The Center

Dear Blog,

Lately, I have developed a theory, and it probably requires some more testing to be proven true or not, but it seems to have worked for the past few years of my life.

The fact is, bad things can happen in your life - big bad things can happen.  Stuff that makes you want to cry, stuff that makes you wonder how on earth you can move forward because you sure can't see the road from where you're standing.  But those big bad things aren't really all that big.

Not to say that they're not often important things.  Majorly important.  But not the most important.  For instance, recently, there's been so much stuff whirling around in my head it's amazing I can put two coherent words together.  But - and I don't know when this happened - I realized that those things whirling around in my head, if I focused on them obsessively, if I let the big bad things take over my life like big bad things, they would become even bigger, badder things than they really were.  Because, I've always known - intellectually - that the most important things were the time I spent reading my Bible to make sure I know exactly who God is and how He operates, so that when I pray (important thing number two) I know how to approach Him, and so that my focus is not on the big bad things, but on walking with him through them.

That's how I could have a good week this week.  I feel like I should be more depressed, like these things demand more of my self-righteous anger.  But I can't do that.  If I do that, I'll be sucked under by those things, and then it's good for nobody.  I've actually had to remind myself recently that to be joyful in the face of such big-bad-crazy stuff isn't callous; it's confidence in Christ.

Not to say that I always manage to focus on God instead of on my own worries (which, in light of the real, big world full of such injustices I cannot begin to comprehend, are paltry).  Too often I say, "Oh, I'll read my Bible later" and then put it off and put it off until it's now - 12:15 in the morning, and all I've done today was read a couple of chapters while killing time waiting to talk to my adviser, and say a quick prayer in the car that today might not suck.

I have to speak to a group of high schoolers on Monday about my story, and I think this might be my focus; the fact is, there is nothing in my life more important than God.  And that thought is strangely reassuring - because no matter what happens, whether I'm living in a gutter or a mansion, healthy or close to dead, He is always the center.

- Judith