Rise and Shine

Happy Easter! I've been up already for a while, and my mind has been buzzing so I couldn't fall back to sleep. Last night, my family and I watched "The Blind Side" while eating dinner. This was an amazing true story of courage, faith, compassion, sacrifice, and love. If you want to find out what the movie was based on or a synopsis, look it up or rent it today. I don't want to get into the details of the movie, but I do want to talk a bit about the words I just mentioned.

Courage. Faith. Compassion. Sacrifice. Love. Powerful qualities to have, don't you think? As we are in a new Easter season, we are faced with the story of Jesus and how he possessed these qualities. One of the most difficult things to do is to maintain these things in our lives, and live their meanings. It is even harder to maintain love, for example, for those who would mock or persecute us. It is hard to love people who don't show us love. It is hard to show compassion for people who don't show us compassion. It is very difficult to maintain faith and courage when it seems that hope is all but lost. And it is extremely difficult to sacrifice things that we have gotten accustomed to, or to sacrifice something we would want for the sake of someone else, especially when we might never be recognized. But doing the right things are definitely more often than not the harder things. And when we start doing these things we will learn. We will learn not only how to live these qualities, but we will learn so much more about what is in us and we might see the love God shows us through our love to others. This can be so powerful in our lives. Remember that when we face tough times, there are people who have it better than us. But there are also countless others, even more, that have it so much worse than we do. We must consider ourselves blessed to be in a position to learn humility and courage in our tough times so that we may show others how to do the same.

Easter. A time of reflection. A time of promise. A time of rebirth. It is time that we rethink our situations. Analyze where we are now in our lives, in this year, in this week. Let's make a commitment to improve. To not aim to be perfect, but maybe to try to live better. Let's make a commitment to learn more each day and to value each day as a new promise for the future. When we start to see the opportunities amidst the difficulty, we will see brighter sunrises, clearer skies, and our eyes might be opened up to newer more colorful colors in a wider spectrum. Good morning everyone. Happy Easter. RISE AND SHINE!! Thanks for reading, everyone, and have a blessed day!