What to make of life.....

Yesterday was just one of those days that I wish I had stayed in bed, the world could have done better without my sour & sulking face. I had a bad toothache, had pain under my feet, couldn’t walk properly because whenever I put my foot down, it felt like I was stepping on broken glass. A pain I don’t wish on anyone. To top it off, I had to do a “road trip” with my colleagues; no I couldn’t skip it, because it was not really your conventional “nice time” road trip, it was WORK!! 

While driving through the outskirts of East London to Berlin, the beauty of nature just began to bring a stillness within me, managing to make me forget about my pain. At least the pain on my tooth, which was gently making way to my ear. As I beheld the simplicity yet grandeur of my surroundings, I was reminded of a life lesson I had discovered on a trip one day from Port Elizabeth to Jeffreys Bay. As I was driving that day many years ago, I gazed through the car window at the hills & mountains around me. I noticed that they were all different, some were clearer than others, smoother as it may. As I looked at this, a thought dropped in my head about how that was just the nature & reality of  life. Some people’s lives were smoother than others, others were rougher than rough, to say the least. I started questioning a lot of things about the fairness of God & the lopsidedness of life. I became despondent, wanted to share this “revelation” with anyone I could find to listen. Just as that crossed my mind, my focus was shifted to an even deeper reality & revelation about life, that life does not happen by mistake. Aha moment.

From that day I started seeing things differently, started realising that things are seldom as they appear. As I looked at the mountain, God taught me a lesson, that the smooth mountains were harder to climb because there was no place to hold on to. They were slippery, & one slip could lend you right at the bottom. On the other hand, with the seemingly rough & not so smooth, as much as it looked like it would take longer to get to the top, the roughness would help one to push themselves up. The bulging rock & the hole on the wall could be used as stepping stones, as a place to hold on to so as to get to the top. The contours I was so easily wanting to discard were necessary for climbing up that mountain. Never would have imagined.

I learnt during that trip a lesson I will forever hold dear, & that is a lot of things depend on how you look at them, then they are either “half empty or half fool” as philosophers would say. I then determined in my heart and mind that I will make the best of life’s experiences. That I would  use them to get me further up. 

Having, just a few minutes earlier, looked at life & God as unfair, I was so humbled to realise that things are seldom obvious and  that there is always a great opportunity to grow and become greater than what I would be if life was just smooth sailing. Does this mean we have to suffer? Not at all. But if in any case you are faced with difficulty & suffering, then don’t despair, there most likely is an underlying. There is indeed a blessing in the storm, I’m sure if you thought about your own life for a few minutes, you would discover that as well.