Joy in the Morning!

     I am not a natural morning person. Give or take two or more cups of coffee and I am ready to go. However, that being said, there is something peaceful and quintessential about the morning. I was having a conversation this morning via text with a friend of mine and as I said, "Good Morning, it is a great day." His reply was, "Is it?"

    Absolutely it is. As a mother, evenings can be frustrating and it can be hard to find that inner calm when your seven year old is biting his brother and all you want to do is pull your hair out and cry. Psalms 30:5 says -" ....Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning." (NLT) How awesome is that? No matter what may trouble us the night before, relationship issues, aggravating children, that dreaded homework assignment you keep putting off. What ever it is, come the morning it is all in the past. It is a distant memory. Joy comes in the morning. The joy in knowing that God chose to wake you up this morning and each morning that He chooses to do so.

     My friend, the comedian that he thinks he is, sent me this picture of a cat. Ahh, but W, I beg to differ, there is such a thing as a Good Morning! There is, if you choose to wake up and say it's a good morning. The thing is that there is no guarantee that we will wake up in the morning and there is not even a guarantee that it will be a perfect day.

    It's a brand new day and God is giving us another day to spend loving our families, praising Him and to live life. What better way to say, "Thank you," than to wake up and and praise Him, the God who gave us life and who created us in His image? We are blessed because we woke up this morning.

     Yes, the problems of yesterday may be still with us, we woke up in the same frustrating situation, the same un-perfect body, the same house we want out of, but we woke up! We get another day and another chance to do something with this life that had we not woken up this morning...well then perhaps you might be able to say it is not a good day. Don't let your problems become so overwhelming and important that it makes your morning less joyful.

     None of us has the perfect life, but we have life and that is what matters. That is what counts when you wake up in the morning. Make today count. Take your little one who was aggravating you to see a movie, or go for ice cream with your children. Do something that says, Yes my world is not perfect, but I can take joy in the little things. We can either dwell on the issues that plague us, or we can take wonder in the beauty of this world (yes there is still beauty in this world, all you have to do is look!).

    My friend has 2 amazing children, he has people that love him and a God who has brought him through many challenges that for most of us, we would find it hard to go on. Yet he is still here, praising God and telling people who will listen, just how awesome and great our God truly is. It is the blessings in our life that enable us to find joy in the morning. Blessings that are God given. All you have to do is look around you to know that God is there. He is there in the sun shining through the window and he is there in the gloomy days of winter. No matter what your situation, if you woke up today, it is not just a good morning, it is a great morning!!!