A flower pushes through the concrete
“I don’t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.”
– ANNE FRANK
So here is a quote from an iconic individual, one that represents the ability to overcome some of the darkest of surroundings, even while acknowledging her personal confusion as a teenager in the horrific camps of WWII. What I would like to know is HOW IN THE WORLD!?!… to daily see the “beauty” while still living in the real world of struggle sometimes beyond comprehension.
Not one of us is without the experience of loss or change or sudden reversal of fortunes that leaves us wondering how to look on the “brighter side” of it all. We are especially challenged in the climate of our economy now, and if you are not directly affected then you have friends and family who are facing some tough times. Talking with a girlfriend the other day she was sorry that she started her day with a news program on the television, full of gloom and doom. So I guess we can choose to just turn it off….not look, not listen, and be ignorant to the reality. But isn’t is so much better to face stuff head on, and with the help of your friends and faith, overcome?
I want to look at those headlines, or listen to NPR radio program or CNN, and take in the beauty between the bad news. There is hope in the evidence of our God-given will to survive and make conscious decisions to find strength in the strain. Even better, we can anticipate the satisfaction and contentment found in holding someone else up through their rocky place…whether through spoken words or getting our hands dirty to show some mercy and make a day, a month, a year, easier for someone else.
I’ve got some interesting news for you regarding the “glass is half….full? empty?” attitude you might have. A British research group recently found a “genetic tendency” toward optimism. (St. Pete Times, Monday, March 2, 2009). So it seems it can be said that cheerfulness runs in families. If this is the case, then some of you have an advantage over the rest of us!!! Not fair. But there I go, my glass is half-empty. What I think I will do is keep company with those folks who have the genetic link that tends to focus on positive images. I know, scientifically speaking, I can’t be infected with the “happy” gene, but I might be able to re-train my brain to see the beauty first. Well, it can’t hurt! (See, I can be trained.)
Posted by:Julie Hendriksen
