The Bright Side

Last week was really awful. I won't go into detail - you'll just have to believe me. Truly, it was one of the worst weeks I've had all year. Pretty much everything fell apart, broke, didn't go as planned or just plain failed. It was pretty bad.

What I usually do when I have bad days or weeks like that, is try to imagine how much worse it could be. For example, my car broke down right when I needed it the most and I had to rent a car to drive to San Jose for the weekend. So to help myself see the bright side, I tried to think of how it could be worse.


Well, the rental place could have charged me twice as much for being under 25, but they didn't... and at least they had a car available on short notice. And even if my power steering doesn't work on my car,  at least the engine is still sort of running... and it got me back home last weekend, which is a real bonus, because it could have stopped working on the road...


So it takes a bit of creativity, but there is always a way things could be worse - and once you think of those things, your current troubles don't seem quite so bad.

Also, I think God uses the bad weeks to teach us to trust in Him. Things will go wrong in our lives, so it is silly for us to draw our security from our circumstances. But we do anyway, right? What if, instead of drawing our security from our circumstances, we drew our security from Christ? Can you imagine how that would change our reactions to unplanned events in our lives? But I am convinced that God faithfully uses these unplanned events in my own life to show me what is truly important, and to teach me thankfulness.

Every weekend when driving to and from San Jose, I have passed a farm that has great reminders posted up for drivers. When passing the farm, you can see some hand-made signs that say, "Trust Jesus". That is all. And each time I pass them, I am reminded of the only really important thing in life - that I am surrendered to HIM. This week it was a particularly good reminder, because of all that had happened.

Really, even the worst of weeks can be turned into good weeks if we are willing to trust in the One who is in control of our circumstances - namely, Jesus Christ.