Sunny Smiles

I'm sure this message won't be new, because it's advice that people so often give, however, everyone needs a reminder now and then.

Smile.

Even when life can't seem to get any worse, smile.  At the very least, the act of smiling tricks your body into releasing a small amount of happy hormones.  

My mom always gives advice about confidence.  She says "even if you don't feel it, fake it."  And the funny thing about faking confidence is that, after a while, you find that you aren't faking it anymore.  The same goes for being happy.  (No, I'm not telling you to never let anyone know when you're upset. People need that sometimes.  You can't always be happy, it just isn't possible to feel cheery every moment of every day.  However...)  If you're having a gloomy mood kind of day for no apparent reason, put that smile on your face, and fake the happiness.  Soon you'll forget that you're even faking.

Smile.

Smiles have a huge amount of power in the world.  Imagine, you're having a bad day, you're walking down the aisle of the grocery store, not paying a lot of attention to the front of your cart.  You're busy thinking about all of the ways that your day fell apart.  You run into someone's foot with the wheels of your cart, and drop your purse at the same time.  The person turns around, glares at you, and says sharply "Watch where you're going," before turning the corner into the next aisle.

Or, does the person turn around, and giving you a friendly smile picks up your purse for you?  Does the person reply to your mumbled apology with an upbeat "Don't worry about it!" and cheerily wishes you a good-bye before turning into the bread aisle?  Doesn't that sound like a much happier version?  That's the kind of response that can turn a bad day around.

It's incredible what a difference that someone flashing a smile at you can make.  Smiles say "You're worthy of happiness.  You are cared about."  In the same way that you would hope that someone would give you a smile on your worst days, be willing to shell them out as often as you can.  They're free, after all.

Smile.

You never know the difference that it'll make.

Faith: We are Never Alone

For a while, things in my life have been going great, which makes me very happy, for obvious reasons, but it seems as though God hasn't been as close as He is during the tough times.  I've prayed, and I've read my Bible, but no matter what I did, I just couldn't find that calming reassurance that has pulled me out of the worst times in my life.  I began to get worried.  I couldn't let this separation happen, just because there aren't many challenges in my life at this moment.

I didn't want bad things to start happening, but I wanted to feel God again,  I didn't want this slow drift apart.  Then, today, Never Alone by Barlow Girl came on when I was listening to music.  At first thought, it seems like it's meant to help during the low points in our life, times when everything seems to be going wrong, when no matter what we do, we are constantly falling down.  Then I thought, no, I can connect to this, even though I've had very little to overcome recently.



It has always been fairly easy for me to have Faith in God, because there have been very few moments when I haven't felt Him, so this has been an extremely odd experience for me.  But, of course, God is still there, and that's what Faith is, isn't it?  Hebrews 11:1 says "Faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance in what we do not see."

I'm beginning to learn that having a strong Faith has very little to do with how we respond when we can feel God's presence, but how we respond when we cannot.  Deuteronomy 31:6 says "Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you."  God will never leave us alone.  Never.  Not when we're furious and screaming at Him, not when we've locked ourselves in our bedrooms crying, not when we're filled with nothing but joy.

Our Faith can be tested at any time, not just in our struggles, as I believed until just recently.  So even when it seems as though God has abandoned us, we must trust that He is still with us, still walking through life with us.  When we believe otherwise, we are believing lies.

Beauty 101: It's True

I know that I have many opinions on many different things, who doesn’t? But I’m tired of people thinking bad things about themselves, girls in particular (simply because I am a girl and know the struggles, not because y’all with the Y chromosome aren’t awesome!). So it’s time that my thoughts on beauty pour outward. In the next few days or so, I’ll be writing a series of posts on beauty that will hopefully help each of you, even those of my male readers.

It's True.

A friend once told me that her boyfriend had called her beautiful. She said that it was a major confidence booster, even though it wasn't true. I looked at her and kind of cocked my head questioningly, saying of course it was true. We went back and forth for a few moments, and then I firmly said "All people are beautiful." And that is so unbelievably true, even though we don't always see it. No matter how many times we fight against compliments, no matter how many times we look in the mirror and think that there is no possible way that the mess we see could be beautiful, none of that is right. What is right is that all people are beautiful. You are beautiful.

Today's society tells us that in order to be beautiful we need to wear layers upon layers of makeup to hide blemishes, we need to wear a dress size zero, and if we don't, we need to squeeze into one anyway. According to society we need to have small feet and long fingers, and silky long hair. But that's not where actual beauty comes from. Actual beauty comes from the inside, not the outside. 1 Peter chapter 3 verses 3 and 4 say "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight."

God loves each and everyone of us, and we are each amazingly beautiful in His eyes. But God doesn't see what we as humans see. While we're looking at the outward appearance, God sees the inside. He sees our thoughts, and our motivations. And He absolutely loves us. Guess what, God created each of us in His own image, so of course we're beautiful.

Please believe people when they tell you that you are beautiful, because it's true! And also, today, I challenge you to work towards looking at the inward beauty of yourself and others, as opposed to the outward appearance. Try to see what our Heavenly Father see. He rejoices over us!

Forgiving AND Forgetting

I sat down to write this post yesterday. I had a very, very long post written out, but as I got to the end I began to truly think about what I was writing about, and I realized that, well, I didn't like the advice I was giving. Don't get me wrong, I totally and fully believe that this is good advice, but it wasn't advice that I was following until now.

Today I'm gonna try a little harder
Gonna make every minute last longer

Gonna learn to forgive and forget
'Cause we don't have long, gonna make the most of it

As much as I love that entire song, it's the quoted lyrics above that truly speak to me. That's what I've always struggled with. I never thought that I had an issue with forgiveness, but as I was writing the post, I realized that I was squirming as I tried to draw the line between just forgiving and forgiving and forgetting. I've always said that I have no issue forgiving, that I do it for my benefit. But I'm also a huge grudge holder. Therefore I've believed that I forgive people, but I don't forget what they did. Is that really ever true forgiveness though?

I mean, yeah, you can never truly forget what happened if it was a super big deal, but what I'm saying is that you need to be able to look past it. Which was where my forgiveness usually stopped. I don't really even know how I was able to say that I had forgiven a person when whenever I thought about them, or what they had done, anger would boil up in my mind. That, my darlings, isn't forgiveness. That is, in fact, lying to yourself.

As I wrote the post yesterday about how it was okay to just forgive, and not forget, sometimes, I tried to think about what forgiveness was then. Because it surely wasn't what I had been doing. My stomach squirmed as I tried to justify myself, tried to tell myself that it was okay. And I just couldn't do it. I wasn't looking past what had happened, and I truly couldn't forgive until I had.

But forgiveness was just too scary. What if my forgiveness was taken and snapped into two pieces? What if it totally backfired? What if what if what if? Right now, after taking that chance we call forgiveness, I'm laughing at myself. Forgiveness is worth that chance, because even if it does backfire, does it actually cause anymore harm?

I encourage you to take that leap of forgiveness today. Even if the person doesn't want it, forgiving other people will make you feel a whole lot better, because holding onto that anger takes so much energy.

"I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one."

~Henry Ward Beecher

Dancing in the Rain

The school year is coming to a close. Actually, at this point, it is at a close. With only one and a half days to go, I am left remembering the three glorious years that I've had at my middle school. Some of the memories that I have are happy, some are not so happy. Nevertheless, I love each and every one of them.

I've come into contact with so many new people in these past three years, and I've learned at least a little something from each one. It's difficult to believe that I'm going to be saying goodbye to so many of my peers, and all of the teachers and staff that make this school such an amazing place to be.

As I look about my bedroom, my computer, my cell phone, everywhere, I am finding reminders of everything I've gone through. Each of the laughs come rushing back to the forefront of my mind, each of the tears seem to be pointless. It's kind of crazy to think about how something that affected me so badly as I went through it, is so utterly unimportant now. I really can only see the smiles and laughs that I've exchanged, even when I try to remember the sorrows and tears.

I guess that one thing that middle school has taught me, is to never take anything for granted. Obviously I still do sometimes, but I'm a work in progress, aren't we all? And I'm not only talking about material objects, but I'm talking about the experiences that we've had. Good things, as well as bad things, don't last forever, nothing does, and we need to learn it, live it, and love it before it ends.

That quote, "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain" is so true. Keeping our heads up, despite a torrential down pour that we may be in, is what we all need to learn how to do. Smiling, even though it seems like even nature can't help but to cry. Yes, dancing in the rain is what we all need to do.

I wish that I had realized that sooner. I wish it would be easier to live out, because even though I've realized it, I don't know what the chances are that I will always be able to stay optimistic. I think back to the times in the past three years that I thought I was going through absolute hell, and I can hardly even remember those times now, because they each led to something amazing. They each led to the rainbow. I wish that I had seen how trivial most of my problems were before I wasted so much time.

So now, even though the ending of this school year is bittersweet, the ending and the beginning, I don't have any regrets. Not a single one. Don't sit inside and mope as the rain pounds on the windows, get up, get out, and dance.

Today, I am Alive

There have been whispers of Judgement Day coming this Saturday, and as I walked up from the bus stop today with my brother and another boy who might as well be my brother too we were kind of joking about it. Out of the three of us, none of us doubt that we'll wake up on Sunday morning, none of us doubt that our families will wake up, and none of us doubt that our friends will wake up. For a moment I had a flash of what it would be like if Saturday really is it. Don't you think we'd all be living our lives a little bit differently?

I know that I take my life for granted. To me, there are no questions about it, I will wake up safe, taken care of, and relatively happy tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and days and days, and years and years to come. But tomorrow could be it. Tomorrow could be the last page of my story. The last page of my story could be in just one second for all I know. Yet I take my life for granted.

So with these thoughts passing through my mind, my walk up from the bus stop took on a whole new meaning to me. That could have been the last time I ever walk up that hill, the last time I ever kick the wet leaves from the road. I set my mind differently, and I smiled with each step that I took, grinned as I took the mail out of the mailbox, and added an extra bounce in my step.

There's so much that I would do if I knew that tomorrow would be my last day. So many words I would say, so many people I would want to be with, and so many smiles I would give. I wouldn't want to leave this world without leaving my mark, and there are times when I know that I most definitely haven't done that yet. God gave me this life on earth to do something specific, to do His work, to live for Him, before the glorious eternal life I will have in Heaven. There is nothing that we can take for granted, because God had the power to give everything we have to us, and He has the power to take it all away.

So I'm going to start thinking before speaking, smiling before thinking, and listening before saying. I'm not going to regret, and I'm not going to watch life fly by without living it. If we all live like this, we'd all be so much happier, not to mention the wonders of the world that we'd all be living in. So join me in living each day as though it was our last!

April Reflections and True Happiness

For English class we have to write a journal entry at the end of each month. The only guidelines are that these entries have to be at least a page long, grammatically correct, and have evidence of reflection. As I wrote mine for the month of April, I realized that the beginning of it, at least, sounded a lot like my blog posts usually do, and I figured I'd write something of the sort for Abby's Abstracts.

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It’s funny how as at the end of each month I look back at what has happened, and I’m completely shocked. You’d think that by now I’d be totally used to the unexpected happening, and expect it to happen. Apparently that’s not quite how it works. I wouldn’t say that the month of April has been a bad month, though. Yeah, it’s most definitely been shocking, but not bad, which shocks me in and of itself.

The truth that I've found this month is that true happiness does not come from looking at what we've done and who we've been, true happiness comes from looking forward to our big, bright futures. The past is the past, and whether it's good or bad, we aren't going to be able to change it or relive it. Our memories can make us smile now and then, but dwelling too much on them is only going to cause each of us strife. I've spent the majority of April planning the Summertime fun that I know I'm going to have, and making decisions to be happy, no matter what. No matter how it seems at certain points in time, it's true that we all do have BIG bright futures!

And who knew, all it took was the quickly approaching summer for me to figure that out? This summer I'm going to have an adventure of self-discovery. I'm going to find who I am, and I'm going to be a teenager. I refuse to be punctual and responsible and the as-close-to-perfect-as-possible person I always have tried so hard to be. I'm still going to be me though, and I know my limits. I'm not going to go crazy or anything, so no worries, but my goal is to find who I truly am, and to focus on the good in life. It's going to be a great summer, I can feel it throughout my whole being.

Alright, so I guess this isn't a reflection on April, but it is a reflection. And it at least starts with talking about April. Oh well, hope y'all enjoy!