Life is a juicy novel...

I have had numerous people tell me this week that they have been in a funk, as of late. It's the feeling of being "a bit off", a bit "less excited about life" or, feeling like "they have to work harder to be happy". I think life is like a really good novel. In the beginning it's all grassy fields and tulips, then the page turns and you are meeting your first love and feeling positive that your life is perfection because they are in it.... In the middle of the novel there is terrible heart break, loss, confusion and uncertainty. Later, life becomes complete again with true love (marriage), or family reconciliations, or maybe children come along and touch your heart forever (or never come along and this breaks your heart). But, the page must turn.... sickness, death, sin, pride, selfishness, divorce, lies, broken-promises, the list could go on and on. The funny thing is, life seems to have equally as many blissfully happy chapters as it does terribly heartbreaking ones.

It's good to know the author of my novel (which has been super juicy up to this point.... as some of you who have been in it have experienced) has got the ending figured out right!? I mean, I'm not sure how I would feel if my novel had an author who second-guessed the chapters of my life. I would feel so insecure about my past and maybe even regret it... which I don't. Friends, what is your novel about? Do you focus sometimes on all of the "tough chapters" and forget about the grassy fields and tulips? Even when God gives you heartbreak or huge mountains to climb, consider them a gift because I guarantee the next chapter will be really good because of it! So, juicy is good. That's the moral here....

Nothing like a hymn from the 1600's to put this into perspective for me....

Whate'er My God Ordains is Right
Samuel Rodigast
(1649-1708)

Whate'er my God ordains is right:
His holy will abideth;
I will be still whate'er He doth,
And follow where He guideth.
He is my God, though dark my road,
He holds me that I shall not fall;
Wherefore to Him I leave it all.

Whate'er my God ordains is right:
He never will deceive me;
He leads me by the proper path;
I know He will not leave me.
I take, content, what He hath sent;
His hand can turn my griefs away,
And patiently I wait His day.

Whate'er my God ordains is right:
Though now this cup, in drinking,
May bitter seem to my faint heart,
I take it all unshrinking.
My God is true; each morn anew
Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart,
And pain and sorrow shall depart.

Whate'er my God ordains is right:
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken.
My Father's care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall;
And so to Him I leave it all.