Keep Smiling

There is hope for the helpless

Rest for the weary

Love for the broken heart

There is grace and forgiveness

Mercy and healing

He'll meet you wherever you are...

I complain much more than I need to.  There are many times when I simply forget to be thankful for all I have.  I forget to look around me and appreciate all my blessings. 

Well. RIGHT NOW would be a perfect example of how I complain too much. Here I am complaining all the time about how I am unable to run for a few months due to a hip injury, while there are so many people who were never able to run in the first place.  They were never able to feel what it's like to get a runner's high or be in the middle of a long run and never want to stop. Even worse, there are those who will never run again. I will run again. I'm being so insensitive.  It just hit me that while I am over here feeling sorry for myself, my  Granddad is completely paralyzed. He used to be a runner.  Sometimes we need to be smacked in the face with these reminders in order to better ourselves.  We need to recognize the pain of those around us before we begin to think of our own pain as so unbearable.  

This song just came on pandora.  But it is so reassuring isn't it? We are never alone.  We will struggle. But we will overcome the struggles.  My sister was a hurdler and told me that the only way to get over a hurdle was to look past it.  In life we will be burdened with difficult situations, but one of the only ways to move on, is to look past them to the future.  During a cross country race I always dreaded the hill that would greet me at the 2 mile mark, but I knew after the hill, the ground would flatten out, and there would be a downhill for me to look forward to.  The same thing applies to life. My coach always told me that we would never appreciate the sunniest and most beautiful of days if we had no miserable and rainy days to compare them to.  We need to recognize and experience the bad in order to fully appreciate the good!

So next time you're about to complain, stop yourself

Instead think of something you are thankful for and smile.

Because life is beautiful...

and there's so much to smile about.