Lynn sent this to me yesterday.

Here's the quote from a 1914 issue of Women's World. I love how it starts:

Suppose you are a housewife. Your home is small. Your means are limited. Your "things to do with" are meager. Your children are trying. Your work is hard and monotonous....There you have a stream of events bearing you down. If you yield you become nervous, irritable, discontented, perhaps eventually careless and slovenly, a physical wreck and spiritual misery. And now, suppose you make up your mind not to yield. Suppose you say to yourself, "I will think beautiful thoughts. I will make my surroundings cheerful. I will be happy and strong and brave and make my husband and children even as I am." That you reply, is easier said than done. It is very hard. Wait!...it is not so hard as you imagine. Cease pitying yourself. Say, when you awake in the morning, "The world is beautiful. There are many great, noble, unconquerable souls. I am one of them....I shall make this house glow with peace and good will."

This is how women were encouraged.

I can read it and it sounds patronizing....or I can read it an it sounds uplifting.

I can read it earnestly and take encouragement from it.

But it also rings of Cher slapping Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck and shouting 'Snap out of it'.

It's the timeframe and mindframe, I am sure.

I have a few 'snap out of it' people in my life...and I like them...and respect them.

A few 'snap out of its' can bring you back from that black hole of self-pity.


As the Woman's World article exhorts....

Start your day with a positive and thankful attitude and you will be better able to handle the trials of the day.

It's just a little kinder than a slap.


"A cheerful heart is a good medicine…" (Proverbs 17:22).


Encourage one another,
Donna