Welcome to the daily chizuk (encouragement). One of the greatest gifts you can give a person is to teach them emunah (faith). This powerful tool enables us to go through everyday life with true happiness. If you have emunah, you know that everything that happens to you is coming directly from Hashem, and that Hashem loves you and always has your best interests in mind. The Chafetz Chaim once asked someone, “How are you doing today?” They replied, “Could be better.” So the Chafetz Chaim said, “No, if it could be better, it would be better. Everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be.” If you give someone emunah, you're giving them life. The pasuk (verse) in Tehillim says, “Who wants life and loves days?” and the Chafetz Chaim explains it to mean, “Someone who is lir'ot tov”—someone who always sees that everything in life is good. And someone with emunah knows everything is always good, even if he's having difficulties, whether it be in parnasah (livelihood) or raising children.
We have to train our children from a young age to live with emunah. Teach them how much Hashem loves them and how much Hashem controls everything, and tell them, “Even when you get hurt, it's just Hashem cleansing you and purifying you. He's wiping away your sins so you can enjoy olam haba (the World to Come) more.” Just like when a mother is changing the diaper of her baby. Sometimes the baby kicks and screams, “Why are you doing this to me?” But the mother loves her baby so much; she wants it to be pure and clean.
I once had a class with some young boys, between the ages of 8 and 12, for just a half hour a week. I told them all these ideas: Everything that happens to you is from Hashem, and it's for your best. He loves you, and instead of crying when things don't go your way, you should thank Hashem. The results were unbelievable. Every week, they would come back and tell me a different story. One boy said, “This week, I fell off my bike and scratched my arm. Instead of crying, I said, ‘Thank you, Hashem.’” Another boy said, “I didn't get picked in the basketball game at school. Instead of getting upset, I said, ‘Thank you, Hashem,’ and did something else.” Of course, I told them, “When you ride your bike for hours and you don't fall off your bike, that's because Hashem was protecting you. And when you do get picked in the basketball game, that's because Hashem let you get picked.” But they have to know that everything is Hashem.
I know somebody who, before he puts his little children to sleep at night, tells them, “Say thank you to Hashem for something today.” Many times they'll say, “Thank you, Hashem, that I got candy in school today,” or, “Thank you that I got ice cream from the ice cream man.” But sometimes they'll even say, “Thank you, Hashem, that I got a boo-boo today,” or, “Thank you, Hashem, that I lost my snack today.” They might not mean it, but they're being thankful. They're being trained to recognize that everything in life is coming from Hashem and it's always for my best, even though I don't understand why. This is a fundamental and necessary life skill. The more we talk about it and create a standard for our children, the more we're going to follow it ourselves, because we don't want to be hypocrites. The next time something happens in the house that doesn't go our way, we're going to say, “Thank you, Hashem.” And then we'll be people who truly want life and love days because we love Hashem. Because we only see good. Have a great day.