Daughter of Eeyore

Acts 4:36
36Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement)...

"A mostly sunny day, to some, can look a lot like partly gray." Eeyore.

Let me tell ya, I can't remember the last time someone called me "Daughter of Encouragement".
I'd like it though, if someone did.
I have taken the bait over the years of trading encouraging words for funny, sarcastic or witty ones. It was a dumb trade.
I've also bitten when I had the opportunity to take the high road and embraced pessimism. Also dumb.
I get weary of people who color things the same way I've had a tendency to color them. This will NEVER work, they will ALWAYS be like that. Distrustful, doubting and discouraging. I'm bored with it after all these years.
I have decided I can see absolutely no value in this outlook.
These are the folks who in a restaurant cannot eat the food in front of them if it’s not exactly to their liking. They are never merely disappointed, they are devastated. They are not uncomfortable, they are in agony.
They are spiritual Eeyores.
You remember Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh’s donkey friend who was certain that all would end in tragedy all the time. His tail was pinned onto his body and kept falling off. Monotone speech. Deep sighs and gloom. A few years ago a very good friend who knows me very well went to Disney World and brought me back an Eeyore coffee cup. I think she was trying to tell me something.
God has shown me something about this side of myself, it’s the immature side. The side that sees the glass half empty is not the side listening to God’s idea of things.
I have been quick to be disappointed in people and to read their motivations as intentionally hurtful. I’ve been slow to let them off the hook or assume innocence. I’ve presumed that I was not important to someone for the slightest offense.
I’m sick of being Eeyore.. There is he is, living in the Hundred Acre Wood with a bunch of devoted friends who are willing to hang with him despite his gloomy outlook and still, he’s a downer. They come up with fun schemes and he insists it’ll never work. They are ready for a tea party and he’s preoccupied with potential disappointments that may never materialize. They’re admiring the sunset and he’s searching for trouble on the horizon.
Eeyore is stupid.
There is a reason Eeyore was depicted as a donkey. Think about it.

Dear God,
If Christians cannot be called Sons and Daughters of Encouragement, there is something very wrong. We’ve no reason to prophecy doom when we’re living in redemption and grace. Forgive me for speaking words that have brought discouragement or tainted the joy or hope in someone else’s heart. Forgive me for belittling your gifts and your sacrifice by speaking sarcasm and insult into my own life. God, make me a Daughter of Encouragement. Let me be the voice that stirs life and hope into the world around me. In other words, God let me speak words worth listening to. Amen.