Don't Worry; Be Happy!

It's Thursday already. Guess it has been a busy week. It's amazing how quickly time passes. Just two more days and we will have been in this house for a month already. Isn't it strange how our perception of time changes as we look ahead to something compared to looking back at what is in the past.

It has been said so often that the only thing we really have is the present. What has happened in the past is gone and soon forgotten. What is coming in the future we do not know for sure. All we can control is the present by living moment to moment. Another way to think of this is to be mindful - keeping your thoughts in the moment you are living. That helps us really experience life and appreciate it.

Grief can cause you to live in the past. Our focus is placed on the one we lost from our life and we relive all the memories we can draw to mind. Losing my parents was so painful and I just couldn't figure out how to live my own life without them. It took me a long time to work through the grief of each of them. But life does go on. There are tomorrows that come and go and eventually you reach a place where today becomes your focus again.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:34 NIV).

Thankfully, not every day holds trouble. But it does seem like life passes as the song suggests, turn around and you're a young child, turn around and you're an old man or woman. Today I will focus on what I can do to make it a good day. Whether it is marking items off your "to do" list, reaching out to someone with kindness, staying in the moment as you greet a friend, or pausing to tell God how much you love Him; focus on today and be happy!