Mixed Feelings - That's Ok

Contrasting thoughts, the ups and downs of life, you win some you lose some, disappointment and happiness, painful wounds and joyful celebration, feelings that most people have much of the time.  This week we have been very happily eating the strawberry crop from our garden which this year is abundant.  Some things I planted have progressed well while others have not.  The potatoes and tomatoes are doing great, some carrots are growing while others - nothing!.  The peas and peppers have been quite badly eaten by something - snails and ants probably, despite putting out preventative measures.  I was wondering why it is that snails and ants never seem to go for the weeds in the garden but always enjoy devouring things that I have planted and which we hoped to eat ourselves.  They say that thrushes and blackbirds eat snails so I thought maybe I should put up a notice in bird language, 'Free snail feast here! Chirp, chirp'.  I know, I know, all are God's creatures and all that but quite honestly I don't feel the same towards the snails that eat my plants as I do towards the bees that pollinate them.  Selfish of me I know.  Mixed feelings - disappointment and happiness. 

This afternoon I am going to a wedding.  It's more than seven years now since my friend separated and finally divorced from her husband.  My mind went back to those days of trauma and upset.  He moved out and she kept the house so she said that in all fairness he could take what he wanted.  I had said that for that first weekend when he left, I would stay over with her so she wouldn't be alone.  That first night we slept on the floor - he had taken the bed!  Earlier that evening we had gone to the local chippy for comfort food and we sat there for some time in the restaurant part of the shop. We went there as it was just something we didn't have to make ourselves or clear up afterwards.  She talked and I listened.  We did that quite a lot, her talking and me listening.  But today she is getting married again - a very nice man, loving and caring.  Actually they had a quiet wedding at the registry office earlier in the year and wanted to invite their friends to their home for a blessing and a time of sharing together now the better weather is here.  Mixed feelings - painful wounds and joyful celebration.



You may say, that's life, and so it is.  What really bugs me though is when so-called well-meaning individuals come out with things like, 'All things work together for good to those who love God', 'Time is a great healer', It'll seem altogether different in the morning'.  These words are probably all true but ... ... the thing is that when you are actually going through some disappointment or trauma the last thing you want is for someone to come out with something like that.  Actually what you really feel like doing is shouting at them 'Just shut up!  Life sucks and I feel like crap!'  Oh my goodness, you can't say that!  But if we're really honest that's what we would like to say.  If you sometimes feel like that, don't worry.  You're in good company.  The good news is that we can get angry with God and He takes it.  If you're not sure about that then read the Psalms.  They are full of people who blurt out their anger at God.  The writer of Ecclesiastes says 'So I hated life ... ... All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.'  Hey, even Jesus at his crucifixion felt abandoned by God and shouted out questioning why God had left him to die alone.

Life is a bundle of mixed feelings and that's ok.  It's the same for everyone and if anyone tries to say differently I for one would take what they say with a pinch of salt.  They may smile (rather condescendingly) and quietly say , 'Don't worry'  or offer some other unhelpful advice but that doesn't really help.  If anyone is hurting you don't have to find an answer to their problems. Just walk with them for a while so they're not on their own.  God can take it and He will sort it in His own way and time.  Here's to life - with all its ups and downs.