Today I had a plan.  I got up made my coffee and put myself together and started on my “list”.    You know how it goes, had everything planned out, worked out the national debt and loaded up the Escape and headed out the door.  Made it as far as stop number three before the plan went out the door and the day went to – well you know.

Everything went to Hell in the proverbial hand basket and as I regrouped for the day I lamented not for the first time how this year is not really working out any better than 2015.  My hope and change has turned into anger, annoyance and sometimes despair.  So I did the only thing I could..back up, regroup and forge ahead.

Later in the day as I settled into being somewhat more productive I was looking for a particular picture in all the places that modern media has allowed us to share and store our pictures.  It’s not like looking through the shoe box anymore.  It’s great to click the mouse a couple of times and scroll through several years of pictures in just a few minutes.  Looking at those pictures reminded me of all the great moments that I had last year and already this year, putting a smile on my face.  I started thinking about how we sometimes live too much in the moment and what a shame it is that we allow trouble to overtake us and dwell in us and make us forget all the great moments that we have experienced.

We too often allow an incident, an acquaintance, a betrayal or a disappointment to become the focus of our day, our week or our year.  We give away our happiness, our contentment and our joy of life to someone or something.  We fall into despair unable to feel joy or feel happiness.  We in essence throw away all the good experiences we have had, all the good friends and good times, all the joys that God has given us.  We say that the bad has more power than the good, that evil really does overcome virtue and the bad guy always wins.  That is true despair and a waste of the life that God has given us.

Please don’t misunderstand, I know pain and sorrow, betrayal and fear and I am in no way discounting the very real suffering that most of us endure from time to time in our lives.  There is no Easter without the Cross.  But as we endure and embrace our cross we must also remember the beauty of the Spring, how the greatest beauty can often be seen in smallest of things.  Remember the joy that we have experienced is there to be experienced again if we just remember to look at the pictures.