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I’m thinking out loud as I write today. Maybe it’s just me, but life seems to be a constant cycle of gaining and losing. For every blessing or step forward in our lives, there can be an opposite loss or step backward.
Hypothetically speaking, every career advancement is coupled with an unforeseen home repair bill. Or, every great day spent with friends can be met with a challenging illness in the family.
Sometimes we only focus on the bad things and the losses and accept them as a reflection of our lives — “it’s always something.”Some people only focus on the positive things and can accept all the negative as just part of life as nothing that diminishes a good thing. Seriously, how do you people do that?
This past year-plus has seen a lot of this play out. We’ve had the normal everyday life wins and losses coupled with all the effects of ye olde pandemic. Did 2020 seem like two years combined to you also?
If one had the time to sit down and make a list of things “good” and “bad” in one’s life — over whichever desired period of time you choose, year, month, week, decade, etc. — you might be pleasantly surprised that things even out pretty well, or you really have more good than bad.
It’s a lot easier to dwell on the bad things because they usually create immediate and noticeable negative effects. And, sometimes the bad things and losses are more permanent than our wins in life.
Would you be willing to give up the good things happening in your life if it meant forgoing all of the bad things? How courageous are you to wake up every day and say “Something good is going to happen to me today . . . and something bad is going to happen to me today . . . and I am thankful to God for all of it”?
I don’t know who needs to hear this and I don’t know if it will help, but you’re not alone. We’ve all lost a lot in our lives: Friends, loved ones, jobs, possessions, etc., but we’re always gaining new blessings, which may be lost someday too.
It’s just “life” . . . and God is just getting us ready for something better . . . later . . .