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Day’s Verse:

A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.

Proverbs 15:13

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Today’s picture: Mom on the airplane as we flew back from California A complete accident, but I think it still has some interesting qualities.

I need to learn how to be more cheerful. All the time – every day – Christ shows His great mercy and love to us, but so often we brush that aside as luck, good timing, or simply take it for granted. In search of miracles it becomes easy to overlook the small blessings. Yesterday, scrambling for dinner, we went over to my family’s house to eat dinner. While there I picked up some nice blouses I had accidentally left from our trip to California. Then today I found out that I needed just such a blouse for my meeting with a guy from Act-1 at Amgen: not so much fortitous as a small miracle. A cheerful heart is a joy to the Lord, I hear tell; but to become cheerful, what must one do? Look on the bright side? A counselor would say it’s all about how you talk to yourself in your head. Some people begin life with a cheery disposition while others see the glass as half-empty, but I’m not sure that’s what the point is. Consider it pure joy… Is a merry heart a joyful one or a happy one? I would have to point to a crucial difference between the two, since the emotion of happiness flicks on and off quicker than a lightbulb but joy I always thought of as a lasting characteristic.

How to obtain this joy, a blessing offered from God to Christians out of love? I think it comes with maturity in Christ so that as you grow in your walk with Him you can trust Him more and rest more fully in His peace. Knowing fully and in the heart that the most powerful being in the universe personally cares for you – now that would give anybody joy.

Polished and cleaned engagement ring on my finger catches my eye – is that my diamond? At E.E. Robbins they chastised me for mistreating my expensively beautiful ring, somehow getting it “out of round” as well as scraping its surface deeply (think: wiring a computer along a brick wall). However, the loseness of the diamond they could not attribute to me because I certainly did not pound on the thing with a hammer or anything. Now I can once again see reflections in the ring’s surface and for a second time I resolve to keep it in better condition. The problem is, some people are not jewelry-wearers and do not think about such things as keeping rings in good condition. I, among this group, feel that I ought to live my life and have a ring that will survive along with me – like a marriage, I suppose. If a marriage can’t withstand some weathering and scraping, maybe even have to flex to fit each person better, it’s probably not going to last. Nobody has a perfectly round finger (do they?!), and no two people have a perfectly matched marriage – so is having a ring “out of round” so bad? -In this case, I think so because that is what loosened the diamond’s setting. I never realized how much work a person had to put into maintaining real jewelry…or a marriage.

As a side note, visit OnlyWriting and leave a comment!

– KF –

Countdown:

3 days

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