Friday, August 3, 2012

Laughing or Crying?

Life is good.  It has it's ups and downs, but overall it's good.  It's easy to see how the good times make life good, but sometimes the bad times make us think otherwise.  I relayed a quote to a sister missionary the other day.  The quote was, "You're either laughing, or you're crying."  Her response was, "Yeah, and if you're crying, you might as well be laughing while doing it."  Talk about profound.  The key is attitude.

Nephi, a Book of Mormon prophet, was with his family in the wilderness and he and his brothers went out hunting for food.  While hunting, Nephi breaks his bow and his brother's bows loose their spring.  Needless to say, they didn't get any food.  Everyone around Nephi was "exceedingly sorrowful, even that they did murmur against the Lord" because of their lack of food.  (1 Nephi 16: 20).  Nephi himself recognized that "it began to be exceedingly difficult."  (1 Nephi 16:22).  But he chose not to murmur against the Lord.

Even though times were tough, Nephi's choice was to "laugh while he cried."  His "laughing" brought himself to become a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.  We have the power to do that in our own lives.  When things are tough and life makes us cry, make sure those tears are from laughing so hard that you forget that times are tough.  If we keep that attitude, we'll be able to see the good in life even while looking through tears.