When we were growing up our family was not what you would call on the cutting edge of technology. My family didn't even get cable until after I went away to college. We had 2 TVs (one in the den and one in our parent's bedroom) and one VCR (remember those?) so when we were kids and wanted to watch a movie we either all 4 had to agree or one of us would choose and the others would suffer through or go do something else. Well, when it was my turn to choose a movie I almost always chose Pollyanna with Haley Mills. (And as a result my sisters almost always found something else to do after groaning and moaning about how much they loathed that movie. I LOVE that movie!) If you have never seen it the basic gist is that Pollyanna has had a very difficult childhood and manages to teach her curmudgeon of an aunt how to see the good in everything. So maybe that is where I learned this but now I am always the one who takes a bad situation and can find the positive side. I know that it annoys the crap out of some folks but I can't help it.
Back in January, a dear Sister (Julie) was telling our email group about how she had been complaining so much but that things had just turned around 180 degrees and things were really starting to look up. I replied back that she always had this knack for taking lemons and making lemonade and lemon chicken and lemon meringue pie and then had enough time and energy left to slice some lemons to garnish her sweet tea. Then in a response she was telling us about another great thing that had happened for her family and that this was the "lesson from her lemons." So here I am making it public and official. What would happen, do you suppose, if when faced with a difficult, ugly situation we all looked for a positive, redeeming perspective?
