Priorities

We watched an interesting movie last night, "The Pursuit of Happyness" with Will Smith. (Thanks for sharing it with us, Michele & Wayne!) It wasn't quite as happy-go-lucky as I had anticipated. In fact, at times it was really depressing. It is based on the true story of a man named Carl Gardner, who struggled and struggled to keep his son and himself out of the streets and to improve his lot in life. Along the way, his wife left him because she didn't want to be part of his struggle. But he fought to be able to keep his little 5-year old son with him, even though he didn't have a job other than to sell some medical equipment that he had invested in.

Through all of his struggles, I was impressed with his determination to try to keep life as normal as possible for his son. He almost always kept his son's need to be a child as his priority. Even at his lowest ebb, he was able to create a make-believe adventure for them to get through the night sleeping in a bus depot restroom.

His resilience in the face of failure after failure is inspiring to me. We all have trials in life, and as we look around at all of the homeless and broken people, some do not make it through them very well. If we keep our priorities in order and pull from deep inside us to overcome each one, we will eventually reach our goal. One thing the movie did not portray was a faith in God. I know that without my belief in God and His mercy and guidance, I could not get through some of the trials that I have had.

I love each of you and hope that when trials come your way, which they will, that you can keep your priorities straight and be resilient, and most of all, that you can turn to Our Heavenly Father who knows what we need to grow and return to His Presence.