The perfect life

It won't be long before we get the first snow storm of the year. There is beauty the morning after a snow storm before anyone has touched it. It is perfect like a blanket covering the world. It doesn't take long before the perfection is taken away by footprints, cars, plows, and shoveling that perfect picture of the snow is gone so quickly.
We view life much like the perfect snow sometimes. At some point in time in our life we had a view of perfection in our life. We had an idea of what it was going to look like. It was going to be untouched beautiful, and perfect.
Then something happened, we married the wrong person, we were abused, our job wasn't all it was cracked up to be, we started a cycle of addiction, we became fat, our children became a lot more work than what we imagined, we didn't have enough money to pay the bills. I am sure there are a ton of other reasons why we are disappointed with our lives.
But we became disappointed. We may have had faith and we believed that God would give us the perfect snow life. We thought there would be time in the morning where we were relaxed and not worry about anything and enjoy coffee and time alone with God. Then we didn't and we felt guilty and so we added a different type of relationship with God than what we wanted. On top of all of this we think that we are the only ones.
We see others around us living much better lives than what we have. We see people in pictures smiling and having great times on facebook, and all we long for is that perfect life.

I may be entering middle age years, it seems like over the past few months a year I realize I am getting old. I have begun to realize that life isn't going as planned. It isn't a bad thought, but it is a realization that life isn't going to be perfect in the sense that I once thought.

Through the summer of fire, I think Jill and I have learned a lot. This was a summer I wouldn't wish on anyone yet it probably has been some of the best growing times we have had. Through broken bones, kyle sleeping less than he use to, and other family problems, it has not been fun or ideal by any stretch of the imagination. It has not been the perfect snow day. It has been the snow by the side of the road after the plow goes by, full of mud, gravel, and is pretty nasty. But yet it has been through this environment that we have begun to appreciate what is important.

I think there is so many misconceptions about faith and the role faith plays in ones life. I don't believe that God's role in my life is to make me happy or even to give me an easy go of it. I love comfort and desire comfort, but I also know that my life doesn't change through comfort. Comfort makes me lazy, comfort stops my desire and even the perceived need to grow. Life is perfect.

When life isn't comfortable than things begin to change, if by pure necessity. If the problems and the pain givers of life do not go away the choices are pretty simple fall prey to the pain or become a different person. Neither one is an easy choice, but unplanned pain brings us to a crossroad.

As I think about snow in the morning untouched and perfect, I also realize that snow is a whole lot of fun to play in. Whether it be sledding, building snow men, having snow ball fights etc. Much is life once we realize that it isn't going to be "perfect" and that is ok. Once we realize that we have unconditional love from God, we don't need to fear Him striking us down. Once we realize that all those smiles on facebook may be moments removed from an awful dragged out fight, once we realize that everybody we run into is struggling with something else also.

It is unfortunate that we feel the need to project perfection (as in the perfect snow fall) when the perfect life may still be what we have. The perfect life may not be the untouched snowfall but it may be the snowball fight, or sledding together.

The perfect life may not be the absence of problems as much as realizing that there will be some sort of problem or pain and enjoying the special gifts God gives us like the perfect snow fall.