My friend - you know who you are. You tell me you wish you had my life. You think I have it altogether and you have lost your grip on yours. I wish I had told you what was on my mind when you said that. But I felt then that you were hurting too much to hear it. So I am telling you here because I think you will read this.
My life is not perfect. I am not always happy. Many days I wish I had a different life. But I have come to accept this life I have been given and that I think makes the difference.
I stop myself when my mind wants to play the 'If only...' game or the 'I'll be happy when....' game. At any one moment in time, I have come to realise, I have the capacity and ability to choose - choose my reaction, my feeling, my perspective. You do too. If you keep asking "Why me?", you will continue to think you are a victim of other people's actions and circumstances. And it will not get you out of the place you are in. Life can be unfair.
There is no divine decree that says life for any one person on this world will be a fairy tale. Each one of us hopes ours will be the enchanted life, but that is a false hope that will only make the crash harder when it comes. Yes, you have been dealt a poor hand now. But please don't think I have not had hard places in my life. If you think I am at peace all the time, I assure you it is not so. But the hard places have built me up and made me stronger and when bad things happen I think back to other bad times and know I survived those and I feel peace knowing that these times too shall pass. That's why you think I am always at peace.
I will be doing you a disfavour my friend if I let you go away thinking I am just a strong woman. I am not. I belong to a strong God. I hope the next time we meet you will let me share my experience with my God with you. Then you will understand what I meant when I told you "The joy of the Lord is my strength".
If Christians were somehow miraculously protected from the evils and sorrows of the world, I am sure the whole world would have accepted Christ by now! No, we are not protected - we have, in fact, more than our share of heartache, straying spouses, divorce, deaths, rebellious children, lost jobs, financial ruin.... But we DO have a strong unchanging Rock that holds us together in the middle of our crisis.
So when you think I seem to have wisdom to make decisions, it is not me - I have a God who gives me peace in my heart when I am acting in line with His will and troubles me no end when I am doing things to please myself. That's how He guides me. When you say I am kind because I talk to people who have hurt me without anger or bitterness, it is because that is the example He set for me when He forgave those who tortured and killed Him. When you say I am always happy, my dear, you are wrong. I am not. But I do have joy, which is a very different thing, because it is not a feeling that is here with me now and then gone but an assurance that nothing will happen that is not in God's plan for my life. And if He allows it, He will take me through it.
I am saying these things here and not in an email because I thought you might be offended if I said these things to you straight. I am in a difficult place. I value you as a friend and want to just listen to you and share your sorrow, but I also know in my heart that there are things you are not ready to hear that I must say to you, precisely because you are my friend. So here it is on my blog. We can talk about it. Or we need not. You are still my friend.
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