This blog is about—guess what?—getting through the day.

I ask people, “How ya’ doing?” And so often I hear the same response. “Jes’ gettin’ thru the day,” people answer. “Jes’ gettin’ thru the day.”

Believe me, I know where these folks are coming from. In some circumstances, getting through the day is almost more than any of us can do.

However, at my age (67), I’ve learned a few lessons and have advanced, for the most part, from “jes’ gettin’ thru the day” to attempting to live each day as though it is a minor work of art (some days are major works of art). And yep, some days are just plain blah!—but not many, not many at all.

After years of being in ministry, and after conversation with friends who are on local church staffs, we concluded that some 80% of the people in congregations are facing problems too big for them to handle. For these people, getting through the day is a major undertaking.

Perhaps, some of the things I’ve learned and am still learning, some of the things I’m facing and will face, and some of the life lessons I’m activating, will help that 80% who just don’t know how they’ll make it from day’s beginning to night’s end, not to mention the nights in between.

The first thing I know—I positively know—and have taught to my children, all of whom are adults now and married with children of their own, is that we all have a choice. We can make this a good day or a bad day. We can make it a good life or a bad life.

“Look,” I’ve said umpteen times during the child-raising years. “You have a choice. You can choose to make this a bad day or you can choose to make it a good day.”

As hard as this may seem for those facing horrendous situations, this is a basic interior attitude over which we do have control—we don’t have control over most of the bad things, minor and major, that happen to us. We do have control over how we will respond to it.

If you’re part of the 80% just getting through the day, how are you going to make it a good day, despite the circumstances? Do you want to choose to make it a good day? Or are you going to let all the woes, the worries, the injustices rob and cheat you of a good day and a good life?

Love to hear how some of you defeat the darkness on this most personal of levels—choosing to make it a good day.

Karen Mains
KM1-47

Karen Mains is a national-award-winning author of more than 26 books. She is involved right now in helping to create a microfinance women’s pilot project in Kenya—the Global Bag Project, which seeks to sell reusable shopping bags made to provide sustainable income to help bag-makers around the world lift themselves from poverty. Her book about the refugee crisis in the world, The Fragile Curtain, won the 1982 Christopher Medal, which is awarded to works that uphold the highest values of the human spirit.

Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains is creating a teleconference curriculum on “Personal Memoir Writing” to post on her Web site, www.KarenBurtonMains.com in an attempt to create a distance learning mentor writing project to help other “Wannabe (Better) Writers” get published. Additionally, she and her husband, David, are hoping to lead a Christian trip to Kenya next March for the purpose of developing microenterprise projects.

Also, Karen is preparing for the upcoming (Advent) Silent Retreat, which is still open for registration (see the Hungry Souls Web site for more information; click "Retreats of Silence").