Acts 16:25ff finds the apostle Paul and his co-missionary, Silas, in a painful situation —imprisoned, bound, and no doubt bleeding from a beating they received earlier in the evening after being wrongly accused of breaking the law and causing trouble in the city of Philippi. What do you do when life hands you such lemons? Acts 16:25 tells us, "But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them." By the time this chapter ends, Paul and Silas have been freed from prison, and the jailer who guarded them has been freed from his sins by obeying the gospel. Good can come from bad when we learn to sing in the pain and use life’s lemons to make lemonade!

We should not feel bad when we feel bad after life throws us into some prison not of our own choosing. The Bible teaches that pressure and pain and stress and strain and trouble are inescapable in this life.

Jesus warned us that "in the world you shall have tribulation" (John 16:33), and the Son of God Himself, was certainly no stranger to the rain and pain life often pours out on even the best of people. But while we have no choice as to whether life will toss us a lemon from time to time, we always have a choice regarding our response to the lemon. Like Paul and Silas, we can respond by reaching out to God with prayer and praise, knowing He hears us even after midnight and from life’s deepest and darkest dungeons (Hebrews 13:5). Or we can allow life’s prison-like experiences to poison our minds with self-pity and bitterness as we descend into doubt and discontent and sing the "woe-is-me blues."

‘Guess what, Mom?’ he shouted, and said words that I shall never forget—’I’ve been chosen to clap and cheer!’"

What will you do when life lands you in the pain and prison of disappointment? If we are to rejoice in this life we must learn to be happy in spite of life’s ups and downs. Our choices, like Paul’s, Silas’s and Jamie’s, are clear — boo and jeer, or clap and cheer!