Bitter or Better? Your choice

Sunday service was very inspiring for me.  Obviously, I'm on my second post that struck me from the sermon.  Pastor spoke about a man he met that every time he asked how he was doing would reply with "It's so hard. Life is so hard."  I swear I use that phrase a lot.  Life is hard! But, we all have a choice.  We can revel in the misery, or we can be thankful for the problems we have. After all, someone out there is praying for your battle.  It can always be worse.  That sounds negative, but really it's not.

One thing he said really hit home.  "I got news for you.  You folks that are having the best time of your life, it's gonna change. Didn't say it was good news! But you folks that are struggling right now, guess what? Change is coming." That was monumentous in my world. I feel like I've been circling the drain for a good minute. So hey, there's no where to go but up right? I've said 1000 times, and I'll say it another few thousand. "If I can survive the last 4 years of my life, I can make it through anything."  I have suffered the loss of friends, family, homes, jobs, cars, custody, relationships, material possessions, and the list goes on and on. I'm not sad about it. Every loss lead me to a gain.  My marriage failed, but I discovered that there is life after love.  I wasn't living up to my potential anyways, and I wasn't as happy as I thought.  I couldn't afford that car.  I worked from the bottom to the top at that job, but the view wasn't what I had imagined.  That ride or die friend was toxic to me, and I was toxic to her.  Those relationships taught me to always trust in love one more time, no matter how bad it hurt.  Love is the only thing on earth that heals the pain.  No one is better off alone, but like I've said before, everybody leaves.  By way of death or indifference, everybody's time in our lives has an expiration date, and I am ok with that.

To be happy in the midst of the struggle is not always easy.  When you're stressed to keep a job, or find a job, it's hard not to wonder where next month's rent is coming from.  It took a leap of faith for me to stop worrying. The good Lord has never let me down, and I don't want to doubt that now.

We're going to suffer in this life.  It is my personal belief that how we handle the suffering determines the reward on the other side.  If we get all bogged down and frustrated and negative about everything,  the light at the end of the tunnel is just a way out.  We don't appreciate it.

We need to stop worrying so much. Take it one day at a time and stop looking for problems that don't exist yet.  You may get hit by a train on your way to work tomorrow, but that doesn't mean you rewrite your will every night or take a different path that doesn't take you across the tracks.  Live today.  Kiss your babies. Love your mommas. Just stop stressing.

And that's my soap box speech today.  God bless.