sigh!

Just reading through my old posts has cheered me up a bit, just a tiny bit, not by miles but I don’t feel as downhearted as I did this morning. Perhaps I should have just written as I felt instead of reviewing my old posts, I am sure the outcome would have been very different. I wasn’t looking for inspiration from my old post, in fact, I didn’t realise how cheery they are until I read them today through gloomy eyes; I was simply trying to navigate the constantly changing blog site.

It doesn’t help that I am aching all over, as a result of an impending cold/man flu, or maybe it is as a result of sharing my bed with my two growing sons, who are the worst bedfellows in the world; I spend all night getting them off me, recovering the covers and generally not getting a lot of sleep. I am also nursing a sore throat. Since I have a very low pain threshold , I don’t do very well when I am ill, coupled with the really crappy last few days I have had and the cold grey and muddy weather, I feel pretty sh*t and that is putting it lightly.

I was going to spew negative, self pitying sentiments but I don’t feel as pathetic as I did earlier. This is partly as a result of watching a bit of tennis, the only sport I can get stuck into and it always brings out the cheerleader (or tennis thug maybe) in me. All the fist pumping and screaming, coupled with a very serious juvenile crush on one of the leading men, I was as right as rain before even embarking on anything remotely melancholic. But I will try none the less because I have had this idea stuck in my head for a while now.

I had seen a Hollywood movie the other day with the kids; I mention it is Hollywood because not a lot of religious material comes from that direction. To be fair, it was meant to be one of these inspirational things but was deeply rooted in the Christian beliefs and quoted a particular scripture from the bible. I suppose Hollywood would produce anything if it meant somebody somewhere stood to gain something out of it, and so far, or at least at the time the movie was made, it wasn’t (yet) politically incorrect.

The movie involved the main character saying a seemingly simple prayer one night after gentle ribbing from his wife; and who knew, God was listening. The very next day, the answer to his prayer started in full force. I say started as it was not answered straight away; it has to make sense to the requester I suppose and since an immediate response would go largely unnoticed, it has to work itself out. First lesson here is that nothing good comes easy.

A series of events followed that left the poor main character desperately confused. And when he eventually got to grips with everything that was happening, he was completely out of sync with his friends, family, employers and co workers. Confusion ensued as is to be expected with these things to mostly comedic effects.

The part that got to me was where the wife of the leading character had had enough of his bizarre behaviour and decided to take the kids to her mom while her bewildered hubby tried to sort himself out. On their way, they stopped at a diner for lunch and while there, she met with God, who her husband was now in regular contact with. It may have been far easier for God to tell her exactly what was going on, but perhaps she would not have believed him, instead, he asked her what was wrong and emphasised with her. He told her if she prayed to be closer as a family, how did she think God would answer her prayer, certainly not in the way she expected. Isn’t it more likely the family would go through something together that would bring them closer together? At this, she turned the car around and took the kids back home to start being the closer family unit that they had now become as a result of recent events

All the confusion was a means to an end, and the end for these characters was that all their prayers were answered (note: none of them prayed for material things) but not in the way any of them expected. Sometimes, what we expect is not always what we get; and what we get is not what we always expect. The adversity makes the victory more meaningful and far more appreciated. So are we to embrace hardship? Maybe, because as they say what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.