All posts by Keith Thompson

Vogel State Park

Family

If you have ever had a physical place that triggers great memories, you will know what I am talking about.

Vogel State Park in Blairsville, GA, is that place for Elaine and I and our two daughters. It is one of the top 50 state parks in the US and is located between Cleveland, GA, and Blairsville, GA, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Appalachian Trail runs directly through the Park.

Elaine and her family grew up going camping at Vogel, and she took me up there for a day trip when we were still in high school. I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. We spent several days on our honeymoon at Vogel State Park, and we have been camping or staying in cabins for 35+ years.

One of the greatest on-going memory at Vogel is the week of July 4th. There are probably 25-35 families that all go the same week to Vogel, and all our children grew up together. Going to Vogel for the week of July 4th triggers great memories with longtime friends and vivid images of my two daughters when they were young girls growing up through elementary school, middle school, high school, and college.

This place has deep meaning for my family and me.

As we all know, certain things bring back memories like smells, places, voices, etc. There are also things and places that bring back bad memories. The Bible says to think about the good memories and focus on those. I have found that over time the bad memories become less and less of a factor, but good memories somehow remain stronger as the years pass by.

I hope that the 4th of July holds some good memories for you and your family. If not, start building good, long-lasting memories for you and your children. KT

A regular day

Life

I have written about this subject several times, but I cannot seem to escape the power of the subject. It compels me to talk about it again.

The subject is a regular day, a normal day, a routine day, and a day just like any other day.

These are the kind of days that people long for and want again, who have lost friends, family, jobs, health, hope, peace, and joy.

You may be one of these examples– A young father who is still trying to find his place and is searching for significance in his life. A young mother with little children that seems to be dragged down by the mundane task of raising children. An older man or women who know that retirement is near and it scares them. A man who has just found out that the people he works for have been lying to him. A senior citizen who is in poor health and knows that life will never be like it was. A young family or middle-aged family who have lost their way and don’t know how to get back on track. An investor who knows he made a bad investment and doesn’t know what to do. The person that sits at Starbucks because they just need to be around other people even if they don’t talk to them. The person who has lost hope. The person who is depressed and can’t see out of the black hole. The person who is afraid. The person who is experiencing fear of things they never feared before. The person that has had a health event that will forever change who they are and how they live.

You get the idea.

The next time you have a day that is routine, normal and just a plain ole day without any drama, fear or life changes, stop where you are and say a prayer of thanks to the Lord for letting you be in that moment. You will not always have those kinds of days and there will come a time when you will long for and remember the joy of those days.

Embrace them, cherish them, live in them, breathe them in, and make the most of those normal, routine, regular days. KT

Play-Doh

Career

Play-Doh was invented in the 1930s to clean coal residue off wallpaper. Of course, it wasn’t called Play-Doh because it was a non-toxic, non-staining reusable compound. Back in those days, most houses had wallpaper versus paint, and the main source of heat was coal. The black coal residue would float in the air (real safe!) and attach to furniture, chairs and also, wallpaper.

It was invented by Noah McVicker of Cincinnati, Ohio. His nephew, Joe McVicker, was taught the business by his uncle.

Pause here. Have you ever had a company or a job that you thought would last forever or a product that would always increase in sales? Have you ever pinned your future on it?

Back to the story. After World War II, coal was used less and less because of the invention called natural gas, which burns clean with no residue. At that time, they also invented vinyl wallpaper that you could wash without destroying it. Result… the product, now known as Play-Doh, was being sold less and less; the family company was at the point of bankruptcy.

The nephew, Joe, was convinced he could save the company from bankruptcy. One day, he was in a nursery school and noticed that the children were using Play-Doh to make Christmas ornaments. He said himself “would you look at that.” The rest of the story is very simple. He took the product to an educational convention and then every major retailer in the country wanted to buy the product. They came up with a way to color the compound so it would be fun for children. The result is the nephew changed the name to Play-Doh and changed his and his family’s economic future with the invention or rather the re-invention.

There are more stories like this (Post-It notes, hula-hoop, computer chip, etc.) than the page will allow. All the stories are about looking at something that seems to have failed only to realize that it was meant to be something else.

Ok, one last short, but true story. In Antwerp, Belgium, in the mid 1800s, there was man who wanted to go digging for diamonds and left his family, home, and all his fortune chasing the dream. He came back home as a failure and his family had a friend over that night that was a diamond expert. The friend wanted to hear about his trip looking for a diamond mine. After dinner, the men were in the living room talking and the diamond expert was standing by the fireplace and noticed a rock the homeowner had found on his property. The diamond expert picked up the old rock and asked the man where it came from. Well, the man said, it came from his field while he was plowing one day.

Do you already know how the story ends? Yes, the rock was a huge diamond and under that farmer’s farm was the largest diamond mine to ever be discovered.

What am I saying here? Sometimes the greatest thing you can do is stay where you are and stay with what you are doing and sometimes God’s shows you something really tremendous. I have always said that one idea from God can change your life in such a way that you cannot even keep your total calculated.

Nearly every major discovery was right in front of the person that discovered it and they couldn’t even see it for a while.

Is everyone going to discover something great and be wealthy? No. But, God can pick up the pieces of your life and mold them together in a way you can’t even imagine. KT

Go time

Life

Have you ever known someone who has carried hurt feelings for years and years for being treated poorly, passed over for a promotion, not being nominated, being treated without respect, broke up with, or talked about? You get the idea.

As you can imagine, the person who carries that with them is probably not the person you want to hang around with or let influence your life.

People think that men don’t do this and don’t carry resentment. I am here to tell that I think men are the worst offenders of this because we basically will not talk about it. At least women will usually get it off their chest by talking to someone about what happened. On the other hand, men will just let it swell up inside like a bullfrog and never ever share how they really “feel.”

So to the men reading this–stop and deal with that pain and move on with your life. Whisper the words in your heart, “I forgive him/her, Lord.”

If you will do this, you are choosing the life ahead rather than the life behind and you are choosing to be in the future moments rather than spoil those moments because your head and heart is still in the past. Forgiveness is one of the most powerful things that can free you just as withholding forgiveness is one of the most powerful things that can stop you.

Life is moving at such a rapid pace I cannot believe it. I, for one, do not want to miss the moments because of some silly hard feelings between me and someone. The good news is that you, yes you, and you alone get to choose to fix it with a simple forgiveness prayer.

To really explain the next paragraph, it would take 90 pages to write, so read it in the simplicity it was meant.

I believe we see and feel in the natural realm, but if we could see into the next realm of life, you could see music flowing through the air, streaming data, angels, and many other spiritual things. If you could see in that next realm, you would finally understand the power of the spoken word. The words you speak come from your heart. The Bible says that whatever is in your heart in abundance will come out of your mouth. What many Christians do not understand is that the angels operate on one thing and that one thing is the words of your mouth. So, the next time you wake up and want to say “man, this is going to be a bad day because of etc.,” stop yourself spiritually in your tracks and say some something uplifting that will give your angels the right to go before you and make something good happen.

So, for all of you who enjoy strife, envy, and anger, by all means keep feeling and doing just like you have been. For all those who want to be free from past hurts, stop where you are and have a fervent prayer of forgiveness over those who have hurt you and then look forward to the rest of your life. KT

Life’s simple things

Life

Life’s simple things are best described as the moment makers. They don’t cost anything, and you can’t plan for them.

It is like when a small child raises their arms for you to take them and hugs you tight. When you walk out of your house and the grass looks greener and the sky more beautiful and the breath you take in is sweeter. It is like when you are driving with no music, no emails, no texts, and you are just at peace and realize that it is a rare moment.

The things that hinder and impede these simple moments are strife, anxiety, anger, sin in your life, confusion, envy, etc. You get the picture. These are the things that kill these simple moments; these emotions keep you from experiencing God’s simple grace and God’s simple gifts that he wants you to experience.

A quick test to see if you have any of these emotions operating in your life is if you have a conversation with yourself in the morning before the day starts. You are standing at the mirror and saying things that you should have said in the real conversation yesterday or you are telling someone off about how they treated you. Have you ever noticed that you always win the arguments when it’s just you? Ha.

I am sure no one reading this blog post has ever had this happen to them. Oh, you too? So, we have all been there!

You will never get to the place in life where you no longer feel hurt or slighted or angry. It happens to all of us from time to time. If it happens to you every morning, then you may want to look deeper and fix the problem through forgiveness. Yes, forgiveness.

Forgiveness is one of those incredible simple acts that you and only you control. It has such great impact on your life and your joy. Withholding forgiveness only hurts you and your own health and your peace.

Years ago, I had an uncle who wanted to trade cars with me. We decide to trade, and I took my car to meet him with my title in hand. When I got there, my uncle told me he would get me the title to his car he was trading once he paid off the loan. I trusted him and said sure that would be fine.

The next week, he took the car I traded and the title I gave him and he sold the car and kept the money. He left me with the car that he still had a loan on. I had to give him back the car he had the loan on because it was no good to me and then I had to go out and get another car that I could own because I now didn’t have a car.

This all happened at a time when we were so broke and were struggling to make ends meet. To say that I was angry would be an understatement. I literally wanted to go to his house and take the value of my car out on him. Had I done that, I wouldn’t be writing this blog today.

A few days later after the incident, my sister was at our house, and I walked her out to the car and it was one of those God moments that neither she nor I expected. She pointed her finger at me and said, “you need to forgive this man or it is going to ruin your life.” At that moment, it was like God was speaking through her to verbally tell me what to do. I almost fell to my knees in the driveway because the words impacted me so strongly.

I went back in house and wrote my uncle a letter where I basically told him I forgive him, he owes me nothing, and his debt to me is forgiven.

Well, his life from that point has been everything but good. God took my life and has blessed me immensely.

In this situation, I came very close to altering my life over strife that would have had an incalculable impact on my wife and children. Rather, I choose to heed the words from God through my sister.

I suppose sometimes you just have to forgive others and choose in the forgiveness act to move forward with your own life.

So in closing, when life’s simple things come your way and you see the beauty of that moment, never ever take it for granted. It is those moments that are the simple things, but also the life-changing things. KT