So, are you really living while you are living? Are you enjoying this thing called life? Ben Franklin said; "Most men die at 25 but are not buried until 70!"Life often offers you two sides of the coin, as it were; pain then pleasure. So regardless of the hand that life hands you, make it your affirmation: I Feel Happy, I Feel Healthy and I Feel Terrific! In good times or tough times- I Live the Life! Life tends to be a cycle of pain and then pleasure.
Success is the willingness to bear pain!
Let me illustrate:
Women often go through pain to give birth to a child.
You starve, sweat and workout, to have a lean muscular body.
You delay gratification and save so that you have financial abundance.
You must endure the pain of discipline to enjoy the pleasure of success.
Joseph went through the pain of the pit and the prison before he was promoted to the palace.
Jesus went through the pain of the cross to be put in the highest place of honor in the universe.
Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed-that exhilarating finish in and with God-he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! Hebrews 12: 2 (The Message)
The cross of Jesus was The Lemonade Principle. It is the willingness to endure the bitter so that one can enjoy the sweet - takes faith and guts! Bernard Smalls
