Breath Deep and Smell the Manure

A family had twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other thought it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up. Opposite in every way, one was an eternal optimist, the other a doom and gloom pessimist.


Just to see what would happen, on Christmas day their father loaded the pessimist's room with every imaginable toy and game. The optimist's room he loaded with horse manure.
That night the father passed by the pessimist's room and found him sitting amid his new gifts crying bitterly.


"Why are you crying?" the father asked.


"Because my friends will be jealous, I'll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I'll constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken." answered the pessimist twin.


Passing the optimist twin's room, the father found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. "What are you so happy about?" he asked.


To which his optimist twin replied, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

Can you find the good even in the midst of the worse? Can you see the light when you are so deep in the valley that it’s hard to even look up?  Can you find a reason to smile when despair and agony seem to be ruling your every thought and move?  What about when you simply wake up on the wrong side of the bed and find yourself in a foul mood?  Are you able to find the pony in the midst of the manure?

Sometimes when we are down it helps just to tell our face that we’re not as down as we are feeling.  Proverbs 15:13 says that a happy heart makes the face cheerful. Proverbs 17:22 tells us that a cheerful heart is good medicine but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Is your spirit crushed?  How did you manage to allow that to happen?  YOU are the keeper of your heart and in the deepest part of your heart is where the spirit of God dwells.  Why did you give permission to someone to smother your hearts’ spirit?  Does your heart not know joy and cheer right now?  Find a reason to bring a smile to your heart.  You may have to start with your face but soon enough your heart will catch on.

For the most part I am a happy person.  I manage to smile a lot and try to engage all persons in conversation and I try to make everyone smile right along with me.  There are days that task is very difficult to do but I do it.  People close to me have asked me how I manage to remain so up and so positive.  My answer is simple.  I have two choices:  I chose the easiest one.  I choose to try and make the best out of it because the other option is to continue wallowing in the muck and the mire and after a while, that starts to smell like that young man’s room must have! 

You see, the point is that the young man was happy and optimistic that he would find a pony when in fact there would be no pony found.  But he had the choice and he chose one.  He chose to be happy and optimistic and to put a smile on his face and in his heart.  He refused to focus on the fact that the pony probably wasn’t in there – he made the decision to turn a pretty horrible and no doubt, stinky situation, in to a reason to smile and rejoice.

What choice are you making today?