Smile a While

Yesterday my brother Chris, profoundly advised me, "Mary, don't sweat the small stuff. Don't even worry about money for retirement. We all simply need to be courageous about the things we know are true. Very courageous."

He told me this after he told me that his son had just called to tell him goodbye before going to war. His son is an airforce pilot. Since then I have been watching the news for hours. News without any news, if you know what I mean.

And how do I show my courage? How do I demonstrate my faith in the future, no matter what it holds? I only know of two things: Prayer and Love. They stand as inseparable allies in our journey. Both different and yet so similar.

And so I pray. I approach God. It is to Him that I offer petitions of mercy. It is He who with his omniscient majesty, comprehends me and all the billions everywhere else, and personally answers in perfect faithfulness. Prayer is passageway to my Heavenly Father. It is my means of expression and opening my mind. It is simultaneously, introspection and adjusted perspective.

And so I love--or sometimes in difficulty try to. Love comprehends me and all the billions. Love is always available and outflowing from our Eternal Source. Love is passageway to God and passageway to another person's heart and life. If I am true it is means of expression and opens my mind to understanding. Most definitely it is introspection and offers corrected perspective.

Sometimes love heals, sometimes it makes me bleed. I also have seen and enjoyed healing miraculous prayers. But, while upon my knees, I also have felt rebuke and correction. Love has energized me so that even my fingers and toes felt infused with magic, but at other times reeled me with exhaustion. Likewise, prayers have given me strength and renewal; and at other times left me still lonesome, tired and wondering.

Different circumstances demand different loves, but final realizations always prove love to be the bond between ourselves and happiness, and I suspect, the very element of Eternal Life. Likewise I have never been at a loss for a prayer in any trial or any joy, and always time has proven that prayer always was the infallible cable of strength and security to our Maker.

Show Courage: Pray and Love.