A Smile Can Change Everything!

Dear friend, Are you discouraged today? Maybe even slightly depressed? Are you 12 days into the new year and already you wonder why you ever tried? Do not be discouraged, dear one. His mercies are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness. Confess your faults one to another. Be encouraged and thankful.  Know that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.  Remember that each day is new and a smile can change everything!


   So...go to the mirror and Smile at yourself. Extend the same mercy and grace to yourself that God extends.  Spend some time in the Word this morning, and pray. Confess and Commit your way to Him. Put on some Godly encouraging music or hum a hymn yourself.  Don't look at obstacles as symbols of failure or as communicating that you are on the wrong path.  Press on.  Did you remember to put on the whole armor of God this morning? Go back and do that now, if you forgot, and keep raising that shield of faith when you feel under attack.  And keep smiling: at your family, those strangers you meet today "out there," and at yourself! A smile can change everything!

The God of all Comfort

It is of the LORD's mercies
that we are not consumed, because
his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning:
great is thy faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

These are very precious promises and words we can depend on. For the Lord is faithful to His Word. I have become aware this past year of the great comfort to be found in the Scriptures! I always knew that God would speak to me and direct me through them--that they were His thoughts and Truth.....but I have found in them a deep and abiding peace in the midst of uncertain times and circumstances. God comforts His children through His Word.

I also find great encouragement in singing hymns, especially during my quiet time with the Lord in the morning! I have at home a dilapidated copy of our church hymnal (it will open up and lay flat on the piano, which is very helpful especially for my kids who accompany the hymn-singing at church). I haven't memorized hundreds or thousands of hymns as Elisabeth Elliot says she did as a child, but phrases will repeat in my head through the day, which is very pleasant and helpful to my faith :)

Yesterday, the hymn "Count Your Blessings" kept running through my head! Here are the words:

"Are you ever burdened with a load of care?

Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?

Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,

And you will be singing as the days go by.

Count your blessings, Name them one by one;

Count your blessings, see what God hath done;

Count your blessings, Name them one by one;

Count your many blessings,

See what God hath done."

It may not be that "every doubt" will immediately "fly away" or that you will feel like bursting into song, but the combination of applying the Truth of God's Word to the wounds of your heart, and thanking the Lord for His many blessings will eventually work as salve to your soul and healing to your heart.

One of my favorite hymns when I am discouraged is:

How Firm a Foundation ye saints of the Lord,

is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!

What more can He say than to you He hath said,

To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

"Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,

For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid;

I'll strengthen thee, help thee,

and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand."

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow,

For I will be with thee, thy trials to bless,

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress."

"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to his foes;

That soul,

though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I'll never, no never, no never forsake!"

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

"Blessed be God,

even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the Father of mercies,

and the God of all comfort;

Who comforteth us in all our tribulation,

that we may be able to

comfort them which are in any trouble,

by the comfort wherewith we ourselves

are comforted of God."