Ahh, Sugar!

You’re probably familiar with the song “A Spoonful of Sugar,” sung by Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. But did you know it was inspired by the polio vaccine?

Robert Sherman composed the song with his brother, Richard. One day when Robert was talking about polio with his son, Jeffrey, he happened to mention when he received the vaccine as a child, it wasn’t given by injection but infused inside of a sugar cube.

“I realized at the moment I had the spark of a winning song,” he wrote in his autobiography Moose: Chapters From My Life. Within 25 years, the polio vaccine eliminated transmission of the disease in the United States.

Aren’t you grateful that whenever our heavenly Father points out something that’s a hindrance in our lives, He does it in love?

“ . . . do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke,   because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” (Proverbs 3:11-12 NIV)

Aside from receiving discipline in love . . . could it be that Christ is calling you to dish out some good ol’ sugar this Christmas? Go out of your way, smile at a stranger, do something extra, be kinder to Aunt Gertrude among the chaos of the holidays.

I love you!
Susie