremely cold,
she was otherwise unhurt. We have no clue where she spent the night, but I am
so glad she was okay!
3. I thank him for his protection -- that none of the tree service guys were hurt
when they cut down three of our HUGE
backyard trees recently. The guys found a few natural wonders nesting in the
last tree -- four raccoon babies and a handful of garden snakes. A girlfriend
said I should be thankful for the snakes as they keep the mouse population
down.
4. I thank God for a friend of the family who
was willing to rebuild our son's car for him for a reasonable price. And I'm tickled that our son disciplined
himself to forgo pleasures while saving the money to have it fixed.
5. I'm thankful for
stampin' buddies and Michaels who shared their unwanted rubber stamps with me. :)
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Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. (Hebrews 12:28).