Trading spaces

Would you trade your brutal divorce for the early death of a parent?   How about mental illness for infertility?  Life, and particularly middle age, is filled with tragedy. Those perfect babies that you held in your arms are now yelling “I hate you” and hiding their texts from you.  The parents who loved and provided for you are losing their hearts and their minds in the process that is “aging.” It’s a struggle.

When I was first struggling through motherhood – and I was a nervous wreck about everything, a lovely friend at church told me, “God gives you the child who is just right for you.” And in being a parent for 15 years, I’m learning that my successes and mistakes and my children’s successes and mistakes are inevitable, but they teach us how to trust Him.

You know that line, “God only gives you what you can handle”, I think it’s a crock, because if it were true there would be no suicide. I do believe that everyone experiences pain and pleasure that is distinct to their own experience. And when we are in pleasure or in pain, I think God wants us to share it with him – the exhilarating moments and the turbulent ones.  He wants all of the sides of us. 

When I’m looking on Instagram and wishing for someone else’s adventurous, globe-trotting life, what if I was also wishing for their loneliness, difficulty holding a job, or money problems?  Most people know that life is never as good as it looks on social media.  But life is never as bad as it seems in the moment, either.  I’ve had many moments of despair that has turned into laughter, because my loved ones are hilarious, and I enjoy that.  I have a greater hope than what is happening to me at this moment. We all get unequal measures of good and bad, and just as I’m sure they cannot be traded, I’m also sure they cannot be compared.  “ God is here. We are loved. It is enough”  - Kate Bowler