Lighten Up

Laughter is not only contagious, but healthy.  As a matter of fact, according to a site I found from the infinite most wonderful google, laughing can be considered exercise? Who knew this seemingly simple action of humans could affect us the way it does.  We don't realize how much we need laughter in our lives and I honestly think God laughs as well.  I feel like every time I trip up the stairs or slip God lets out a little snicker- He's got to be funny don't you think?  Well, I think He is hilarious and we should laugh with Him.  Our lives are not meant to be full of pain and suffering with a side of misery, God does want us to enjoy ourselves every once in a while!  In my opinion, we can take life too seriously too often and sometimes we need to step back from a situation and ask ourselves, "In the grand scheme of things, is this all that important?"  More often it ends up being a silly frustrated moment over who left the milk carton out and in that case, it was not all that important in the grand scheme of things.  I am not saying that we should never be frustrated or angry, however, I think we should make a point to laugh at not only others but also ourselves daily.  One of the easiest natural mood lifters is laughter, so why not just give out a little giggle every now and then and see how you like it?  Of course, those obnoxious gigglers can get out of hand so I recommend a healthy dose but you might want to cut yourself off if you cease to see others around you laughing at the same thing. 

Smiling is also contagious and healthy.  How often do you find yourself smiling back at a cashier once they have smiled at you?  For some reason, I love to smile at strangers (sounds creepy) because I know when a random person smiles at me I feel a little better.  It is almost as the world was crashing down on me and a complete strangers brings me back to reality to tell me "it's all going to be o.k." just with that subtle smile.  We are breathing and alive- we should be smiling all the time!  God has overcome the world (John 16:33) and if anything we should spread the joy of knowing everything really is going to be o.k.! I also typed in smiling into google to see what everyone else says about it and found a list of the top ten reasons to smile- including things such as "Smiling Boosts Your Immune System."  How crazy is that?  We are also more attracted to happy people and of course happy people smile so therefore we are attracted to people who smile. Who would you rather be around, someone who gets ticked off at every little thing or someone who is smiling and patient?  DUH! No one wants to be around someone that is irritable or someone that needs to take a deep breathe because those people also stress others around them out as well.

I am very empathetic (blessing and a curse) and easily feel what someone around me is feeling.  I hate it though, because if someone in my house is stressed I freak out and become stressed to, or if someone is really upset about something I become upset as well.  I try not to surround myself with very negative or irritable people because I, too, will become just that.  I know it sounds almost ridiculous and I should be able to control that, and I do a lot of the time! However, "bad company corrupts good character" and we need to be careful who we are letting change our mindset about things.  Don't sit around with debbie downers because you too will never think anything is fun anymore.  Don't surround yourself with apathetic people because you will never get anything done ever again.  Instead, find a balance or set limitations on how long you are around those people because you truly do become who your friends/family are if you are around them long enough.  That is such a good reason why the body of Christ should seek each other's fellowship and encouragement.  We also learn how to act and react from Christ and just like reading an instruction manual, we are to study the Bible- why look anywhere else when the one truth is laying right in our hands?  

Basically, a jumbled mess as usual but I feel like sighing in relief after relieving such thoughts. =)