SMILE

Answers, we look for them everywhere, and when all is said and done, we normally discover we were looking for answers in all the wrong places. If that’s not frustrating to you, then you have some super duper attitude fixer-upper stuff that you need to start sharing with the rest of us. Answers are problem solvers that provide great relief to ones weary spirit when you have been searching for solutions with no results. Discouragement develops after we have been searching for answers and we’ve looked several different places, yet still found no help from our turns and efforts. Many of us have the feeling that if we go searching for answers, the answers should be readily available, ok, you can make the first solution challenging, but more than one challenge per issue is overboard on setbacks. Normally we know we are at this spot when we say out loud, “good grief, can I not catch a break?” Dishearten shows itself when our heart becomes exhausted and if we allow this attitude to prevail, soon dishearten will become a way of life, “woe is me” takes over and you will need a heart shock to get you back up to start if you live with this too long. When you and I make plans we seldom ever plan for set backs in our big lofty dreams. We maker plans for good moments, happy times, laughter and joy. We are afraid we might jinks ourselves by planning for contingencies. Sadness is a normal part of living, or at least it has been in my life experiences. I’ve had failures, some of my own making and others that I had absolutely no control over at all. Temporary sadness happens but I’ve never spent much time focusing on my sadness. I’ve spend just enough time to make sure I have identified the cause, and then I’m ready to move forward Feeling left alone is an emotion that many individuals, from children to adults have had to face and deal with. Feeling alone I often associate with a lack of vision and purpose on my own part. Now I’m aware that Jesus sent the disciples out two by two but there will be many journeys in which you will travel physically alone, but you will never be spiritually alone. Having someone walk beside us physically is great, yet learning how to have that same type of relationship with Jesus will give you a new emotion the next time you feel alone. Negative things, influences, attitudes, reactions, these and many other such negative approaches to life will be our neighbor even without an invitation to come over and sit awhile. The only way to combat negative is with positive. If you join in the negative chorus then you’ve just added another voice to an already too many member choir. Don’t be discouraged, don’t be dishearten, don’t be sad, don’t feel left alone, fight the negative with positive, and I am suggesting that the first step in all of this is to begin you day with a SMILE. Smiling is not applauded enough. Smiling is not encouraged enough. We don’t recognize it pubically enough when it is staring at us, we fail miserably to capture its beauty and the power of a smile. Embracing a smile in the mist of discouragement, or being disheartened, experiencing sadness, feeling alone, or when surrounded by the negative is not the complete and whole solution but it is a great start to changing everything. Until then