Enough has been said of all the trouble in the world. There is much more to be said of all the beauty and the blessing evident and dormant in the world.

It strikes Me sometimes that there are many who are proud of the troubles they have. They may be convinced that they have the worst troubles in the world.

Understandably, the trouble you have today is the worst one. Other troubles have fled to the past. What hovers over you is the biggest shadow you have ever seen. Tomorrow it may not be, yet today it is. It is an enormous blustering trouble. It is a stand-out. It seems to have overshadowed your whole world.

Please do not think for one moment that troubles are your badge of honor. No longer count your troubles and weigh them. No longer pick your troubles out as the worst in the world and therefore crown them as the biggest and worst troubles in the world. As you crown your troubles, you keep them. You pin them before you. You never let them out of your sight.

Please do not think that I diminish the woes you have or have had. Nor do I give them a place of honor. Contrary to what it may feel like to you sometimes, you are not your troubles. Your troubles are not you, and they are not your life.

Life is like a road you walk on. Sometimes you walk on the golden brick road, and sometimes you walk on sharp stones, and sometimes your feet are mired in mud. You are not - I repeat - you are not what your shoes stand on or what sticks to them. You are not your shoes. Troubles are something you get past, and it is you who must get past them. When you are stuck in mire, you have to step out. Wherever your feet stand now, you have to move. Big troubles, lesser troubles, the conduct is the same. Move along.

You cannot stay in mourning forever. You have to get up from the shroud of mourning. You have to leave. You have to rise up from what ails you.

When there is something that you must do, you must do it. You are the lifter of yourself. You are also the one who sticks yourself somewhere and cannot seem to get up or out. You may complain about the same situation again and again. You forget that you are the budger of your own life. You are your own green light and stop light.

Perhaps you wait for a signal from somewhere telling you to get up. Trouble itself is the signal.

In the world, it is not always possible to escape trouble when it pursues you, and yet it is possible to get up from it.

All the extant world is temporary. And that includes trouble. Let go of the past. Let go of your wounds. If your wound is the loss of a loved one, then get your attention off yourself. Your loved one does not want a tomb dedicated to him. Your loved one wants you to live life again. Your loved one did not mean for you to stay in the boondocks. If you want to make a tribute to your loved one, get up and go on your merry way.

Rise above the idea that life has treated you badly. Rise above the idea that life treated you unfairly. It is unfair of you to set a stake into the ground to claim yourself as put upon. If you want to let in the sunlight, get up and open the curtains. Move over into the light that is waiting for you.