A joyful heart . . .

A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22 NASV

I found all of this in an old box that has been stored at my house for, (embarrassed cough), about 25 years. Wow. I sewed for many years before I was a scrapbooker. They've all been washed and cleaned up now, ready for my craft room. As I was going through these, (side note - Boxes are not good places to store things long term. It was gross!), several things occurred to me.

This box was from a very different time period in my life. Back then money was so tight that I literally never threw anything away. I was reminded of how resourceful I can be when necessary. These are some of the 'containers' that I had used for storage. 

Necessity is the  mother of invention, right? It was a rather comical reminder to me that even in the hard times, God is still faithful. We were so poor back then that I'm amazed we didn't starve to death! One year as we were wrapping presents, (ie- clearance items I had picked up over the entire year so the kids would have something to open Christmas morning!), we ran out of tape. We had no money to go buy more. My mom owned a florist so I did have an abundance of ribbon. That year I taught our oldest how to wrap presents without tape by tying the ribbon around the box! We still laugh about it.

Marie Osmond's book, "Might as Well Laugh About It Now" is one of the current books on my stack of reading material. The title is from her outlook on life: "You're going to laugh about it someday . . . Might as well laugh about it now." My husband has told me about a million times over the last 22 years that 'it's' going to get better, referring to whatever 'it' was troubling us most at the time. Usually I've doubted his sanity. He's been right every time. Granted, things may have gotten much worse before they got better. But eventually, 'it' always got better.

Funny how that happens. The truth is that life is full of ups and downs. Sometimes those downs are extremely painful. Loss hurts. Fear can sometimes grip us so tightly that we can't even breathe. In those times, I'm trying to take Marie's advice these days. Go ahead and laugh, even if it's through the tears. Look for the bright spots through the pain. Cherish the happy memories but don't forget to make new ones. Let go of yesterday's hurt and look forward to tomorrow's sunshine. And just remember, like my sweet hubby says, it's gonna get better!

 Blessings!
Renea