HAVE YOU CONSIDERED...

"Have a good day!" the clerk at the checkout counter said to me as I left the store.

This expression is often used now in the marketplace and among friends. It is a good one. If spoken in sincerity, it is an expression of caring, something we can all use.

This day I needed a lot of caring. The past several days had not been good ones. Problems had occurred like popcorn — explosively and rapidly. There were more holes in the dike than I had finger.s

As I walked to the car, the clerk's words echoed in my mind. Oh, how I wished I could have a good day. If only she who wished it could make it happen.

Yet I knew she couldn't. I remembered a Bible verse I had read several days earlier. "When a man is gloomy, everything seems to go wrong; when he is cheerful, everything seems right" (Proverbs 15:15 L.B.).

Caring deeds and words from others help make our day. But deep inside I knew the truth: I have more to do with determining the quality of my day than anyone else.

The following two stories come from different sources. But put together they make an interesting contrast that is helpful to me.

There was a farmer who was always cheerful. Nothing ever got him down. His friends downplayed his attitude, however, by claiming he was so richly blessed he never had any reason to be discouraged. "Just wait until some calamity comes his way," they told each other. "Then you will see a difference."

But they were proven wrong.

When a flash flood ruined his crops, the farmer declared, "That's alright. I had an overabundance last year."

Later when fire destroyed his home, his skeptical friends hovered, expecting to hear him complain and find him discouraged. It didn't happen. Instead he remarked, "Oh well, that old house didn't really suit our needs anyway."

This farmer had learned to focus on the positives rather than the negatives of life. It made for good days even if bad events happened.

Another farmer was known for his negative attitude. A neighbor stopped by for a visit one day and noticing his wonderful crop, said, "You must be extremely happy with your crop this year!"

"Well yes, it surely looks like the best I've ever had," he said.

With a frown on his face he continued, "But a bumper crop is awfully hard on the soil."

This farmer always focused on the negative, so much so that he could find something bad even in the good things that happened.

A person can become so possessed with negativism that when he hears about Jesus walking on the water, he remarks, "What's the matter, couldn't he swim?"

Gloominess is the altar on which many good days are sacrificed. Cheerfulness is the launching pad from which many good days take flight.

If you struggle to have a cheerful attitude, I know your struggle. That is why I keep in my Bible a card sent to me by a friend. On it is Helen Steiner Rice's poem A Sure Way to a Happy Day. Two of its lines read, "Happiness is something we create in our minds. It's just waking up and beginning the day by counting our blessings and kneeling to pray.

I read these words every morning. They help. Then during the day when someone says "have a good day," I check my mental attitude.

Have a good day! You more than anyone else can make it happen.

(Dr. French O'Shields is a Gaffney native and a retired Presbyterian minister.)