If you’ll just Smile

I noticed it again this morning; I put my toe on the little round switch that causes the lights on the trees and the mantle to light and begin to twinkle, as I did I smiled. I opened the photos section in my computer and as I scanned over 8 thousand pictures I saw the one that made my heart jump just a little and there it was again, the smile. I bought a little silver frame that has a red velvet ribbon attached to it so that it can hang from the Christmas tree, on it is inscribed “You are always with us in love”, as I watched it swinging slowly, the lone ornament on that tree, the middle and largest of the group of three musical ones, first a tear made a wee path in the powder I had just applied to my cheek but then it happened, a smile followed. I held my breath for a moment as I remembered my dad and mother writing names on their Christmas cards making sure that each of us got a little money, money that daddy saved all year to do just that. If anyone gave him a gift of money he had a special place that he folded it away, if someone wrote a personal check to him he would have me to cash it for him and then those bills would join the others in his secret hiding place. When his Christmas cards were all finished he would have depleted his little stash of money and we all had a little extra “green” in our Christmas stockings, thinking of that makes me smile.
Have you given someone including yourself a smile today? Try it now, just turn up the corners of your mouth and say with the Psalmist David, Psalm 100:5 “For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.”
I leave you with lyrics to a song penned by Charlie Chaplin in 1936

Smile, though your heart is aching
Smile, even though it’s breaking
When there are clouds in the sky
you’ll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You’ll see the sun come shining through
for you
Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness although a tear may be ever so near
That’s the time you must keep on trying
Smile what’s the use of crying
You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
If you’ll just
Smile