Silver lining in dark clouds

Yesterday was beautiful in the Florida Keys. The sun was shining and not a cloud was in the beautiful deep blue sky. From my desk I can view the ocean and the sun’s reflection upon it looked like a million diamonds sparkling off its surface. A nice tropical breeze was flowing through the coconut palms and the temperature was in the mid-seventies most of the day. As I worked at my desk I talked with several people around the country on the telephone. I quickly found out that not everyone was enjoying the ideal conditions that I was enjoying. I heard of dark gloomy days of wet and freezing cold throughout the country.

This made me realize how fortunate I was to be in this place and I immediately thanked God for giving me that opportunity. It also brought to mind that nothing remains the same. Today I head to Atlanta where I imagine the weather will be much less desirable and I will be freezing with my south-Florida thinned blood. I will drive two hours to get to the airport, fight the security lines at the airport, likely experience delays, sit next to someone who snores on the plane and is sick, take a one hour taxicab ride to my office with someone who does not speak English, and have meetings from daylight until dark. I will then go through the same routine only in reverse to get home sometime around midnight Friday night.

This little bit of negativism reminds me of an incident several years ago. I used to have an employee that was extremely negative. One day we received an unusual amount of revenue in our small company and it resulted in a huge deposit. Several of us were celebrating our good fortune and “Mr. Negative” immediately threw his “wet towel” on our little celebration by predicting that the big deposit today just means we will have a tiny deposit tomorrow. I looked at him and told him that there will be plenty of time when in the “valley” to mourn our poor fortune, but when we are sitting atop the “peak” we need to celebrate!

God gives us valleys and peaks. The sun shines just as it rains on the righteous and the unrighteous. In His infinite wisdom God knows that is what we need and we should just take the good with the bad always being thankful to Him. Even when in the valley there is a silver lining if we look hard enough for it. As an example, one day I arrived in Fort Lauderdale airport at 3:00AM. I was awaiting the door to open and the stewardess asked me if I was finally home. I sullenly said NO, unfortunately I live in Islamorada, (which is about 2 hours away from this airport). She immediately started oohing and ahhing and pouring sympathy upon me for having to endure such a long drive at such a late hour. After listening politely to all the fuss, without looking up the guy standing next to me said without a hint of sympathy in his monotone voice, “Yeah but he gets to wake up in Islamorada”. That put an entirely different perspective on my situation and I thanked that gentleman profusely. To this day I still think of that comment almost every time I make that trip. Yes there is always a silver lining. Every valley is followed by a peak and this gives us something to look forward to even in the dark days.

James 1:2
My brethren, count it all joy
when you fall into various trials,
knowing that the testing of your
faith produces patience.