Easy to turn the corner

 So, you wouldn't know joy without the pain and you wouldn't know the summit if at first you hadn't climbed the mountain. So, I wouldn't know the contentment I'm now feeling if it wasn't for the hole that filled my heart a few weeks ago.

  I talked about being mad at God. About how alone I felt, like He had abandoned me to myself and my uselessness. I even wrote a poem about it (I Am Alone) and here's the thing...I had to go through that valley...truth is I'm not sure I'm completely out of it, but I can see the road starting to ascend. It's going some place I can't see but I have to have faith that it's the place God wants me to be (oh and I'm rhyming).
  These periods in the valley happen...they happen to everyone who's walking along side God trying to live their lives the way He wants them to. I mean look there's a whole book in the Bible full of people going through the valley. It's called Lamentations! I don't think it surprises God that's these times happen, what may or may not surprise him is the way we react to our time in the valley. Do we remain faithful or do we run away from the one person helping us through? David (my biblical hero and the Man after God's own heart) had his fair share of peaks and valleys which he laid out side by side in the book of Psalms. We aren't bad Christians because we have rough days...were human.
   Jesus came down here to save us (from ourselves) and I also believe came so that He and God could truly understand what it's like to be human, to be created by perfection but to not be perfect. To have all these obstacles placed in front of us and know how hard it is to overcome or surrender to them. He knows how we feel, he understands that pain...that out of control, deep down sorrow that grips us one day and cannot be explained fully. He gets it and we know that even when we can't feel him he's there...yes maybe He's pulled away a bit, but He's there.
   I have a serious deep valley about once a year...that time when it even hurts to be thankful for the life I have, because it seems that everything in that life is wrong. But I come out of it...every time. I come back to a place where I know that God is near, loving and happy for me. Those times I can almost see Him. Those are the times I relish because those are the times when I'm not only content, but happy. Am I in that place right now? No, but I'm getting there...I'm content and that's the first step. I'm faithful and that's the biggest step I can take.
   I went from feeling isolated, alone and miserable to feeling pretty good about life....it's not perfect, but it's good and I'm thankful for it!