CUP of Mud or CUP of Stars?

(this picture of my sweet niece is again so appropriate for this post :))

Jodi reminded me last night of a story I read when I spoke at our women's retreat in May:

"A young bride's life was not what she had hoped or expected it would be. When she married her beloved, who was in the Marines, she thought it would be romantic and exciting to live in foreign countries and travel the globe. But two years later she was lonely and deeply discontented. She wrote a letter full of complaints to her mother. She had no friends, she couldn't speak the language and figured it wasn't worth the effort to learn since they could be moved from one country to another at a moment's notice. Worst of all, her groom was never home. She ended with "I can't take this any longer. I'm coming home." Her astute mother faxed a reply consisting of just two lines:

Two women looked through prison bars
One saw mud, the other saw stars."

Ahhhh a secret to contentment in two short sentences. We all have a choice of how we look at life. At times we all feel as though we're standing behind prison bars but it's what we focus on that matters. Am I choosing to see the stars or am I only focusing on the mud? So often I only see the mud and ignore the nuggets of light and joy that is always at my fingerstips - it's so easy for me to write this but at times it can be so hard to live out. God wants me content now, not just content once my cirucmstances improve.

Thanks Jo for reminding me of this awesome story!! Cheers!