How Can I Turn Negative into Positive?

How Can I Turn Negative into Positive?
Not to be morbid, but in the past week and a half, I've received some really difficult news...not just one time, but like seven times!  

It started with three elderly relatives with physical difficulties, one of them, ending up in the hospital, then rehab, then the ICU, and then back to the regular hospital, then the rehab facility, again. Fortunately, he is on the mend now. The other two elderly relatives, a husband and a wife, delightful people, each passed away within days of each other.

Not only did I care about each one of these people, but one of my cousins more in the middle-age range than the elderly, passed away after a long illness.  

Just the other day, I came across an obituary for my best friend from middle school. Now that one, the youngest of them all was the shocker.

I hadn't talked to her in 35 years because we had a falling out in high school and lost touch, the fact that she passed away, actually died, at a relatively young age and unexpectedly, is jarring.

There are positives that can be grasped out of these pieces of seemingly bad news...three people are no longer suffering with debilitating health issues and pain, a husband and wife didn't have to be separated by death for very long before they were reunited in heaven, we still have more time with one of our cherished relatives on this side of heaven, and we know that as Christians, death has lost its sting because it's really just a transition to a better place.

No matter how you look at it, all of our days on Earth are numbered. Whether old or young or somewhere in the middle, there comes an expiration date.

Some don't like to think about it or talk about it, and some people actually obsess over it because they want to get to heaven so badly and to escape from the hardships of this world.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I want to live each moment to the fullest. I want to live and love well. I want to steward what God's given me to steward, and I want to use it to bring His healing to help people.

There really is no time but the present. We are not guaranteed tomorrow on this planet, but, if you are reading this, you have right now, today.

Each who passed recently had really cool experiences and contributed much while they were here.

What do you want to leave behind when it's your turn to transition to Heaven?

How are you doing with that?  

Are you intentionally moving forward, or are you trying to minimize and ignore the uncomfortable fact that our days on earth are not unlimited?

My encouragement to you is to make a choice to live boldly and unapologetically for the Lord now, so you can leave a legacy of good things to touch others lives when it's your turn to transition home.  

That's basically the whole point of life, isn't it?

If you could use some help and encouragement along the way, you might want to learn about a new program, SHINE, I have developed to help make the "shoulds" in life more like easier "did thats."

Let's live well now so we can live always without regrets. Check out this week's podcast here. Click here to learn more about SHINE.

There is no time like the present to live really well.