Social psychologists have found that when a person smiles, it inevitably affects the mood of that person. So, if you're down, one of the things that will help bring your mood up again is smiling - even if you don't feel like it.

One of the hardest things is to find the good in the worst situations. Harder still, is choosing to smile in the midst of those situations. Yet the Apostle Paul says "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say: rejoice!" My initial reaction to that kind of statement is "yeah, whatever, just try living in my place", but Paul went through a sort of hell on earth. Many of his words of the sort just quoted were written in a prison cell. So, I guess he deserves an ear from me.

I think I have a long way to go before I can smile on my darkest days. But I will get there one day, and when I do I will know that I have found a way to climb higher than that which tries to pull me down almost every day.