Saturday, November  1, 2008

Rejoice over her, O heaven, and also the saints, apostles, and prophets, because God has judged her in the same way she has judged you. Rev. 18:20.

An interesting feature of this text is that Scripture commands the saints to rejoice, orders them to be happy. Most of us think that we can be happy only when things are going well. But evidently happiness is a choice-one that God's people can make even in the hardest of times.

Recently my mother had to spend some time in a nursing home. Ninety-one years old at the time, she got her foot caught in a blanket while she tried to get the phone, and she fell down hard, breaking the upper part of her left leg, right next to the hip. After the doctors set the break, she spent several weeks in the hospital. The time came when she still needed 24-hour care but Medicare would no longer pay the high costs of hospital rehabilitation. So she moved into a room at a nursing home with three other women at a reduced level of care.

While visiting her from day to day, I noticed that the residents of the nursing home seemed to have very different reactions to their situation. Some of them seemed angry all the time, demanding things of the attendants and complaining about everything from the food, to the quality of the mattress, to the location of the television, to the nurses' reaction time. They seemed to be suffering a great deal.

Others were just the opposite. Constantly cheery, they greeted everyone who walked by, thanked the nurses for their efforts even when things didn't go well, commented on the beautiful sunshine out the window, and complimented the doctor for taking time out of his busy schedule to visit with them.

Someone asked one of the residents about her unfailing cheerfulness. I thought you might be interested in her response.

"Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged. What counts is how I arrange my mind. Every morning I have a choice: I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.

"Each day is a gift, and I try to make things as pleasant as I can for everyone around me. It seems that if I think more of others than I do of myself, I can make a difference in my world, even though much of me doesn't work anymore. This sense of purpose keeps me going. It's just a lot more fun to be happy and cheerful than it is to be angry and resentful."

Lord, I choose to be happy today. Help me to change my world and the attitude of the people around me.

If matters of difficulty between brethren were not laid open before others, but frankly spoken of between themselves in the spirit of Christian love, how much evil might be prevented! How many roots of bitterness whereby many are defiled would be destroyed, and how closely and tenderly might the followers of Christ be united in His love! (TFMB 59).