That’s the thought that floated through my mind this morning.  Right after that was the thought “Oh no, you’ve been in hell and this is not even close to hell”.  Days when I had to experience my little girl dying in my arms, to hear that my dad had died in a car accident, that mom had cancer…no, my days today are nowhere in that hell.

Now that’s a true statement, and I’m going to guess that is probably true for many of you.  There were times in my past I thought I might die, that I would never recover, or “I’m just going to crawl back into my bed and cover my head and never get up”.  The good news…and there is good news…is that God has taught me I can trust Him.  That no matter  how hard this day is, we’ve made it through so many before this that were so much harder, and we’ll make it through this one too.  This is nothing compared to what happened before!  Why as a matter of fact I think I could have joy today thinking about that.  Because I can trust God.  I can now look back and remember that He walked me through every trial, through every difficulty and used everything for good.  Trust God you say?  Why should I trust God?  I thought if I trusted God and did what he asked me things were going to go better in my life.  Is this better?  Hmm, I think I’ll be like the Israelites and talk about how at least we had meat in our pots back in Egypt…Even though we were in slavery…and we hated our lives…and we cried out for God to save us…at least we had meat in our pots.

Now I’m not saying I want to go back to Egypt, and slavery, but some days my mind has a way of creating a fantasy that my life was better then, when life gets tough.  So, what to do when your mind is telling you lies?  My son Dustin says to call that cognitive distortion (your mind distorting the truth).  I say we take a vacation!  Let’s go to the ocean, talk to God, get some fresh sea air and clear our brains so we can remember the truth.  The truth is if I hadn’t been in Egypt and been in slavery and then been set free, I’d never know what freedom tastes like.  I wouldn’t have the relationship I have with God.  The relationship I have when I trust Him, even though I can’t see what in the world He is up to. I didn’t have that before.  I only had my past experience of trusting myself and my experiences.  But now I choose to trust God.  Even though I can’t see what His plan is.  Even though it doesn’t look like this is going to be good, I can think back on all the times He’s saved me, and I know I’m going to be ok.  I don’t want to go bak to my old life.  Wasn’t that me that said I”d follow Jesus anywhere?  No matter what?  And here I am complaining that it didn’t look like I thought.  Well, think I’ll just turn on that worship music and soak for a bit.  Then I might even start dancing…ya, I like that thought.