Let’s discuss a fall in a puddle, bad kind of day. A day where your car is running out of gas with no gas station in sight, the file you spent time on becomes corrupted, it takes you forty minutes on the highway to drive four miles, your daughter’s school calls saying she had a tantrum during nap time, one of your good friends is moving by the end of the week, you go to pick up bread for a dinner party but they don’t take credit cards so you have to walk two blocks in heels on ice, you park at a meter to then see a free spot, you get make-up on your white shirt, and you research a book to dedicate to your friend to see the sign in the store window say the store just closed. The type of day where bad luck follows you around. A whole day of unexpected misgivings. During these times, do you ever say why me God? Why are you punishing me? Why do these things always seem to happen to me?

I’ve been there and have done that, but my question to you is does it help? Does it change any of the events? Except for letting off steam and having the chance to rant, does it actually make you feel better? Of course, it is human to get frustrated, wish you could push the start over button, or wish you could have stayed in bed, but if you stay in this place then all you have left to show for your life is a yo-yo relationship with God. When times are good, you feel blessed and thankful but when times are bad you walk away.

I call it the genie in the bottle syndrome. All God is good for in your life is to grant your wishes. In this scenario, he is not good at being more than a call a friend, when what you really need is a life line. A call a friend is only good for certain types of questions, but a life-line is there no matter what situation you are in. A life-line is what keeps you connected and grounded. A life-line is a root which grows out of the ground and twists around you like a vine. It is the rib taken from Adam to create Eve. A rib which connects Adam and Eve for life. A connection I believe God wants with all of us. God like a parent helps form you and wants you to be who you are, but also never wants you to leave your roots. Like a spouse, God wants you to stay on the journey when times get hard, when you don’t agree, when you are on a roller-coaster ride. Unfortunately, many marriages end in divorce because like our relationship with God we are not good at taking the good with the bad. What we are good at is wanting life to revolve around us; which in my experience is a disaster of a recipe.

When a day becomes a fall in the puddle type day, you have two choices – you can allow your mind to get poured on, or you can breathe, laugh a little at the craziness of it all, and like Annie say there is another tomorrow. You either stay in the muck or learn to swim in it. As mentioned in earlier posts, God never promised us rainbows, but what he has promised us is he never leaves us even when we leave him. He may not always like our decisions, but he is the lawyer never the judge. He is the one who will always reel us in if we want the help.

The question is – if God loves us as much as a parent – why would he allow life’s evils such as losing our job or allowing our children to be sick? Let’s be honest, we’d take on sickness before allowing our children to be sick. However, there is one thing I know for sure about myself; which is never pick me to be God. Like Bruce Almighty, this earth would be a mess because sometimes life experience is as important as the act of saying yes. Also, going through deep heartache, the biggest lesson for me was to not ask the question why or to pretend you understand the big picture. You know your heart and your story, but only God knows all of the intricacies. He knows where the light bulb hits the socket. In all of our lives, we have a story which includes characters, plots, and eventually an ending. This is life. Life is not simple as much as we may pray for it to be simple. The question is how do we decide to live it? Do we decide to blame God or do we allow the ride to happen? Do we trust in the ride or do we never get up in the saddle due to anger, fear, or jealousy? Do we hand over the reins when it gets tough? Do we want a mediocre, luke-warm relationship? Sure, bad days are crummy, but what is worse is to stay in them alone. It really is our choice. The choice to play the yo-yo game or to stand still in our roots and know life is a bigger game than just us.