A couple had a strange problem with their twin sons. George was growing up to be an amazing optimist, while Dennis a worsening pessimist.
Whenever George appreciated the gentle sunshine, the tasty food on the table or the good singing and sermon at church, Dennis would negate it saying the weather is horrible, the food is tasteless, the choir was croaking and the preacher blabbering. If George said tomorrow will be better, Dennis would say it will be worse.
On New Years' Eve, their parents tried to do a balancing act between their little twins. When they were away, they filled pessimist-Dennis' room with a heap of the best toys and gadgets and optimist-George's room with a heap of horse dung.
Dennis grumbled, "Dad, my friends are going to get jealous but I think the batteries of these toys won't last long, these gadgets appear fake, and I think there are surely better gifts you could have bought me."
Surprisingly, they found George shovelling through the horse dung, saying, "Dad, help me, there's got to be a live pony somewhere in here!"
Life's biggest problems can turn to your advantage when you look at them positively. When Goliath stood before the Israelites, the soldiers may have thought, "He's too gigantic, we can't knock him down." But David may have said, "This guy is too big, I just can't miss him. I'll knock him down with this pebble in my sling."
When you live each day with a positive hope, your tomorrow is never scary. Life is how you learn from it. Our strongest hopes, our best decisions in life and boldest victories draw their energy from our yesterday's deepest despair, bitterest humiliation and profoundest failures. Abraham Lincoln once remarked, "We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."
Steven Callahan shocked the world in 1982 when he survived 76 days all alone on a life-raft after his sailboat was wrecked while crossing the Atlantic. Though survival was bleak with supplies dwindling and his physical energy draining off, he caught fish and used a solar still to evaporate sea water for drinking.
He wrote later: "I repeatedly told myself I can handle it. Compared to what others have been through, I am fortunate."
When you rely on your own strengths you can handle much. When you rely on God, you can handle everything.
The scriptures encourage us: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance; let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything" (James 1:2-4). Saint Paul urges us to rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation and constant in prayer (Romans 12:12).
With faith in The Lord, you can learn from yesterday, live fully today and hope for a promising tomorrow.
