March 12, 2007
By Tiffini Countaway
 

He always sees things differently--my dad. He’s a glass-half-full kind of guy. Last week, we were running an errand when I noticed and commented on the ugliness of the trees along the side of the road. Winter is in full swing and the trees have taken quite a beating.  Several ice storms in our area have caused damage. The trees have lost all their leaves and their color.

 

As we turned a corner there was a large field with more ugly trees. “That looks so awful,” I said. My Dad smiled and said, “Yes, but when Spring comes and the trees blossom we will forget all about the ugliness.”

 

I have pondered that statement over and over. It’s simple, I know, but how many times in my life have I encountered a situation or a hard trial and hated the ugliness that was surrounding me? Everywhere I turned I found more and more ugliness, things I didn’t want to see or hear. But once it was passed and life was beautiful again, I no longer remembered the ugly.

 

Paul wrote it this way, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Corinthians 5:17).

 

In the past it was easy for me to focus on the ugly when I was in the middle of it. Now I try to focus on the beautiful that is to come.

 
ninetyandnine.com
 

Ó 2007, Tiffini Countaway

 

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Tiffini Countaway hates when we make up her bio for her, yet always forgets to write one up for us. We, of course, only write truth unless it suits our purpose to upset her--then we’ll write almost anything (she’s not an Easter egg archeologist, despite what her last bio said). Yet she knows what we’ll do to her and still forgets to write her bios when she submits articles. So whose fault is it really?