Smile even though it hurts

I
ask you to please take just a few minutes to listen and watch the YouTube video below!  It is so contagious and such a blessing.  I promise you won't regret taking a few  minutes out of your schedule to watch.

 I wanted to share this with you this weekend, but decided that the Gratitude Community would be the best place to share it.  After all if anyone knows about SMILES it is those of us who search for and count gifts.  Joy, gratitude... even anger are all an outward expression of something deeper taking place within. Right?

Here's my story: The other day on my way home I heard this song by Kirk Franklin, and have not been able to stop smiling, singing, and humming the words.  I experience pure joy every time this song is played.  My being becomes extremely soothed and my heart is at ease.  I've danced a step or two while singing it and walking around the house.  The first couple of days, the kids looked at me peculiar, but now they've teamed up with me and we all sing and dance either to the tune of it in our head or to what's being played around the house... we dance while we work and we are so content. We smile. 

I've visited with many of you and know you.  You've walked long enough with the Lord to understand such words as: "I almost gave up ..., but a power that I can't explain..." or "Even though I hurt I smile...even though I've been here for a while..."  I smile???

This is a song that will bless you.  It is my anthem.

Kirk Franklin sings what the Bible tells us to do "in everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."  It's also what our own Ann writes about in "One thousand gifts: A dare to live fully right where you are."  Just a little tilt of the perception changes the atmosphere within. 


It's not what's around us, but who dwells within us.  It is He who enables us to "smile even though we hurt."  This song is the essence of what we're about and what we pen daily—the majority of us anyway.    This community is about ... turning the ugly into beauty so that it becomes the ugly-beautiful.  Like Jesus on the cross.  So horrific...yet, the love shone beauty.  The ugly became beautiful.  The same can be true of many of our life circumstances ... some of what's going on with us is ugly, no doubt.  Yet, James tells us to, "consider it pure joy ... whenever you face trials of many kind."  We must open our hands to receive His gifts... all of His graces  ... the ugly and the beautiful.  If it's coming from His hand can't even the horrific be beautiful {giving us something to smile about}...that's the hard grace.  The hard thanks.

Ann Voskamp says, "Blessings keep our awareness of life's holy potential ever present.  They awaken us to over lives. ... With each blessing uttered we extend the boundaries of the sacred and ritualised our love of life.  One hundred times a day, everywhere we turn, everything we touch, everyone we see.  The blessings can be whispered {with a smile}.  No one even need hear.  No one but the Holy One."  Emphasis added

Grace it all is.  To be able to smile.  To bless another with our smile.  All is indeed the grace...beautiful hand of God.  Surely such a song is indeed from His heart as is a book about "Counting one thousand gifts."  These are the extra-ordinary ones ... able to take His Words and give meaning in song and words.  "Thank You, God, for the bread of now ... for Your Son and sacrifice ... for the love song You keep singing, the gift of Yourself that You keep giving ... for the wild wonder of You in this moment." 

::: (scroll down to the bottom of the blog to pause music please.  Click on button in the middle)

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The Gratitude list ... #'s 139-150 {moving on up y'all!!!}

~ dark skies ... imperfect days

~ smiles

~ dinners & lunches with husband

~ tears

~ growing pains ('cause God is working)

~ music ... God's music

~ different views ... perception

~ car radio

~ sunshine

~  blue skies

~ the gifted & talented

"Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth.
Serve the LORD with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing.
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
For the LORD is good;
His lovingkindess is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations." ~ Psalm 100

And whatever you do, wherever you go, please, please don't forget to purpose in your hearts to SMILE.  And give a big, wide, beautiful one too.  Change someone's life today by smiling and I bet in doing so you will enrich your own.  Blessings ...

Smile.

Download song on MP3

Purchase Ann Voskamp's book

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This post is also shared at L.L. Barkat "Seedlings & Stones."



a repost from the archives ...  really need to smile today.