“Have you ever had a bad day? I guess all of us have at times. What goes into it? Maybe a difficulty with someone in the family or at work or at school or maybe we just got up on the wrong side of the bed and the rest of the day didn’t turn out right? I think everybody has these bad days, but you know, the danger in all that is that we let the negatives in life overshadow the positives. The positives are always there. We experience shadows in life, do we not, but think about this: There’s always a shadow where there is also sunshine. You can’t have a shadow without sunshine, so when things go wrong, look for the sunshine. Look for what is right and good. Look for what is true and holy. Look for what is uplifting. Look for what is really at the heart of life itself. We can always find something negative in life and when we find something negative we find ourselves whining at times. Do you ever find yourself whining? One thing is true, you can’t whine at the same time as you laugh. Try it. It’s impossible! So there are many things in life that we’re able to see the humor, the goodness, the truth, the life and we should not let the negatives overpower us and believe me, there’s plenty of negatives to go around. What’s important is that we be grateful. When we are aware of our blessings in life, keenly aware of them then we are grateful. When we are grateful we are happy. When we’re happy we smile, we laugh, and we have an impact on the others around us just as we have an impact when we whine and we are perpetuating negativity and whining. We’ve got to be positive and everybody is blessed. Who is not blessed? We have life, we have reasonably good health. We have good clothes to wear. We are blessed, but above all, we are blessed by our loving God who watches over each and every one of us all the time. You know what? You’re never alone are you? God is always there loving you, guiding you, leading you, bringing the good out of the evil of life we have to look for it though. We can miss that. When we miss the goodness of life that God brings, we miss the meaning of life itself. The secret of happiness in life is thankfulness, to be truly grateful.
We look at our Gospel reading today and we see Jesus curing the 10 lepers and one of them was so overwhelmed by this grace from God that he immediately praised God and he came back to thank Jesus. What happened to the others? We don’t know. Perhaps they were so overwhelmed that they first had to go to the priest to be determined pure and then they could see their families again. They had a lot on their mind, but they had missed the essence of what happened that God had blessed them personally and that they should have responded with gratitude and praise to God. You know we have a choice in life you and I: we can be whiners or we can be winners! Choose to be a winner. The Samaritan was a winner because he came back and praised God. He saw the source of his blessing and he knew that he was unworthy but that God had touched him and was with him, so look at your life. Yeah, there’s a lot of negatives aren’t there that we have to deal with. There’s a lot of challenges. Who’s not challenged in life? I’d like to know. Everyone has challenges, but we have more blessings that challenges. We have more positive than negative, so let the flow of God’s mercy fill your life, fill your words, fill your actions, fill your attitudes. Be grateful and don’t be a whiner, be a winner.
I’d like to share with you a little prayer. I entitled this prayer, ‘Thank you Lord.’
Lord, I wish to give you thanks
You bless abundantly
You’re always there for me
Though I don’t always seeYou’re the source of life itself
You gave me faith and family
I have a home, I have my health
And my eternal destiny
Teach me to put my trust in you
You who are always there
You blessed my past, you bless me now
I’m always in your care
You gave all you had for me
You died upon the cross
You found me and brought me back
When I was truly lost
With all my family here today
All with one accord
We lift our hearts and souls to pray
And say, ‘Thank you Lord’”