When the sun shines through

It's been cloudy, misty and chilly here for several days on end.  I know the weather has its cycles and days like those are just as necessary as the sunny days, but I never feel fully awake or cheerful when it's cloudy and gray all the time.

Today the sun shone again.

I feel so much happier and cheerier.  My spirit feels uplifted and I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and I feel more awake.

Those stretches of cloudy, wet days affect my spirits--my emotions--but they shouldn't necessarily affect my spirit--my soul.

The Holy Spirit lives in me all the time, no matter how I feel emotionally.  The joy that is in me as a result of being a saved, forgiven, loved child of God is not dependent on any outside, physical circumstances.  Sometimes it feels like it is.  But no matter how I can feel, I always have so much to be thankful for, so many blessings that I can't even count them all.

So on those cloudy days, I can count on the knowledge that I'm loved and blessed by God--and wait for the sun to shine again.  Because it always will.