I have a cure for depression.  Every single day when you get up in the morning, write down 5 blessings in your life.  Each day must be 5 new blessings – you can’t repeat your blessings.  At first, it’s easy – you see the obvious and you begin writing.  Day 2, not so hard.  Day 3, you have to begin digging a little deeper.  By day 6 or 7, it begins to get harder and you begin to realize that even in the smallest of things, you have been blessed.  By the second week, one can know without a shadow of a doubt, that God has blessed their life abundantly.

I’ll never forget the day when I was dreading my husband to come from home work.  I had made a decision,  but, I didn’t know how he was going to react.  So, when he walked into the house that evening, I just came straight out with it – no beating around the bush, no hints, just right out it came – “I want to go to seminary.”  He says, “You want to do what?”  I told him, “It’s what I want and it is the only thing that will make me happy.”

Every New Year that rolls around, I begin to make my list of my resolutions.  I’m almost certain that it is about the same each year:  Exercise, eat healthy, spend more time with God, and on and on.  Every year, I do well the first week.  However, by the second and third week come around, I am already back to my old habits and nothing has changed.  Why is this so difficult?  Why can’t I just do what I need to do – and do it?

Life is about priorities.  We do the things that we do every day because it’s what is important to us.  We go to work because it is a priority that we earn a living to pay our bills.  We send our children to school because it is a priority that our kids get a good education.  We exercise because it is a priority that we stay healthy.  We make choices every day and rate our choices by what is most important to us.  Our actions demonstrate our priorities and what is most important to us.

We  often get so caught up in the mundane things in life, that before you know it, we are sitting in the same place – morning to evening – and not doing the one thing we are passionate about and that will bring us joy.

In 2011, the civil wars in Syria resulted in the displacement of more than 11 million people within and beyond the country’s borders. This means that these people have no money, no jobs, no food, and no shelter.