Dry your tears.

What are you waiting for?
I think everyone sometimes buys into the hope of an easy fix. We think that if this would happen or that would change, everything would get better. It sounds so good. On some occasions our "easy fix" is just wishful thinking, and wouldn't honestly do us any good. Though often it actually is the key to making life more manageable. It's such a wonderful feeling when someone says the phrase "That's not crazy, that's common sense."
Unfortunately, we can't usually make those changes happen. Lately I've learned a lot about the human survival instinct. If something is too stressful and there's something we can do to make it better, we usually take action. The problem comes in when our stress is outside ourselves. Fortunately we have a God who not only handles our lives, but also the lives of everyone around us. Does it sometimes seem like he's ignoring us? Certainly. Just last week in a moment of despair I mused, "What's the deal? Was there just not enough love left for me this week?" The key word there is despair. I felt hopeless. One of my favorite movies, Anne of Green Gables, has a wonderful piece of wisdom regarding that state of being. When Anne tells Marilla that she is "in the pits of despair", Marilla responds, "To despair is to turn your back on God." It's pretty hard for God to show us love when our back is turned (although he often finds a way to do it anyway). 
The book of Lamentations (the name says it all) has some wonderful words of comfort: 
"I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall. 
I well remember them, 
and my soul is downcast within me. 
Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, 
for his compassions never fail. 
They are new every morning; 
great is your faithfulness. 
I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; 
therefore I will wait for him." 
Lamentations 3:19-24 


Even when everything seems hopeless, God never fails us. It's not always easy to see (or follow through with), but God always loves us and is always finding ways to care for us.


I wanted to share one more thing, just because this song struck me as fitting today.