Hi friends!!  Today in my Proverbs 31 Encouragement for Today devotion, Life is Too Short to Live Unhappy, I shared about a day when a reckless, fast moving vehicle barreling up behind me on the highway made my life flash before my eyes. Yet that experience also served as a reminder to not take a second of life for granted.

Trust me when I say this –  I am the first to admit that my normal way of thinking is not embracing every moment we have here on earth, but rather, all too often, I instead get caught up in busyness, aggravation, problems or simply taking things and people for granted. When life is hard and we’ve been thrown some curve balls, it’s easy to inadvertently form a habit of being grumpy, discontent or unhappy as a result. A bad habit of counting our burdens instead of our blessings which steals our peace, joy and sometimes our smile.

Life is simply too short to live miserable and unhappy, plus it takes more energy to be grumpy and negative than it does to be happy and positive!

This is a hard lesson I’ve learned over the years after my twenty five year marriage fell apart. My life no longer looked like I always thought it would, and I didn’t like it and was not happy with God for letting that happen to my family. But despite how difficult the journey was, a few years ago I finally realized that although I didn’t want to have to establish a ‘new normal’, I not only had to but I had the power to choose whether I was going to be happy or miserable in the life God had given me.

Regretting so much time spent being sad, heartbroken and disgruntled, I eventually intentionally decided to be happy no matter what and trust God for better things. And you know what? God wants us to be happy!  In fact scripture tells us to be happy and joyful more than any other command in the Bible! But just maybe you’re thinking …..”that’s great for you Tracie, but isn’t my story.”  Maybe you feel absolutely justified in being sad or lacking inner joy because of your problems and difficult circumstances. Maybe someone hurt you so deeply, you wonder if you can ever smile and be happy again. Maybe life has been so hard or tragic, the unfairness of it has almost destroyed you.

I get it. And it’s okay. We all feel that way at times, regardless of what situations we are dealing with, but still – we can always choose not to stay stuck in unhappiness. We can determine to be grateful for the gift of life and all that we have, even if life didn’t turn out the way we thought it would. We could do all things through the strength and power of Jesus Christ.

This mantra is basically the theme of my new book Living Unbroken: Reclaiming Your Life and Your Heart After Divorce. Millions of women, and men, struggle through the pain of an unwanted or unexpected divorce, or have to choose separation and divorce due to addiction, abuse, infidelity, or other reason. That is the road God has had me on for the past five years, and I pray that anyone faced with separation and divorce will find comfort, hope and encouragement through the words God gave me to write.

Yet, even if your situation is entirely different that mine, my new book Living Unbroken can still give you hope and encouragement to take life by the reigns and live it to the fullest. We can choose to be happy and it may take a lot of pulling up our sleeves and working hard at reclaiming our joy, but it can and will happen.

The Living Unbroken Launch Team application is open!

Living Unbroken releases February 1, 2021!  If you are interested in being a part of the launch team to help countless men and women (and maybe you are one of them!) find the resource they need to help them get through this hard time, reclaim joy and happiness and rebuild their life, CLICK HERE for more information and the launch team application!

The first 120 people to join the launch team will receive a free hard copy of Living Unbroken in January before it releases!

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FUN NEWS! PRE-ORDERS FOR LIVING UNBROKEN BEGIN TODAY!!

If you pre-order one of more copies of Living Unbroken for you or someone you know who is going through a difficult separation or divorce, you’ll receive 5 incredible free gifts! Your five gifts are:

• The Living Unbroken Battle Plan Workbook
• The Living Unbroken Companion Journal
• 8 Declarations for Loving Life After Divorce
• Digital copy of the book’s Introduction and Chapter 1
• A beautiful hand painted watercolor piece of art to print and frame, painted by my beautiful mom Barbara (check her out on Facebook!).

You can pre-order your book from Proverbs 31, Amazon or any book retailer. Click here to find out how to claim all your free gifts!

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WANT TO WIN A FREE BOOK BUNDLE OF MY LAST TWO BOOKS TO CELEBRATE MY NEW RELEASE?! 

Visit me on FACEBOOK and/or INSTAGRAM and look for my post about the book bundle giveaway, then tag someone in a comment who would benefit from reading these books or enjoy a copy of Living Unbroken!