joy – Life Lessons

If you’re reading this, it means you woke up today. Not everyone did. So be grateful. Whether you woke up in good or bad spirits, you still woke up. Whether you woke up to good or bad news, you still woke up.

My take on waking up is this: 1) I defeated the devil by doing so. 2) I’m given another opportunity to show love, grace, and mercy to someone. 3) I get to soak up another day of life’s blessings. 4) I’m one day closer to achieving my goals.

“I defeated the devil by doing so“

Waking up is a blessing from God, not Satan. Satan fills us with enough stress, worry, and anxiety to kill us in our sleep. That’s why it is important to go to bed with positive thoughts. You must keep the enemy from attacking you, even while you sleep.

Natural causes of death will occur. That’s fate. But if you don’t get control of your thoughts and emotions, you’ll become a lifeless, miserable soul. You might be physically woke but dying within. Thus, God also wakes us up to give us another chance to choose happiness.

“I’m given another opportunity to show love, grace, and mercy to someone”

I believe that as long as God continues to breathe life into me, the least I can do is give life to someone else by showing love, grace, or mercy. It’s called, “paying it forward”.

You don’t realize how much of a blessing waking up is until you’ve learned that someone you knew did not wake up today. Therefore, I try to treat every day like it’s my last. I will show love to someone in sometimes the simplest ways like sending a kind text message. I will help whomever I can whenever I can. I will forgive quickly and keep it moving.

Obedience is my priority, and I lead by example. That’s my mission.

“I get to soak up another day of life’s blessings”

The biggest blessings I enjoy waking up to are God’s grace, my family, and my health. Nothing else matters more. Some people wake up to the stock market. Some wake up to social media or television. Some wake up to music or whatever floats their boat. I can’t weigh your blessings on my scale. However, some of the little things I enjoy waking up to are a bed, a home with A/C and heat, transportation, and good food!

“I’m one day closer to achieving my goals”

Whether it seems like it or not, every calendar day counts toward achieving your goals, short and long term. Weren’t we just in 2024? Aren’t we already in April? Before you know it, you’ll be paying off that debt, owning that car or home, graduating from college, starting that business, taking that dream vacation, or saying “I do” at the alter. But one of the easiest ones you can achieve is getting closer to God.

Say it with me, “I am blessed because I woke up today!”

“If tomorrow isn’t promised, then don’t take today for granted. Happiness is a mindset. You just have to demand it.”

-Bianca A. McCormick-Johnson ✍🏽

Happiness is a choice. You can either claim it or disown it. Don’t believe me? Try pushing that smile button and keep applying pressure until you begin to feel happy.

Remember those old gas heaters? You had to keep applying pressure until that pilot lit up. You heard several clicks before hearing that rush from the pilot. It was like a sense of relief! At that moment, you felt instant gratification for that heater because you knew warmth was on the way! You were so determined to feel that heat that you wouldn’t stop applying pressure.

In that same way, you must apply pressure to trigger happiness in your life. However, you must understand that happiness is a temporary feeling. No one can be happy all the time because it can immediately be overturned by some unfortunate incident.

Think about a time(s) in your life when you were happy, then suddenly, that one phone call or incident zapped it all away. Well, I can name several. Can I get a witness?

It is nearly impossible to remain happy after hearing disturbing news or being involved in a serious incident. It will certainly take time and spiritual intervention to bounce back. Some instances might take an extended period of time plus therapy. But choosing to remain broken, depressed, or despondent is where you come in.

You cannot change what happened to you, but you can change what you think about. The memory will reappear, especially when idle, but you must change the channel in your mind, just as you do when searching for something interesting or entertaining to watch on television.

Sometimes, you may have to change your environment or objects in your space. For example, I recently removed obituaries of my deceased sister and brother-in-law from my work space because they were conjuring up sad memories way too often. I didn’t realize the damage it was doing to my spirit.

Nevertheless, seeing my sister’s smiling face on my screen saver and thinking of fun times with my brother-in-law make me smile and focus on good memories of them. But this might not affect another individual in the same way. That’s why it is important to do what works for you. Do whatever it takes to recapture that smile over and over again, until you begin to feel happy – even if it’s only for that moment.

And remember…
“Make sense of what you do, and make every cent count.”

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear them.

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Photo: Flickr by Cartale

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Tag: joy

You Woke Up Today

Learn to Be Happy in That Moment