Magic

What we think controls what we do, how we act, how we feel, and what we say. If we want to make a substantial change in our lives then it will have to start with how we think. Proverbs 23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

My 7th grader was recently assigned, “The Secret Garden” to read. I had to confess to him that when I was assigned that book in high school I had read the first 30 pages and then watched a terrible 80’s movie version of it to write my paper. I decided if I was going to help him formulate his thoughts for his persuasive paper then I had better read it for real. I am the type of person that understands truth more when it is taught to me in narrative. I think a lot of us must be this way because most of Jesus’s teachings are in the form of parables or stories. Hidden within the pages of the “Secret Garden” was a beautiful truth.

Let me set the stage.   A very contrite ten year old Mary has just lost her mother, father & entire household in India and must move to England to her Uncle’s manor. While hating everything about her new home, she finds a secret garden and is greatly influenced by an optimistic, nature-loving boy named Dickon. Mary discovers she has a cousin hiding away in a secret room of the manor, because her cousin, Colin, is afraid he will have a hunchback like his dad he never goes out or lets people see him, and he throws hysterical fits. He has spent all of his 10 years hidden in a room never going outside and having others wait on him hand and foot. He doesn’t even walk on his own because he thinks himself too weak.

What do you think on?

“He told Mary that most of his “tantrums” as they called them grew out of his hysterical hidden fear. He always began to think about it when he was cross or tired.” Frances Hodgson Burnett, the Secret Garden

What do you begin to think about when you are cross or tired? What old wound do you lick? What wrong do you rehearse? What fear do you play out in traumatic imaginations?  Do you ever go into tantrum mode over the little things like a pile of shoes in the middle of the living room, dirty dishes piled high, laundry that needs put away?

Do you isolate yourself?

“If he had ever had anyone to talk to about his secret terrors…not closed up in his house breathing an atmosphere heavy with the fears… then he would have found out that most of his fright & illness were created by himself” Frances Hodgson Burnett, the Secret Garden

Expose your fears to God and to truth-speaking friends. When we bring our fears to the light, we see them for what they really are,  just our imaginations of what could happen. Do we really want to let “what could happen” steal “what is” actually happening in our lives. Let's let the truth of “what is” champion us through our lives, not let our fear of "what could happen" hold us back from our lives. 

The Magic

Mary and her friend Dickon become the people Colin exposes his fears to and they immediately take him to the light of the outside world to the Secret Garden. There Colin and Mary discover what they call Magic. The magic is not letting themselves talk about or think about all the negative things that could happen in life. They decide to do an experiment to see what changes happen through their throwing out all their negative and fearful thinking.   Through the course of these months Colin goes from an invalid to standing, walking, and running. He gets color in his skin and becomes a healthy and strong young man who loves to give speeches on how the “magic” can change one’s life.

“Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember to push it out by putting in an agreeable determined courageous one.”….he had not been courageous; he had never tried to put any other thoughts in place of the dark ones.” Frances Hodgson Burnett, the Secret Garden

Let’s be courageous! Let’s uproot our dark, disagreeable and discouraged thoughts this year and put an agreeable, determined and courageous one in its place. This is the wisdom God gives us in his word, He says not to keep feeling anxious and overwhelmed but to bring it to him in prayer (expose it) and then fix our thoughts on true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable things (Phil 4:6-8) Let’s put a little magic in our day by changing the way we think!

2016/01/07 at 9:33 pm