"Why don't you tell something funny? We've got SO many things to share that would make people laugh" my sister told me. And, she's right, we've had our adventures (as I'm sure most people have).
I had been unloading on her, talking about a cancer diagnosis of a family member that I had just found out about. I've already lost two friends to cancer in the past month. So, this news kind of threw me 'off' a bit, my father in law is still in and out of the hospital and it takes a lot of effort to not dwell on these things. So, she suggested I write down funny things to help 'lighten' the mood.
With that, my mind started going back, to the time I fell on top of my guitar in front of the entire class in highschool and then, when my teacher tried to help me up, I fell again, this time on top of three students. Or, I remembered the time when I reached for my husband's shoulder, gave him a hug and started playing with his hair, only to discover it was a complete stranger (in my defence, he was the same height and build as my husband, with long hair too). Another time my family left to go to a birthday party and as we pulled into the parking lot, I looked down and realized that I was still wearing bright blue silk slippers (complete with yellow and pink flowers on them) with no shoes to change into, yep, that was an embarrassing afternoon! Pondering these things often leads me to think about life in general.
I often get frustrated (for those of you who've read a few of these posts, this will not surprise you) with how life seems to unfold. I am a perfectionist and because of that, I can easily become frustrated. In fact, a few weeks ago during Worship Team practice, the Leader came to me and said "Most of your problem is confidence, you are learning this fine and you have over 85% of it correct. Look at ALL these songs, you only need to figure out this one small paragraph out of all of these". She told me because of how upset I was becoming at myself for not getting it perfect immediately. I can get so upset with how 'wrong' my days go, when there are lots of things going smoothly, but I can get caught up with the 'wrong' things that I see (or experience).
Life can be a lot like that, can't it? The world was created perfectly (God said "It is good in Genesis") and yet when sin entered, ALL of it changed. But, us being created in the image of God, we still crave that perfection, we want things to go smoothly and it hurts us when we see things go wrong. When loved ones get sick, we hurt for them. When we see turmoil around us? We can feel emotional pain, we may get annoyed, or angry, or even fearful. But, God is always with us (in the Bible, in John 14:26, we read that the Comforter, The Holy Spirit will be with us) and will help us.
In the midst of daily struggles, we can sometimes forget that God is there in the middle of the turmoil. But, He is. Sometimes, we just need to stop for a minute, breathe, laugh about how absurd something is and keep going forward.
I am also thankful that others can see the humour in things and laugh along with me when I mention how crazy it can be each and every day. For instance, just getting a family out the front door to Church seems like an event. In my mind, I think that I'm going to wake up early and my hubby and kids will sit together, do devotions while we eat French toast and we'll be at Church early to chat with people. But, the reality is, I'm usually exhausted because of how poorly I've slept, so I am moving slowly and all of us seem to end up rushing to get out the door. There are lost keys (you've already read the post about that...) to deal with, a child who doesn't like the outfit I've laid out, so he has to change, there are spilt cups of tea on the carpet that needs to be wiped up before we leave and on and on it goes. I used to let out an exasperated sigh and ask my husband if it was necessary for the ENTIRE neighbourhood to hear us leaving, because we were so loud just getting into the car (I don't know what it is about leaving the house, but every single time, it seems like you could make a reality tv show out of it, because it can be so chaotic).
So, where does that leave us? Well, we're left with knowing that it's NOT a unique thing, just to us. If most of you reading this are honest, you know that we've all had those 'days', where nothing seems to go right. Most of us can chuckle and remember a time when we've given a presentation at work with a button undone, or mixed up someone's name at a family get together, or spilt coffee on a suit jacket right when we got to a dinner party.
Despite the enemy's (devil) effort to make us feel like we're all alone in life, the truth is that we're NOT. When we come together and keep pressing on, we are succeeding. So, that's what we do. We pray, we read our Bible, we come together and live life TOGETHER and we can laugh with each other as we realize that all of us struggle and are doing our best to muddle through :).
So, with that, keep pressing on and try your best to laugh (well, after you finish crying at least)!
I had been unloading on her, talking about a cancer diagnosis of a family member that I had just found out about. I've already lost two friends to cancer in the past month. So, this news kind of threw me 'off' a bit, my father in law is still in and out of the hospital and it takes a lot of effort to not dwell on these things. So, she suggested I write down funny things to help 'lighten' the mood.
With that, my mind started going back, to the time I fell on top of my guitar in front of the entire class in highschool and then, when my teacher tried to help me up, I fell again, this time on top of three students. Or, I remembered the time when I reached for my husband's shoulder, gave him a hug and started playing with his hair, only to discover it was a complete stranger (in my defence, he was the same height and build as my husband, with long hair too). Another time my family left to go to a birthday party and as we pulled into the parking lot, I looked down and realized that I was still wearing bright blue silk slippers (complete with yellow and pink flowers on them) with no shoes to change into, yep, that was an embarrassing afternoon! Pondering these things often leads me to think about life in general.
I often get frustrated (for those of you who've read a few of these posts, this will not surprise you) with how life seems to unfold. I am a perfectionist and because of that, I can easily become frustrated. In fact, a few weeks ago during Worship Team practice, the Leader came to me and said "Most of your problem is confidence, you are learning this fine and you have over 85% of it correct. Look at ALL these songs, you only need to figure out this one small paragraph out of all of these". She told me because of how upset I was becoming at myself for not getting it perfect immediately. I can get so upset with how 'wrong' my days go, when there are lots of things going smoothly, but I can get caught up with the 'wrong' things that I see (or experience).
Life can be a lot like that, can't it? The world was created perfectly (God said "It is good in Genesis") and yet when sin entered, ALL of it changed. But, us being created in the image of God, we still crave that perfection, we want things to go smoothly and it hurts us when we see things go wrong. When loved ones get sick, we hurt for them. When we see turmoil around us? We can feel emotional pain, we may get annoyed, or angry, or even fearful. But, God is always with us (in the Bible, in John 14:26, we read that the Comforter, The Holy Spirit will be with us) and will help us.
In the midst of daily struggles, we can sometimes forget that God is there in the middle of the turmoil. But, He is. Sometimes, we just need to stop for a minute, breathe, laugh about how absurd something is and keep going forward.
I am also thankful that others can see the humour in things and laugh along with me when I mention how crazy it can be each and every day. For instance, just getting a family out the front door to Church seems like an event. In my mind, I think that I'm going to wake up early and my hubby and kids will sit together, do devotions while we eat French toast and we'll be at Church early to chat with people. But, the reality is, I'm usually exhausted because of how poorly I've slept, so I am moving slowly and all of us seem to end up rushing to get out the door. There are lost keys (you've already read the post about that...) to deal with, a child who doesn't like the outfit I've laid out, so he has to change, there are spilt cups of tea on the carpet that needs to be wiped up before we leave and on and on it goes. I used to let out an exasperated sigh and ask my husband if it was necessary for the ENTIRE neighbourhood to hear us leaving, because we were so loud just getting into the car (I don't know what it is about leaving the house, but every single time, it seems like you could make a reality tv show out of it, because it can be so chaotic).
So, where does that leave us? Well, we're left with knowing that it's NOT a unique thing, just to us. If most of you reading this are honest, you know that we've all had those 'days', where nothing seems to go right. Most of us can chuckle and remember a time when we've given a presentation at work with a button undone, or mixed up someone's name at a family get together, or spilt coffee on a suit jacket right when we got to a dinner party.
Despite the enemy's (devil) effort to make us feel like we're all alone in life, the truth is that we're NOT. When we come together and keep pressing on, we are succeeding. So, that's what we do. We pray, we read our Bible, we come together and live life TOGETHER and we can laugh with each other as we realize that all of us struggle and are doing our best to muddle through :).
So, with that, keep pressing on and try your best to laugh (well, after you finish crying at least)!
Comments
Post a Comment