THESE ARE THE BEST OF TIMES! Yesterday, my wife, Robin, and I were traveling to Seattle. It was snowing in Hayden, windy in Post Falls, cloudy in Liberty Lake, clearing in Spokane, and sunny from Cheney to Ellensburg! As we traveled up the east side of the pass, there was snow on the ground but it did not snow until we arrived near the top. Going down the west side of the pass, it was a blizzard! It is usually the other way around.

Half-way down the pass the traffic was congested and then we came to a complete stop – for almost an hour. It did not take us long to realize there was an accident up ahead. We prayed for the people involved and then we started talking about emergency response and we realized times had really changed for the better. Twenty years ago, there were few car phones and no cell phones. If this accident had happened then, someone would have had to drive to the nearest phone – almost twenty miles – to call for help.

Twenty-one years ago, I purchased my first truck phone. Before that, I had to stop at pay phones several times a day to track contractors, order supplies and communicate with clients. If no one was available, I had to do the same thing all over again, later on.

One day after purchasing the phone, I was driving west on the Highway 2 trestle. The road faces due west and on the few afternoons that the sun is out, it can be blinding. But this was the morning – and the sunshine filtered all the brake lights. The road was full and the road was fast – and I should mention, the trestle has a twelve inch curb. I was driving my brand new Ford Ranger, when – though I could not see any brake lights, I did notice everyone’s fanny popping up in the air (car fannies, that is). So I hit my brakes, my truck slid and hit the curb and knocked my truck over!

It was comforting there was no odor of fuel! I stood up on the driver’s side window and popped my head out of the passenger window and started to make a call on my truck phone. Just them, three other guys flashed their car phones and offered to make the emergency call. I raised mine and we all rejoiced.

This was a new thing – to be able to call for help at the scene of an emergency. Now we take it for granted.

Today, we send emails around the world. My sister lives in Austria. A letter cost a buck to send and takes two weeks to get there. Now we can email – and if I am up early in the morning, we can communicate in real time! If we Skype – we can talk! A generation ago, we would have never thought this possible.

A little over a year ago, I joined Facebook at the request of three of my nieces. I thought this would be a good thing, as we could communicate through the social network. However, they never sent me messages, they just threw things at me and I had to sign up for applications that made a mess of my home page to receive them. I no longer do applications but I do peruse their home pages and their photos and see what is going on in their lives. In a small way, I am keeping up with them and they are starting to communicate more and throw less.

These are the best of times – we can communicate in real time around the world, for a cost far less than we used to pay for postage. We can post our lives on Facebook or MySpace and our friends and relatives can stay up to what is going on in our lives. We can call friends and relatives at any time, no matter where they are because of cell phones.

Think this is amazing? Now, we have Twitter. We can upload a message to Twitter and all our friends can know what we are doing right now – by sending a text message to their cell phones. Businesses can use this as a way to keep in contact with their clients. This is an amazing world we live in. At Unique Motif, we just starting to use this for spur-of-the-moment specials. Sign up to follow us. The link is at the top of the right hand column. One of these days, I will give you a half hour to come in and receive a free gift card of some enormous value – you will want to be signed up and ready!

While everyone who listens to the news is glooming and in despair over the bad economy, do we ever stop to think that we are not yet a third world nation and even if we have to tighten our belt, we still have these amazing communication devices at our disposal? Not to mention, we still have our dishwashers, wash machines and dryers – and running water. We come home and relax in front of the television (not me, though). So what is all this bad news?

You might want to tell me about the Spokesman-Review headline this week telling us that unemployment is up worse than ever, at a faster rate than ever and “swelling” – even though it was less than a third the rate of December! The headline also said we are at the worst point in twenty-five years. But the news does not remind you we have had the longest sustained boom in the history of the world and that started over twenty-five years ago.

So, at worst, we are where we were before the boom. The economy is still not as bad as it was in the 70s. Will it get worse? I don’t know. I do believe if the media continues to harp on it and if the politicians continue to steal from the taxpayers to bailout those who waste the funds, it could get worse. But I am not going to worry about this – I am going to keep working and trusting God to make up the difference.

Always remember, God watches the sparrow and He cares about you. Don’t live in fear – be thankful for all God has given us!

THESE ARE THE BEST OF TIMES! You probably don’t feel that way after listening to the nightly news. However, you need to remember the news makes more money on bad news than it does on good news. So, don’t be surprised they aren’t generous with the good news of the day.

But where is the good news? – you might ask. After all, yesterday the stock market dipped under 7000 – an eleven year low! Well, today the stock market is up again and it will continue to go up and down throughout our lifetimes, will it not? When the stock market goes down, it means investor confidence is low – it is hardly a measure of the quality of your life.

Even if your fortune is tied to the stock market – you still possess enough life and health to be reading this newsletter. Which leads me to one of the reasons I believe these are the best of times. We may argue about the affordability of American health care and we may argue how we should pay for it, but we cannot argue against the fact that our health care is the best in the world – and it is the best in generations.

Two years ago, I fell – rather flew – off a roof while de-icing. The drop was over fourteen feet and because of the speed, I landed over twelve feet away from the eaves, also. My pelvis was shattered and I had to wait six days for the emergency operation. If this would have happened even twenty years ago, I would have died. Today, there are three bars of steel and twenty-four screws holding my pelvis together and a bolt holding the pelvis to the spine. Even though my movements are limited, I am thankful to be alive and able to walk. God is good to me.

Each of us has a story to tell. Some stories are more dramatic than others – some more than mine. But each of us can look at how God has helped us in our life – by health, provisions, relationships or other means and areas. This is what we should look at and remember. Recessions come and go – but they do not make our life. We live in the best of times and God made each day for us to rejoice and enjoy!

Always remember, God watches the sparrow and He cares about you. Don’t live in fear – be thankful for all God has given us!