CONTENTMENT COTTAGE

WELCOME! In the midst of each life's chaos exists a place of calm and sunshine. I call mine Contentment Cottage. It is the place where I write my stories and find the peace of God. I've posted my "Ice Pick" reviews and will continue to add some of what I call my "Ice Crystals": poems, articles, essays, fillers, and recipes.

Monday, December 31, 2007

An Ice Crystal
"And it came to pass" is one of my favorite verses. For everything does come at last to pass--the evil and the good. It gives us hope that bad things won't last forever and warns us that most good things are fragile and won't last forever either. So be kind to the gentle and gentle to the kind while you have them with you and do not fear the evil. Rest in the power and love of God.

None of us can know what the next year brings or even the next hour. Rushing into the future doesn't make the future better or worse, but only robs us of the beauty and promise of today. If we fail to live in the present, in each moment of the Now, we will end by not having lived at all. If your only goal today is to be able to cross it off the calendar tomorrow, what have you gained? What have you lost? You have gained nothing and lost the chance to truly live the moments and hours God has given to you.

If you suffer chronic pain or your spirit is in prison, then you may seek freedom. But freedom has always a price. All of us must suffer, whether we like it or not, for that is the way God made the world. He could have made a world without free will, but for whatever reason, He did not. And free will must include the ability to choose the better or the worse. How would we avoid danger in a painfree world? Remember that death, to God, is not an evil to be avoided, but a coming home, to Him.

Jesus may have sought to be free at last from the Cross, but if He had controlled His own destiny at that moment, He would have denied all who could not command the power of the Universe, and so He cried out, "My God, my God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?" and received only the same silence the Father imposes on all of us. If we weep, we must remember and know that He also wept. The only way to defeat evil is to endure it, to stare it down, and know that in the end the victory will always be ours if we celebrate it with God.

We can cancel our New Year's celebrations. We can stay home, go to bed early, skip the fancy meals and ignore everything except to put up new calendars. A new calendar year is meaningless in the vastness of Life. New life comes in springtime to the world of nature, not in the darkness of winter. Only as we decide to imbue the new year with new goals and resolutions, new hopes and dreams, can we make anything meaningful from a simple sunrise following a common night. One day is like any other except we endow it with significance and make it so.

Take down your Christmas lights and store away your decorations. Look forward, not back. Not just now, but every single day. Find something of beauty in each day. Smile. Reach into your heart and be kind, be gentle. Reach up and touch the hand of God.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Tracy said...

How very beautiful and poignant.

9:31 AM  

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