When You Have a Challenging Day

This post is not what I intended to be the next post; however, this is what came to me after a recent fall.

Do you sometimes feel as though discouragement is just about everywhere? I mean, you have a goal in mind, i.e., to lose weight, get your finances under control, be healthy, etc. You begin working diligently towards your plan; eating right, exercising, or changing your spending habits and then boom! Something happens. You went to a friend’s house. They know that you’re working on your weight, but everything they’ve prepared and served buffet style is loaded in butter or fried. The only thing that will work for you is a salad bowl of lettuce leaves; no carrots, cucumbers are anything else that would satiate you. You end up eating as much of the salad as you can stomach; by the time you return home after around 10 o’clock, you’re raiding the refrigerator.

Or take me, for example, I have been working on losing weight and keeping it off, so besides being diligent about what I eat, I try to get in some form of exercise at least five days a week. So, last week, I didn’t get to work out in the morning, so later after lunch, I decided to take a 15-minute walk and I was doing perfectly fine until a dog from one of the yards frightened me and I ended up falling.

Praise the Lord that I am resilient. My ego was bruised and my knee banged up a little. However, I didn’t fracture anything, which generally is the case, except for that time when I fell off my bicycle at the beach. But that is a story for another day. J

I was able to jump right back up, torn pants and busted knee and all (I told you I was resilient) and walked back home breathing fire the entire time. I was so upset because when I fell, I had been thinking of all the things I was grateful for and praising God and asking Him for his continuous help on my quest to lose weight.

I wouldn’t be candid if I said I came home and was in a sunshiny mood because I wasn’t. In fact, after tossing back an Ibuprofen, I went upstairs to nurse my mental and physical wounds, crying (something I hate doing) the entire time. My poor daughter, who is not well herself, came upstairs to check on me to make sure I didn’t need to go to immediate care. Now, anyone could look at this situation as a setback, which I did end up slowing down a few days. However, I didn’t allow the fall to upset the rest of my day.

How do you look at things when discouragement or challenges come? Do you allow it to spoil the remainder of your day? It is okay, of course, to be upset and discouraged, but you mustn’t remain in a negative state. I could have moped around the house.  But I didn’t. Instead, after making sure my knee was cleaned up and covered, I finished watching the movie I started before I went walking, had dinner with my daughter as planned and then later watched Murder She Wrote with my family.

God calls us to be happy in all things. Take some time to look around at your attitude and how you handle what life throws you. After getting a flat tire, it is okay if yesterday made you late for work, and you remained in a funk all day. Today is a new day and a perfect time to turn that mood around. Some days are more complex than others to have a good attitude. The important thing is to try and the more you do it, the easier it will become.

Blessings and love,

Samella