Sometimes...

photo from blog.houseoffifty.com

This pretty much sums up The Husband's life philosophy. He believes it. He lives it. He is one of those guys for whom the cup is almost always full to spilling over.

I, on the other hand, believe that while life is good, it can also be incredibly hard. And sometimes it is just NOT okay. Sometimes it downright stinks. There are days when I don't want The Husband to tell me that it is all fine. There are days when the suffering and the pain that I see around me is just too much. When children die. When marriages that seemed impervious to the tedium of life suddenly implode and move toward something like World War III. When cancer strikes someone near and dear for a first and then a second or even a third time. When a long-standing prayer continues to go unanswered (or so it seems). When depression rears its head, once again, to hold captive a member of my family. Big hurts. Big pain. Deep suffering. I won't lie. Sometimes it rocks my world.

And if that is not enough, today I pass a child waiting on the sidewalk across the street from an elementary school at 5 pm for a mother who never came. I drive past and then turn my car around when I see the forlorn look on his face. I loan him my phone to call his mom. I can hear her voice chewing him out. He turns away so that I won't hear her ugly words or see the tears cascading down his eight-year-old face. He has waited two and a half hours. I look into his face and can already track the suffering of rejection and unkept promises. And I wonder to myself, "What does life hold for him?" I want to cry.

What do I do? I want to get mad. At God. And sometimes at The Husband. But neither one of them seems to mind.

God still says, "For many are the plans I have for you. Plans NOT to harm you, but to give you a future and a hope."

And The Husband still says, "It's gonna be okay."

Sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes this is precisely the strong rock on which I need to lean while I catch my breath.

Then I struggle to get down on my knees. There I will pray for my family, and my friends, and a young boy named Javon who stole my heart today.