One of my favorite things to do on a Monday morning is to pour myself an enormous cup of coffee and scroll through Twitter using the hashtag “Monday Motivation.”

There are always so many good ideas and inspirational quotes, like the one above. It includes 9 tips that I wholeheartedly agree with and I want to add another of my own—pray.

Pray, of course, should always be first on the list, not last, but you get my meaning. Without prayer, I truly don’t know how I could handle all of the tragedies and challenges that life dishes out. Over the weekend, I literally couldn’t stop crying as I watched the gut-wrenching news about the Texas church shooting. To think of so many innocent people, many of whom were children, being murdered as they tried to worship. Just beyond belief!

There is a lot of unhappiness, for sure, but if we dwell only on the negative, that doesn’t improve anything at all. I choose to put my faith in the Lord, relying on His wisdom and His plan, rather than my own limited understanding. Certainly, I have moments when I feel blue, but rather than sink into a depression, I choose to do the best I can and be happy, realizing how truly blessed I am.