Perspective is everything

In this life we all have trouble... but there are also wonderful experiences, too. It seems that there is always a mix, like you can't have pleasure without pain or joy without suffering. Sometimes it is easy to let the hard things in life get you down, which is why I like to write about what went wrong but how I am seeing the bright side of things.
These last few days I have had a healthy mix of the two. Yesterday I was marking assignments for my students and discovered some first class plagiarism that is going to necessitate a failing grade... I felt terrible! You know, that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. But it is not just concern for my student- it is concern for myself. This particular person has been quite aggressive and there is a lot at stake over their grade on this assignment. Dealing with the problem is already involving my supervisor and probably the head of the department and a couple of others. I am at the middle of it, feeling a little afraid of confrontation and having to stick to my guns and speak the truth, despite what might happen to me.
My motto for this semester has been "Take heart, Heather."
It came to me in a dream one night and I thought maybe it was a message for someone else. But very shortly after, sitting in my calculus class and feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders and oh so discouraged, it came back to me. Take heart!
The Bible tells the stories of all King David's trials and in the midst of it, when David is facing intense discouragement, it says that "David found strength in the Lord."
He didn't give up, he found strength in the only true source of strength and he gained heart! I want to be like that.
So last night I went and listened to some absolutely wonderful orchestral music (I've decided that I want my own little orchestra to put me to sleep at night). But on the way home I began to get sick. I stumbled into the house and threw up in the toilet and fell into bed feeling like I was going to die. (The funny thing is that I probably got food poisoning on my own cooking. How ironic is that).
This morning, of course, I feel like a million bucks. I decided to dye my hair, with some temporary hair dye I'd got. Light auburn, I think it was, which is quite similar to my natural hair colour. Or so I thought! What a fiasco! Horror of horrors! You won't be able to recognize me when you see me!
The tragedy of this morning is that my hair is not light auburn. It is PURPLE! I look like I'm wearing a halloween wig. I've washed it a million in one times, but the colour is supposed to last 3 weeks.
But I am not going to let that get me down. Perspective is everything, they say. I want to take heart and not become discouraged and despondant about this. The good thing is, it is only hair. And perhaps my inner beauty will become more evident since I don't have the outer beauty to stand in its way now.