Don't Worry, Be Happy

Life is good, but life isn’t always good. I know you’re thinking….Huh? Jenny, have you lost your mind? In one sentence you said two things that completely contradicted each other. Let me explain.

Life is good. Life is good because we make the choice to believe that life is good. As Annie F Downs puts it in her book, Looking for Lovely, we look for the lovely things in our lives. To her that meant the God things. When she looked for lovely in her daily life, God showed it to her…often.

Now, the second part of my statement…life isn’t always good. Bad things happen. Will happen. Have happened. There will be pain. There will be heartache. There will be betrayal. There will be rain. The Bible talks about pain. But one characteristic I see over and over is that it’s followed by JOY. Isaiah 66:9 says, “I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born. Says the Lord”. Or Psalm 30:5, “There may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Romans 8:18, “The pain that you’ve been feeling can’t compare to the joy that’s coming.” Do you see a theme here? I do. God is telling us to expect pain. Expect sorrow. But we will come out of it. Bad things happen. But that doesn’t mean life is bad. Sad things happen. But that doesn’t mean life is sad.

Don’t allow temporary pain and sadness ruin a good life. Don’t allow sorrow take away your lovely. 

So, tomorrow…wake up with a smile. Walk into work thinking, “I am going to be positive and optimistic today.” Tell everyone you encounter “hello” with that great smile of yours. If there is one thing I have learned in life, it is that a smile can go a long way. You never know how your smile may be affecting someone who needed it at that very moment.