"life is good" .... right?

Here I sit (actually time to sit!), laptop on my knees, bathed in rays that stream in through the sunporch my Farmer put up to keep his warm-blooded wife's nose from freezing in inclement weather.

Sugar industriously works on a 1000-piece puzzle, Spice reads a fat little fantasy book, and Nice builds block churches for Lil' Snip to knock down.

Life is good.

And I am sucking down mug after mug of hot tea, cough drops and tissues at the ready, trying to recover from a doozy of a cold which came to knock out my immune system just as I was reeling from a relationship gone awry and packing for a long weekend in the mountains with family.  (not to mention the PMS that also coincided....)

And the easy chair now is buried under the sheets that I was finally able to wash yesterday using the one cycle that works on my washing machine, which broke down just as I was starting to do pre-vacation laundry ...

Life is hard.

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For years I've strained to work out whether life is good (I'm a Christian!  saved from sin!  and there are flowers!  and laughter!  and chocolate!!) or life is hard (I still sin!  get sick!  feel selfish! and people hurt me, and get hurt, and are sad).

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And here's what I've finally figured out:  YES.  It is both.  Life is good, and it is hard, and the one does not cancel out the other, and that is the beauty of it.

That while I sit here sniffling and coughing and longing for mutual understanding with my friend and looking at all the laundry, I can simultaneously revel in the warmth of sunshine on my legs, the sparkle of my diamond, the happy playing sounds of my children.

And even - especially - when the cold and the housework and the hurt is all I can see, I know that the light is still there.  That is my foundation:  God is GOOD.  No matter what it all looks like, God is light, and life, and love, and while I love Him and trust Him, He will work all things - all these good things, and all these hard things - together for my good.

So when you see me and I look discouraged, I know that it's temporary.  Knowing that doesn't always bring a twinkle to my eyes and a spring to my step ....

.... but sometimes it does.

And another thing:  "temporary" sometimes can seem to be lasting a long time.

But a long time is okay with me, because God's got eternity covered.  If He says "be still" - I'll be still.  If He says "wait on the Lord" then I'll wait.  He knows what He's doing, whether I see it or not.

Jesus said, "I am Life" (John 11:25, 14:6) and that "no one is good but God alone" (Mark 10:18).  So since Jesus is life, and God is good, and Jesus is God, then I am assured that -

 LIFE is GOOD!