I try to be calm when things get challenging but, far too often, I fail. I try to keep my head when all around me are losing theirs but, here too, I am not often enough successful. I try to remember that things will get better and I try always to believe that there is some reason behind everything that happens but with the more life that I see, the less faith I sometimes have in those weakening convictions.

Tomorrow is another day but, to get there, you have to make it through today. It is so very cold out there for this time of year and has been for a week now with more to come. I am still unemployed with lots of ideas and paths that I am pursuing but have I lost faith that I will find something that will make me happy and satisfied for the next few or several years? Have I lost faith in myself?

Not really but I do need to get it together and going. I am moving but just not fast enough. When it comes to me I am rarely left without hope but there are too many times lately that I don’t especially like myself all that much. Guess that is normal and all too easily human.

The best that remains to me is my family and, for them, always for them, I worry and fret. There is nothing unusual about that.

So many friends and family have fallen by the wayside these past five to ten years. I cannot say that that is my fault but I also cannot say that it is not. It is a shame that my kids do not have the social networks that seem to come along with so many of their friends’ families but we try our best with what we have and we try to hang on.

Always hang on.

And regardless the circumstances that surround us we still have one another and we still really have so much, much that many others do not have. For, you see, no matter how good or bad you have it there will always be those who have it better…or worse. It is a very wide spectrum. As long as you are blessed with another day you should know that there is, indeed, another way. And as long as there is another day and another way then there is hope for all that ails you.

Thank the Lord for what you have been given and thank the Lord for what you have achieved and found and had the pleasure to bear witness to in this life, your life. Why was a life given to you, to me, to any of us? And why this very life, the one that we have?

We can look at another and say “wish I had his or her life” or perhaps “glad that I don’t” but, in the end of things, we are who we are and we have the life made from the clay that we were given. Not alone did we mold it and not alone, really ever, do we continue to do so.

If it is bad, it can be better. If it is good, it can get even better still. If you smile you may soon laugh. If you have a sliver of hope that remains you may find that it can blossom into hope. If you look around and truly count your blessings you may find that there are more than a few to be tallied. Things are indeed most often what we make them and we are often who we allow ourselves to be. And you should read that again and say it many times to yourself for it is very true indeed.

Love your family and hug your kids. Pet your dog and tell someone you love him or her. Smile when folks expect a frown and laugh when others despair. Offer a hand to those in need and food to those who hunger. Be there when someone needs you. Never lose faith in yourself or your spouse and, more than all, never lose faith in your kids. While you may not have created yourself you sure as heck had a big role in creating them. And with that role comes responsibility so accept that and never give up, never say when.

Give thanks for all that you have and have been given. Give back to those in need and greet the coming day with the hope and wonder so that each new rising sun may feed and nurture and give back to you in kind.

You may find that life can be beautiful for the first time or once again. You may find the things you have always sought but never found. You may find your spouse, your kids, new friends and old family. You may even finally find yourself.

Today, early as is all of this very cold weather, I will give thanks. You should try to do the same.