One of "those" days

Ever have one of “those” days?  Yeah, you know the one I’m talking about.  The one where you wake up thinking you will conquer the world, but you end up burying your head under a pillow crying your eyes out? Yep, one of “those” days.  It’s not so much the fact that you ended the day in tears that has you scratching your head, it’s the fact that you thought everything was going well, dandy indeed, when all of a sudden, BAM!  Out of nowhere.  Those are the sucker punches that hurt the most.  And you know, it doesn't really matter who/what caused it, it hurts the same no matter what.

So what do you do when life gets the best of you?  I tend to want to make a cup of coffee and just feel sorry for myself, but with four kids and a husband, that isn't realistic.  These moments humble me, because I see my selfishness and the mantra I say to my kids over and over plays in my head, "Happiness is a choice."

I was reading something today by Beth Moore, she can be wild and crazy sometimes, but she was right on today.  Or maybe it was just right on for me.  She was referring to James' "consider it pure joy when you encounter various trials".  I can't for the life of me, imagine instantly finding joy in awful circumstances, it's just not me.  I'm more of an Eeyore than a Tigger, so those awful circumstances take me down for the count.  But she said this, "The word 'consider' calls us to a mental exercise.  Not an emotion.  James isn't telling us to have a knee-slapper over all we're going through.  He's telling us to think, to reflect, and to esteem the unalloyed joys available to us 'whenever [we] experience various trials."  We can't purposefully dive into a garbage dump and count it all joy...sometimes we just happen to fall in.