Windows to Weather

There’s a window in the front of my house. When I look out of it, some days I see the sun shining bright and some days it competes with clouds. Some days water sprinkles from the sky, while other times it falls in sheets, waving with the wind. In winter months, the snow might fall slowly as if dancing to the ground, or fall harder and faster as if it is racing to meet a deadline. During autumn, leaves can be still, slowly float to the ground, or swirl wildly in the air. Wind, temperature, sunlight, precipitation, humidity, barometric pressure – they all play a role in how the weather looks and feels.

There is another window I have. This one I look into. It’s the window to my spirit. If I look intently enough, I can assess the climate and determine the forecast for the day ahead. The state of my spirit has as many varieties as the weather outside. Happiness, stress, guilt, excitement, pain, sadness, fear, anger – they all play a role in how my spirit’s weather feels.

I cannot control what weather Mother Nature blows my way. Some days are destined to be gloomy outside. The gloomy days make the days with sunshine brighter. John Steinbeck said “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?” Both the rain and sunshine are needed to make a rainbow. That’s true for the spirit also. Difficult days make the simpler ones easier to appreciate. Just as I have no control over what Mother Nature sends as weather, I have no control over many circumstances in my life. However, I can influence, and indeed determine, the weather of my spirit at least to some degree (pun intended). Some days it is especially hard to do.

Below are some words that remind me to choose the weather of my spirit instead of allowing circumstances to determine my personal forecast for the day. I hope they help you too.

Stitched message made by my mother-in-law

Stitched message made by my dear friend Melissa

QUOTES FOR A SUNNY DAY: (Credit is given where credit is known.)

After every storm there’s a rainbow, no matter how long it takes to show up. -Grace V., Ohio, on Dove chocolate wrapper

Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect.  It means you’ve decided to see beyond the imperfections.  -Gerard Way

Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” -Melody Beattie

Every opportunity has a difficulty, and every difficulty has an opportunity. -J. Sidlow Baxter

Get rid of stinkin’ thinkin’ in your life.

Happiness doesn’t come from doing what we like to do but from liking what we have to do. -Wilford Peterson

Happiness is an internal issue, not an external circumstance.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

He who lives for himself will have small troubles, but they will seem to him great.  He who lives for others will have great troubles, but they will seem to him small.  This is the spirit that is called Christmas.  – E. Paul Hovey

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life.  -Henry Thoreau

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. -Stephen Covey

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. -Jimmy Dean

I find that it is not the circumstances in which we are placed, but the spirit in which we meet them that constitutes our comfort.

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough. -Oprah Winfrey

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. -Aristotle Onassis

It’s easier to act yourself into a feeling than to feel yourself into an action.

Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your blessings in stone.

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you do hold well. -Josh Billings

Life is like a piano, what you get out of it depends on how you play it. -Tom Lehrer

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. –Charles Swindoll

Live life in the moment as if you only have today to live, but learn as if you are going to live forever. -Ghandi

Make the most of the best and the least of the worst. -Robert Louis Stevenson

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. –Ernest Hemingway

Thankfulness becomes your barrier between you and anger, bitterness, envy, strife.  It doesn’t let them in the door.  – A Thankful Heart is a happy Heart.

The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything.  They just make the best of everything. -Andreas Tsatoumas

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

The rich person is not the one who has the most, but is the one who needs the least.

The winner says it may be difficult but it is possible.  The loser says it may be possible but it is too difficult.

Things work out the best for those that make the best of the way things work out.

We can’t choose what happens to us in life, but we choose how to tell the story.

What is the difference between an obstacle and an opportunity?  Our attitude toward it.  Every opportunity has a difficulty; and every difficulty has an opportunity.  – J. Sidlow Baxter

What life means to us is determined not so much by what life brings to us as by the attitude we bring to life; not so much what happens to us as by our reaction to what happens.  -Lewis L.Dunnington

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. -Plutarch

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. -Henry Ford

When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life you have a thousand reasons to smile.

When things go wrong, you don’t have to go with them.

Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right. -Henry Ford

Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance.  The cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it better, will persevere in it longer, than the sad or sullen.  -Thomas Carlyle

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet. OR You can be sad you don’t have shoes or be grateful that you have feet.

You can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.